One of the topics that came up in #journchat session 2 was about microblogging and its place in the public relations world. It seems that just like other industries, public relations professionals are flocking to Twitter to make new connections and find new ways to orchestrate their media relations.

During the chat the term “micro-release” emerged, essentially describing a method for pitching a release or story in 140 characters or less. Two individuals in the chat, George Hopkin (@GeorgeHopkin) and Jason Kintzler (@pitchengine), both have projects running that are attempting to help PR pros bridge the barriers of microblogging and make it easier to bring public relations into the fold.

PR140

George’s site, PR140, is a URL-shortener for public relations professionals, focused on the idea that it would only be used for PR pitches and stories, making it easier for journalists to track. As the site catches on, “[j]ournalists and other web watchers following [these tweets] will see the pitch” and recognize it as such by the pr140.com portion of the link address.

Journalists and public relations professionals are using Twitter because they love the efficiency of 140-character communications. [W]hy not reach out to them with a 140-character pitch? Odds are they’ll know whether it’s of interest to them in a matter of seconds.

Also, in addition to PR pros using PR140 to push out story ideas, journalists looking for leads could also browse for tweets tagged with #pr140.

PitchEngine

Jason’s project, PitchEngine, isn’t quite so focused on microblogging, but he has leveraged this channel to promote his service and works hard to make it fit in with other bits of social media. PitchEngine makes it easy for PR pros and companies to share social media releases with their contacts. Instead of wrestling a digital release into a corporate website, users are encouraged to post it on PitchEngine and let the architecture Jason has built do the work for them.

In response to the “micro-release” term, Jason had this to say:

I like the micro-release thought. we call it a quick pitch on pitchengine. Readers can direct-tweet to media.

The quick pitch Jason is describing is at the top of the release, like on this one for Hardee’s, and makes an attempt to shorten the entire release into a single sentence.

PitchEngine incorporates Twitter (along with other social media “share links”) at the bottom of the release, utilizing the quick pitch for the body of the tweet along with a shortened URL for the release specific to PitchEngine (using http://pitch.pe/).

Conclusion

Each of these projects does a great job of bringing the PR and microblogging worlds closer together. With PR140 being based in the UK, I can’t say how much it has taken hold amongst journalists, mostly because I don’t follow enough UK tweeps. I’ve been seeing good things mentioned about PitchEngine quite a bit lately, which means they must be doing things right.

If you’ve got other examples of the impact of microblogging in the PR world, feel free to link them in the comments or submit by email to tips [at] microblink.com.