social media sites

Most of us today are active on various social media sites and in fact, some of us use these sites in our day to day work. So what are the various sites we can get started with?
One of the ways I have used social tools successfully in my PR job is in the media relations bit - forming new contacts, pitching to journalists, getting fast information about the media, etc. Below are the top five sites for me. Which are yours?
1) Twitter: We have been hearing from everyone that journalists don’t have the time to read lengthy emails, or that the first couple of lines decide the fate of our pitch notes and press releases. How about now pitching to the media in 140 characters? Some marketing bloggers have already written about it, but how many of us have actually given it a try? Recently, not only I got the name of a tech journalist, I was looking for, from a Twitter friend but also organized a good telephonic interaction for my client on a very short notice using a Twitter pitch. An open question to friends asking if some media is doing story on a particular subject, say valentines day gifts, can result in some good opportunities. Direct messages to journalists have worked for me and can also for you.
I have also done a press release follow up by sending direct messages on Twitter to some journalists. However, you need to know or presume correctly, with much significant reasoning, beforehand if the journalist would mind receiving a direct message for a press release followup. Some journalists may not like this idea and can tweet about it, quashing all your efforts, which can then be bad for your and your client company’s reputation.
2) LinkedIn: One thing I have benefited the most from Linkedin is in finding information about a particular journalist. Everytime we have to create a profile of a journalist, we don’t have to depend on our colleagues, friends in industry, of friends in the media. We can use Linkedin, which will most likely have the updated information of the journalist you are looking for, and if you are lucky, chances are that you might make just a good connection.
3) Facebook: Facebook presents an easygoing atmosphere wherein you can play a couple of quizzes and have some Superwall comments exchanged with journalists, thereby building up a relationship that is harmless and friendly without being entirely business.
A friend on Twitter told me once that he has added many journalists as friends on Facebook and has also successfully organized interactions for clients through his Facebook contacts, resulting in good coverage. That quiz you played, an application you added to your profile or forwarded to your friends, some threads on group you are a member of, etc. could all be potential hooks to build story pegs on.
4) Gchat: Gchat helps you to remain constantly in touch with your journalist friends. Not only you can pitch them there but they also share their story themes and seek your help. They can also sometimes confide in you when they are running short on deadlines as it is just a message away, and they know you can reply instantly.
5) Journalist Blogs: Nowadays many journalists blog and have wrote about what they expect from PR folks - how would they prefer to be contacted and so on. This can provide good cues. Also, how about posting some opinion on their posts? That way, you get into their radar and next time you pitch, they might just possibly remember you.
The emergence of the social media rounds
Just as we regularly go for media rounds to media houses and meet up with journalists to maintain the ‘connect’, today I think it is increasingly becoming important to do what we can call ‘social media rounds’. More and more journalists are adopting the social media for various purposes – research, to voice their opinions in an unedited form, make connections, or just plain explore. Our half an hour social media rounds can sometimes in this situation become a good alternative to that of traveling all the distance to journalists’ offices and showing up with little or no announcements. Also, this serves another important purpose for PR folks – in understanding the culture of the new media by being an active participant.
So is using the social sites just to connect with journalists a plain deceit in disguise
While writing this post, I cannot help but wonder if this is like deceiving the journalists, if we use social sites to connect with them to just leverage our clients. There can be many sides to this debate. What I feel is that if we are open about ourselves from the start and we are not making anyone believe we are somebody else, then it should be fine. And if you become too irritating, they can always unfriend you. And if you provide them value, you can become a contact they are happy to keep.