PR, also known as Public Relations, is an extremely powerful tool that allows brands to achieve awareness/exposure. PR gives a voice to those with unique selling points and things to shout about - and where better to do that than on one of the most popular social media platforms? *drum roll* Twitter.
With around 350 million active users, Twitter is known for its simplicity and ease of use. In fact, since being founded, the platform has focused and emphasised on one thing - giving people a platform to converse (love us some consistency!). Twitter is an ideal digital tool for PR due to its conversational, relaxed platform.
What’s more is that from our conversations with journalists and webinars that we’re sat watching fortnightly, journalists do actually prefer Tweets and Twitter DM’s than being emailed pitches and press releases. This is simply due to how straightforward it has become to check messages, head over to Twitter accounts and check out what brands are connecting with.
As with any digital campaign, PR takes time, and so does PR on Twitter. There are a multitude of conversations happening on Twitter at any given time of the day. Thus, by monitoring your newsfeed, checking hashtags often and topics being used by others will help you gradually secure coverage.
What Not To Follow
Be sure to curate a feed that speaks to you and your brand values. It’s important to do this so you become more attractive to journalists and experts to want to connect with you. Top tip from myself, a PR Specialist: don’t follow irrelevant accounts or those with accounts that scream like for like!, follow for follow! and so on. Keep away from connecting with people that don’t serve the purpose that you’re looking for.
Manage Your Branding
To expand on the above point, as Twitter is an extremely fast platform that is used by a ton of journalists and news outlets, it is the perfect place to keep up to date with changes and latest news. One point to note though - you must put in the time to scroll and scroll your feed to ensure you’re not missing out on anything vital. In need of creative ideas? Twitter is your go-to as it can become a great source of inspiration when in need of new ideas. All of this - simply at your fingertips.
It’s great having a newsfeed full of journalists and relevant experts and brands, but you should also seek to be regarded as an expert, too! To do this, you must (emphasis, must) manage your brand on Twitter. An example of this is staying active by checking DM’s, conversing with others, sharing latest updates, ensuring your contact page is up to date and remembering brand values and considering these before you tweet. Remember to look through your twitter often and detox if necessary (I like to act like our Twitter is a home that I can head over to declutter and look after to nourish greater relationships). Make sure to rejuvenate and spruce up your account and your newsfeed from time to time.
Use Twitter Lists
And finally, lists on Twitter are beneficial as they allow you to categorise feeds that you follow. This can be anyone from writers, press, blogs, PR’s and so on. For example, lists can help you to segment relevant accounts, i.e. adding experts into one list, adding journalists into another and brands into another. You can also add engaging followers to favourite lists as well as finding new opportunities to gain more coverage.
So there you have it. By switching up your PR strategy and focusing on Twitter as a PR tool will not only widen your reach to secure more coverage, but allows your brand to connect with a larger audience. By managing your personal brand and curating it to speak to your values, you can become an expert in your own field, and one day you may have journalists sliding into your DMs without you having to try!
