2 Dec
2008

Micro pitching

Back in April, we were promised that the Twitpitch would be the future. And after eight months, it looks like the future is still on the way. The same can be said with a recent project called “MicroPR.”

These short, high-level pitches are great for putting a link out onto Twitter, but for targeted, effective pitches, they are merely an arrow in the public relations professional’s quiver.

I’ll start with Twitpitch. Stowe Boyd, whom I have met a number of times and always enjoy chatting with, devised a plan to streamline getting pitches. A great idea and if you want to pitch Stowe, and Stowe only, then get on Twitter and throw #twitpitch on there.

What this exemplifies more than anything is how each pitch must be customized, tailored and based on the person doing the pitching’s knowledge of the recipient. Stowe likes music, composes songs and also has a music blog. Did you know that or did you just know to put #twitpitch in a twitter message?

MicroPR

MicroPR is essentially a way for reporters to pitch PR and Marketing people via Twitter. The full story is on Brian Solis’ PR 2.0 blog (which, if you’re not reading, you should be). So, on the surface, sounds like a great idea. And a cursory search of Twitter, shows the beginnings of an effective discourse.

But my problem is that it seems to be a case of PR folks outsmarting themselves. Thanks to MicroPR and Peter Shankman’s Help a Reporter Out, PR folks are able to keep an eye out for opportunities to place their clients in front of attentive reporters.

But of course a lot of hard work is still to be done. Establish rapport, making a connection is still the name of the game. I think that email is still an invaluable tool for PR pros. MicroPR requires a journalist to alter an ingrained work flow in order to post to MicroPR, monitor the results and then choose the best source.

So, two tools that are trying to unite PR and journalists. But I think the true task is to keep the emphasis on the relations part of our career. What do you think?

Archives

Connect with me