We frequently get questions about why businesses should participate in social media. One reason is the impact of social media in doing a successful media relations program to connect, engage, and comment.

A resource called Muck Rack is one that has been useful to find journalists on Twitter that matter to you. Their tagline: “By verifying the journalists on social media who do the muckraking for major media outlets and analyzing what they say in real time, Muck Rack delivers a glimpse of tomorrow’s newspaper to you today.” In other words, Muck Rack tells you what journalists are saying, what trends and stories are being linked the most by journalists, and gives a glimpse of what journalists are saying minute by minute. PR pros can receive a daily email summarizing all this or can visit the website and choose an outlet, like CNN for example and find reporters you want to pitch or see which journalists who are on Twitter from the outlet you are targeting. This can be very helpful in order for PR pros to better understand a journalist’s exact beat, tone they use in their stories, and general likes and interests. Journalists are also becoming increasingly open to receive pitches via Twitter but you better be able to grab their interest in 140 characters or less!

Getting the inside track, or eavesdropping on a journalist can help make a pitch more targeted to that person – which PR pros know is the only way to get a pitch read and deserving of a response by a well-known journalist in today’s ever-changing media landscape.

PR Daily published an article highlighting 14 ways to use Twitter to attract journalists (leveraging Muck Rack), and the writer, a previous journalist and now PR pro states, “I’ve found Twitter to be my primary and most successful method of building and maintaining relationships with reporters.”

Journalists would probably like to read more of their pitches via email but it’s just not realistic given their deadlines, busy schedules (now covering several beats) and bloggers that only blog in between their day jobs.

If you’re in healthcare, insurance, technology or other professional services industries, and need help public relations campaign, contact Scott Public Relations.

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