Twitter: The Ultimate Public Relations Tool?

Already a favored resource in every good journalist’s toolbox, Twitter remains highly underrated in the world of PR. Indeed, the typical use of Twitter involves just a few core activities:

●     Publicizing news, blog posts, articles, and other content, typically the firm’s own content

●     Retweeting, ad nauseam, content from other users who reference the firm

●     Participating in #followfriday, such as doing a reply-all that includes the hashtag

●     Live-tweeting at events, using a hashtag set up especially for the event

●     Pitching to journalists

These actions don’t require much creativity on the user’s part and miss out on a host of ways Twitter can be best utilized for PR. Here are some ideas:

Using Twitter Lists Strategically

Twitter lists can be public or private, depending on the nature of your work. Set up a number of lists to track what specific people and companies are saying. Lists have the added benefit of flattering users by being added to the list, while simultaneously making it easier to find relevant content.

Once this is done, it will be easier to keep tabs on specific groups of people who are relevant or important to the business in their respective ways. These users can also be tweeted regularly as a form of “influencer engagement”.

Lists also enable the ability to monitor the needs of journalists and bloggers, as they tend to turn to Twitter to field queries.

Lists can help keep track of a growing collection of potential evangelists, community leaders, and influencers in your field, one that expands as you keep tabs on who is regularly participating in conversations around specific keywords and phrases.

Stop Using Twitter’s Web Interface

A host of dashboards exist to help firms manage their Twitter presence, like HootSuite and Buffer. Using such dashboards, communications teams can monitor lists, schedule tweets, and participate in a range of social networks from a single place.

Participate in Twitter Chats

Countless communications professionals have founded and curated conversations using original hashtags such as  #measurePR, #soloPR and #journchat. Regularly participating in these conversations will help to network with peers in the field, increase exposure for invitations to guest blog posts and “appearances” on other Twitter chats, as well as offline queries from prospective clients.

Integration

Another way Twitter is excellent for PR is how easy it is to integrate photo-sharing via Instagram, tweeting Pins from Pinterest, and sharing posts from Facebook. But stay creative: the point is not to merely promote content via Twitter, but to really go above and beyond in utilizing a platform that has revolutionized the way businesses and their stakeholders communicate.

Next time you tack on a few hashtags to your #TGIF Tweet, consider that the world of Twitter is much larger than you may have expected, and you could be missing out on some serious PR potential.