For those who think Twitter is nothing more than the current cool Web toy-du-jour with a silly name and little to offer PR professionals, I refer you to this excellent article that recently appeared in PRSA’s Tactics and The Strategist Online, entitled “Birds on a wire: public relations in the Twitterverse“:

Public opinion has never been easier to obtain than with Twitter. Consider the example of CNN’s Rick Sanchez as analyzed by social media guru Brent Leary (@BrentLeary) on the American Express OPEN Forum, a site for swapping ideas and accessing resources to help businesses grow.

On Aug. 30, while preparing to cover Hurricane Gustav, Sanchez sent this tweet to followers: “going on air at five, need you guys out there, especially around nola, what’s going on? what’s the mood?”

He also referenced some of the responses to this post during a broadcast.
According to Leary, Sanchez demonstrated a whole new dimension of how people can experience and participate in the news by tapping into the Twitter community.

Imagine similar scenarios when being connected to Twitter at the right time can create opportunities for you and your clients.

For an example of a real-time public conversation on Twitter, you don’t even need to be signed up. You can go to election.twitter.com to see an ongoing feed of tweets on topics related to the current election. This is a special site Twitter has set up as a way of illuminating how people are expressing their thoughts online about the candidates and the race. For more background, see our recent Social Studies post, “Twitter’s Election Tool.”

Or, you can go to Twitter’s search site, search.twitter.com, where you can gauge public sentiment on any topic from the financial bailout to health care reform to alternative energy. Just plug in a search term or phrase and scan the short-format posts known colloquially as “tweets.” Some are trivial, others thoughtful, and many others informative, providing links to outside sites and resources.

There are some very influential people, publications and institutions that are using Twitter to broadcast their news and ideas, including journalists, analysts, academics, bloggers and mainstream news publications:

• Rick Sanchez, CNN Reporter
• Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post
• John A Byrne, Editor in Chief, BusinessWeek
• Glenn Hall, Edior of TheStreet.com
• Jay Rosen, Professor of journalism at NYU
• Michael Arrington, TechCrunch
• PR 2.0 guru Brian Solis
• Instapundit’s Glenn Reynolds, aka the “blogfather”
• Forrester Analyst Jeremiah Owyang
• Guy Kawasaki, software evangelist, entrepreneur, author
• The Mayo Clinic
• The New York Times
• Jon Gordon, host of NPR’s Future Tense
• Barry Judge, CMO of Best Buy

Want to find more people who are widely followed on Twitter? Check out these resources:

• Media people using Twitter
• Twitter Elite
• The Top 100 Twitterholics based on followers

If you have ever wondered how Twitter could be beneficial to your work in PR, this is a good place to start. If you are not already on Twitter, set up an account today. It will take only a few minutes to register. Don’t skip uploading the image, as it doesn’t look finished without it. Pick a nice, professional photo, provide a one-line bio that describes you professionally, but includes some personal touches (e.g. “wine connoisseur,” “die-hard Red Sox fan”).

Before long, your screen will fill with short, pithy bursts of thoughts, ideas and links made up of the “tweets” of those you are following. You can see them, thought they initially don’t see you. But they will typically receive an email notification when you start following them, and many will return the favor. Now you have a connection.

Initially, it’s not based on much more than Twitter’s conventions for following and being followed, but it means that your own tweets will be seen by your followers. Consider that virtually everything you say on Twitter is very public, and persists more or less forever, so choose your words carefully and spend more time up front following and listening than tweeting.

As you start to find your voice, hold back from trying to promote clients or pitch stories. Talk about things that are happening in your professional life that can be publicly shared, provide short-form commentary of recent articles you’ve read, accompanied by links. When people ask questions, respond if you know something about the topic or can point them.

OK, so if you’ve hung in so far, you’re asking “What can I really do in terms of PR?” Here’s a list for starters:

1. Find and follow influencers and advocates: journalists and media people, analysts, business leaders, academics
2. Monitor breaking news from CNN, BBC, Financial Times, Drudge and others
3. Follow links in tweets to interesting news stories and blog posts
4. Gauge public sentiment on topics, clients, brands
5. Listen to and participate in a global conversation on news topics
6. Create relationships and build a network of influential people
7. Tap your network for leads on resources, answers to questions
8. Promote client stories to the people on your network (transparently of course)
9. Pitch stories (in 140 characters or less).

For more about Twitter as a PR Tool, please be sure to check out our collection of posts on Twitter at SocialStudies.