Sunday, March 11, 2012 journalists are still worth bothering with
Yes, social media is great. Yes, it’s quick and cheap.
Yes, it’s a great way to bypass journalists and talk to (and often, with) your audience directly.
But that doesn’t mean it’s the right tool for the job all of the time.
While one of the positives of social media is that you can get round dealing with journalists, it’s also one of the things that make social media a bit more like advertising than media relations.
Why? Well, when you put a story through a journalist it gives what you are trying to say credence and credibility.
In theory, if a journalist has taken your press release and turned it into a story, that probably (and hopefully usually) means that they think it is (a) true and (b) of interest to their readers.
What you don’t get with social media is it getting to your audience via a third party, who should scrutinise and, if necessary, moderate it.
A message sent on social media is sent exactly as you want it to be. No scrutiny. No question; a bit like when you pay for an advert.
So when you’re tweeting and saying how brilliant you are, make sure you or a colleague is trying to convince a journalist that it is true as well. Get a third party to say it.
Charlotte Stamper is Communications Manager at the London Borough of Hillingdon
Reader Comments (1)
Hi Charlotte, some great points there but one thing sprung to mind for me. Surely by posting direct on Twitter you are putting your statements to the scrutiny of your (hopefully) thousands of individual followers and not just to the motivations, potential bias etc of just one person (the editor, news editor)? I would have thought that the choice of the individual to decide what they think is far more important than putting your faith in the news agenda of a newspaper editor (and I used to be one!) :0)
I agree with the importance of maintaining relationships with journalists as they do provide another level of filtering to aid credibility at certain times but I don't think that you can consider their view anymore relevant than that of your Twitter / Facebook relationships.
Just my 'tupenneth. :0)