The long and (very) short of pitching stories on Twitter

Get better results by making your story ideas brief and focused

You thought you had pitching down. You’ve written clever press releases and e-mail pitches, and you can cold-call with the best of them. Face your next challenge: Twitter, and a whole new way to pitch, using 140 characters or fewer.

Don’t worry, twitpitching isn’t difficult, it just takes some research, an informative link, and a lot of editing. As more and more journalists join Twitter, the popular social media site offers an opportunity for PR professionals and corporate communicators to form a relationship with their media counterparts, along with a forum in which to pitch story ideas.

The term “twitpitch” was coined more than a year ago when social media consultant Stowe Boyd asked that PR pros pitch him at the Web 2.0 Expo via Twitter. He used the hashtag #twitpitch to make the pitches searchable and trackable, and found that the short pitches were a success. He liked them so much that he began requiring companies to pitch exclusively via tweets.

Boyd wrote on his blog, dubbed /message, about the experiment, “I like the idea of forcing people down to the tiniest escalator pitch: If you had 10 seconds to pitch someone, passing each other — one going up, one going down — on escalators in the airport, what would you say?”

He isn’t the only one who likes the speed and convenience of twitpitching. At least two UK journalists — Dan Martin, editor of BusinessZone.co.uk, and Charles Arthur, tech editor at the Guardian — have made similar requests of PR pros.

Here are some dos and don’ts to help you boil your best elevator pitch down to an escalator pitch that’s 140 characters — or fewer.

1. Do try to form a relationship

Twitter facilitates communication with people with whom you otherwise wouldn’t have contact on a daily basis. Take advantage of the transparency and use Twitter to befriend your favorite and most relevant journalists.

How to find journalists on Twitter

Surf the Internet. Many Web sites list their reporters’ Twitter handles. MuckRack.com. This site aggregates tweets from journalists WeFollow.com. Twitterers can put themselves in a category. MediaOnTwitter.com. A database of journalists, their Twitter names, and their contact information.

Remember, Twitter is not an excuse to ditch best practices. As with offline pitching, know whom you’re pitching, advises Geoff Livingston, CEO of Livingston Communications.

“Before e-mail, people used to build strong relationships with journalists,” he says. “The same thing applies with Twitter; you definitely want to foster relationships and then pitch where appropriate. It’s not an opportunity to send out your press release every week.”

Richard Laermer, co-founder of the Bad Pitch Blog and CEO of RLM PR, suggests the following format: “I saw your article (link to a story they did), and it reminded me that we’re taking it to another level. Here’s the release: (another link).”

“The best way to tweet somebody is to talk about them,” he says. “‘I saw this, it reminded me of what we were doing, check this link out.’ It shows you did your homework.”

At the very least, research a few articles the journalist has written recently and tweet them only if the topics of those articles are relevant to your pitch.

“Cold tweeting isn’t the same as cold calling,” Laermer says. “With cold calling, you’re generally getting voicemail; with cold tweeting, most people pay attention to who’s tweeting them, because it’s new.”

2. Do be concise for optimum impact

Mark Twain once said, “If I’d had more time, I’d have written a shorter letter.” French Philosopher Blaise Pascal wrote, “I have made this letter longer than usual, because I lack the time to make it short.” Whoever spawned the notion originally, the lesson is applicable to twitpitching.

“How about use 70 characters instead of 140?” Laermer suggests. “If you get it all done in one short sentence, chances are the other person’s going to say, ‘I want to know more, get in touch with me.’ ”

3. Don’t give up after one tweet

If at first you don’t succeed, tweet, tweet again. You should also take the nonreply as a nudge to ensure you’re pitching the right person, you’ve done your research, and the tweet appeals to them and not just you.

“You can’t be sending [the pitch] to all their colleagues at the same time—you have to individualize,” Laermer says. “If you send lots of pitches to lots of people, chances are you’ll fail.”

4. Don’t pitch in a direct message

Direct messages, or DMs as they’re often called in the Twitterverse, should be used sparingly and almost never for pitching. Laermer says they’re intrusive and presumptive and don’t foster a connection between the journalist and PR pro. The @ reply is much less invasive, and makes pitching more of a community affair than an attack.

5. Don’t be heavy-handed

Even @ replies can be invasive to followers if pitches aren’t properly balanced with other tweets. If you’re using Twitter to pitch all the time, you’re not following one of the cardinal rules of business tweeting: Provide content that’s valuable to your followers. As important as your new products may be, 24/7 pitches aren’t going to be valuable to most of your followers. Interesting links and comments that relate to your business are. Laermer recommends pitching as subtly as possible.

“First of all, you can’t pitch. You have to be very cool and a lot more subtle about the way you put yourself out there,” he says. “They’re happy to hear what you say, because it’s only 140 characters, how much could they lose — one second? But if you overtly pitch what you have to say, chances are you’re going to turn somebody off.”

6. Do find out what the journalist wants

Don’t assume that journalists on Twitter want to be twitpitched.

If your chosen journalist writes primarily for print, they probably aren’t ready for twitpitches. If you’re pitching a blogger, try to participate and subtly pitch on their blog instead of turning to Twitter, Laermer says.

Often, the journalist will have a bio on their publication’s Web site or a note on their LinkedIn or Facebook profile that explains how they like to be pitched. If all else fails, it doesn’t hurt to ask directly.

Remember, if you do twitpitch a reporter, it’s there for the world to see.

“One of the features of twitpitches that most people haven't picked up on is that it’s social and open,” says Boyd. “It's good for them and their clients if the pitches are short and sweet, suggest a real value to someone, and avoid buzzwords and fuzzy analogies.”