Pitch to Journalists Using Social Media

Today, a lot of stories are first posted online. How do these stories reach the online world so quickly? Pitching is a way to let journalists know about possible stories, even as they are being developed. Chapter 16 of Share This focuses on pitching stories using social media.

Before you pitch a story, you have to establish yourself and learn about the community you want to engage with. If you pitch a story to journalists who do not know you, you are not going to have a lot of success. You want journalists to know who you are before you pitch a story. It is possible that you have influential people and journalists who are already following you. You want a network that is original to the brands you manage. Also, you want to invite influential people to join your community. These people can help you with the story you want to promote.

With the actual story you are going to pitch, you have to tailor it to your various audiences. Every audience has its own interest to the story. An 18-year-old and a 50-year-old are likely to have different reasons to read a particular story. As a result, you should alter the story for each journalist who will receive your story pitch.

When you have an online presence, you also have to compete with other people to capture the attention of journalists. Twitter and other online channels are used by journalists as an information source. They may find possible scoops or insight for a story they are working on. This causes a number of engagement opportunities.

When you pitch your story, you want to make sure the story is relevant to the journalists who get your pitch. A good place to start developing relationships with other journalists and influential people is Twitter. Using Twitter to pitch stories can benefit you. This allows one-on-one conversations to take place. You can learn what each journalist requires in their stories. As a result, you can alter the story to better suit each journalist.

What happens after you pitch your story? You want to have an effective approach when you send a story. Once a journalist has shown interest in your story, you want to send the story in the body of the email instead of attaching the story as a file.

I think using Twitter is a great starting point when you pitch stories. With a maximum of 140 characters, you have to find the relevant parts of the story. You have the ability to tweet directly to journalists and find out what each journalist wants.