Okay, just when I said I'd start blogging again next week, I came across a post that is worth sharing (posted Nov 25). A few PR folks and a bunch of journalists have teamed up to create @MicroPR. This is a Twitter group that allows writers, bloggers and analysts to reach the PR community to ask for help on stories in process. It's much like a grassroots Profnet system (and free).
As long as PR folks don't abuse the requests with off-the-mark responses, this will grow like wildfire. I'm going to jump on it and see where the ride takes me.
But this also underscores a great use of Twitter. Right now, there's a lot of confusion in the communications world on how to to use or not use Twitter. This network has recently been pushed into the limelight with Motrin-gate, where a flash mob of upset moms Tweeted Motrin into pulling an ill-conceived video targeting mothers of newborns.
The strength of Twitter is a realtime, mass-messaging system. It's not a replacement for the thoughtfulness of a blog (one hopes!!) or the personal networking of Facebook, which is a vastly richer interaction. Twitter excels in pushing out frequent bursts of information packets to many people en masse. It's perfect for updates from events, dealing with technical or customer service issues, and its power in crisis management is scary.
So for all the marketing and PR pros out there trying to figure out how to use Twitter as a tool, start with @MicroPR and get a feel of the medium. And in the meantime, you just may land a great hit.
Thanks for the tip about @MicroPR. @skydiver is another good one with a well-established following (42,000 email subscribers and 14,535 twitter followers).
Posted by: Anne | November 26, 2008 at 09:53 AM