Building a community online

Over the past few years, I have been trying to make reading the news part of my daily routine. Not only does it fill me in on what’s going on in the world around me, but I’ve also started reading it to help me keep up with changes and trends in the industry. As a PR practitioner, reading the news is a vital part of the job. We want to make sure that we’re knowledgeable about the fields our clients are in and keep watch for when our clients hit the headlines.?

I was scrolling through PR Daily the other week and came across an article about using Twitter that really piqued my interest. There were two main takeaways I found:

1. Twitter is THE place for journalists.
2. The top three reasons why people still use Twitter are to learn about current events, engage with some kind of news content or to tweet about news themselves.?

I’ve had Twitter on the brain for a while now. Let me just start by saying that my Twitter game could definitely use an upgrade, and this PR Daily piece gave me one more reason why. A few weeks ago, my graduate school department hosted a “Twitter chat.” It was fun for everyone – well, everyone except maybe my other followers who have no idea why for one hour on a random Wednesday night I come out of Twitter hibernation to tweet up a storm. This event helped us build community with our peers. We don’t see each other all the time with our classes being remote, so this is a way to stay connected.?

Thinking about the Twitter chat community building and the PR Daily article made me realize how powerful Twitter can be for PR practitioners (and potentially our clients). With journalists being really engaged on Twitter, it made me think about how we can engage with them on the platform to build relationships.?

I feel closer to my school peers after a Twitter chat, and I think that’s something that can be taken into the professional world. I’ve seen some of the people I follow on Twitter ask questions about what’s going on in the industry, help each other out with job and internship opportunities and encourage each other in their current stage in life.?

When it comes to our clients, I think Twitter could be a great resource. The top reasons why the public uses the platform is to tweet about or interact with current events and news, so sharing on Twitter could be really beneficial. It would give both journalists and the public more news to engage with. However, when deciding what platforms clients should use, it’s important to think about their audiences.?

In cases where Twitter might not be beneficial, the practitioner’s Twitter community could come into play. Since I’ve been working at Obsidian, I’ve noticed that media relations is an essential part of the job. We need to maintain our relationships with journalists to be able to pitch them stories and remember who we are.?

Why not do our best to maintain relationships both off- and online?