Make the Noise

 

Archive for June 5th, 2008

Jun 05

Twitter Cannot Cure Cancer

Topic: New Media Relations, Social Media, Twitter|

I love Twitter. It’s a brilliant tool to communicate in a simple and precise way with a gathering of individuals from all walks of life. However, it is merely a tool in an armory of other social media and traditional PR weapons, it does not solve all problems nor can it single-handedly reach mass scale outreach. Twitter will never replace the phone, nor will it replace the need to have professionals working to get the word out to properly promote your product. Twitter is a tool for public relations:

A Tool to Monitor – Follow the people who write about your industry. Usually you will get a clear insight on what they are going to cover by their chain of twitters. This will provide insight on what you should communicate to the individual writers about your products that mesh into their current topical interests.  

A Tool to Establish Identity – Put your point of view, or your company’s point of view out there, regularly, on a daily basis. Every product has an industry, comment on issues that are relevant to your industry.

A Tool to Communicate – Engage. Answer comments, respond to consumers, reach out to the experts and customers on twitter.

Twitter is best when it’s used as part of a group of tools (i.e. email, phone calls, press releases, etc.) – it is not the cure for all public relations needs.

 

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