NEW YORK – It’s never been easier to communicate with anyone on the planet. It’s never been harder to choose the right way to do it.
We have a growing number of avenues of global communication at our disposal and many of them are free. Take your pick between the major social networks, several mobile-messaging apps, email, text messages, internal chat platforms, voice chats, video chats, and phone calls.
While several of these communication platforms have been around long enough to form their own “rules of engagement,” those guidelines are largely still evolving for social networks. Complicating matters even further, each social network has its own distinct usage patterns and expectations, making it hard to know the answers to seemingly basic questions.
For example: As a PR professional, is it cool to pal around with journalists on social media? Is social media an appropriate place to pitch them? Are certain social media platforms more effective than others for pitching journalists? Should you just stick to email?
The tricky part is that different platforms mean different things to different people. But thanks to some recent research from Muck Rack and Cision, there are a few guidelines when it comes to connecting with journalists effectively.
Soon, social networks may become the communication conduits of choice between PR professionals and journalists. But we’re definitely not there yet.
Journalists and Social Media: An Evolving Relationship
According to Muck Rack’s annual survey of journalists, nearly all the journalists surveyed (86 percent) like it when PR professionals follow them on social media. Among journalists, Twitter is the social network of choice: More than 96 percent of journalists surveyed say they use Twitter at least once a week.
The younger a journalist is, the more likely they prefer being pitched over social media. According to Cision’s 2016 global journalism study, email is still the preferred method of PR communication. However, social media is on the rise: 32 percent of journalists between the ages of 28 and 45 listed social media as a preferred method of contact with PR professionals — twice as popular as phone calls and six times more popular than face-to-face meetings.
Email should still be considered the primary avenue of contact between PR pros and journalists, but maybe not for long: The preferences of younger journalists suggest a fundamental shift to social soon. In the meantime, you’ll need to handle things on a case-by-case basis. On Twitter, you should check each journalist’s bio to see if an email address or a direct message is listed as the best way to pitch them.
It’s Complicated…
However, the majority of journalists don’t like being pitched on social-media platforms at all. In Cision’s latest global journalism study , 65 percent of journalists surveyed said that social media played little to no importance in terms of receiving PR pitches.
Instead, social media is largely the place that they’re promoting their own content, interacting with readers, and monitoring the news. Cision’s survey found that 84 percent of journalists rated social media as “important” or “very important” when it came to promoting their own stories. Meanwhile, 47 percent of journalists who answered the survey said that they engage with their audiences daily on social media.
Discussing and liking a reporter’s stories could be a great introduction on social media, but your mileage may vary. The Cision report concludes that there are six overarching “Social Archetypes” when it comes to media professionals on social media, and different journalists behave in radically different ways.
According to the study, 39 percent of journalists using social media are “Observers,” who spend a couple of hours monitoring discussions around their stories and posting fairly regularly. The second most-common classification is “Hunters” (19 percent), who primarily use social media to collect information and are less interested in posting content. And a fairly large percentage of journalists (15 percent) are dubbed “Skeptics,” as they have little to no interest in using social media at all – at least for work.
For a PR professional, what’s the big takeaway from all of this data? Mainly that many journalists consider social media to be a separate part of the job than their flow of communications with PR pros. While Muck Rack’s data suggests that social media is on the rise as a connection point between journalists and PR professionals, Cision’s study suggests that outreach on social media yields unpredictable results.
Email still reigns, so make sure you know how to use it effectively.
Tim Moynihan is Editorial Services & Media Strategist for Airfoil. With 20 years of experience as a professional writer and editor, Moynihan works among Airfoil’s account teams and clients to guide the strategic direction of media relations programs. Drawing from his background in technology, he develops earned media strategies designed to stand out in today’s changing media landscape.
Prior to joining Airfoil, Moynihan was a staff writer at WIRED, where he focused on the latest trends in gadgets, embedded technologies, and virtual reality. Moynihan also served as homepage editor at CNET, web producer at TechTV, and senior editor at PCWorld, where he helped transition the monthly IDG publication from a print-first to an online-first strategy.
Moynihan studied magazine journalism at the University of Missouri-Columbia and is based in Airfoil’s New York City office. You can email him at [email protected]
