On average it is reported that a journalist will use 2.6 different social media channels every time they research a story with Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn the most popular. No longer simply for keeping in touch with friends or family, over 40% of journalists now use a Facebook account to manage their professional relationships with PRs, companies and spokespeople with LinkedIn frequently being used as a search tool for industry experts.

For companies keen to obtain column inches, be they on or offline, it would seem that those embracing social media hold a distinct advantage. Quite often a 140 character news snippet, sound bite or statistical update can make front page news with today’s journalists constantly competing for the very latest story.

Charlotte Ashton, Director of leading property PR agency, AB Property Marketing Ltd, comments,

“Over the last 2 -3 years we have seen the number of journalists using social media, especially Twitter, to communicate with us and source news stories rise significantly. Often now the fastest way to distribute client news, social media has almost made traditional press release distribution techniques such as email and certainly post seem archaic which is why all press material we release is posted in real time on the most popular social media channels.”

Ashton continues,

“PR is push and pull and not only do we use social media to distribute newsworthy content we also use professional channels such as LinkedIn to engage journalists directly. According to the research 84% of journalists are happy to be approached via LinkedIn and we find it a very useful tool in connecting our clients with relevant journalists.”

Going one stage further, the research from Text 100 also highlights the importance to journalists of dedicated blogs when researching companies or products. Of the social media channels surveyed, the most useful, given a ranking of 63% were official company blogs with Wikipedia in second place with 60% and third party blogs at 58%.

Interestingly, the most recently launched mainstream social media channel, Google+, despite its heavyweight funding and promotion did not feature highly with journalists with only 29% maintaining a professional profile, less than half welcoming PR contact via the channel and being ranked the least useful tool when undertaking research for articles.

Charlotte Ashton concludes,

“With nearly half of our journalist database now active on some form of social media, the majority being on Twitter, an increasing proportion of our time is spent communicating with and pitching stories to the media in 140 characters or less. Whilst not a substitute for good old fashioned verbal conversation, social media is becoming ever more important to today’s PR and thus, in line with this, it is essential for clients to have an active presence on as many channels as possible to be heard.”