If you put a list together of the greatest tools at your disposal for getting media placements, how high is your personal Twitter account on that list? What if I were to tell you that some of my company’s greatest media placements have started with a simple tweet, and not a professional pitch email?

It’s a sign of the times, I guess. But using my personal Twitter account to reach out to individual writers about placements for JotForm has worked wonders, and I wanted to share a few lessons I’ve learned along the way.

Be strategic

As with any pitch, be relevant to the person you’re pitching. Take the time to know their publication and what you’re offering to them. A simple “Look at what we do!” statement isn’t going to get you the results you need. But if you know the type of story you’d like written, use that as a starting point.

Be conversational

This is really a matter of recognizing your forum. Sending a formal pitch on Twitter, with link to a press release, is sort of like wearing a suit and tie when everyone else is in the room is wearing jeans and a t-shirt. Sure, you might think to yourself that you’re the best dressed, but what you’re really doing is failing to “get it.”

Twitter is also a great method for following up on longer pitches sent via email. It puts a face to the pitch you sent, and let’s them know that they’re important enough for you to seek out on social media.

Be active

If you’re using Twitter for pitching purposes only, that’s going to be a little transparent when reporters view your profile. Even if that’s your end goal for why you’re using Twitter, keep an active profile with valuable retweets and commentary. And follow a few non-reporters while you’re at it as well. We all have a natural tendency to turn and run when we see a salesperson; so learn to disguise yourself as just another Twitter user who happens to have a cool idea to pitch.

Twitter can be helpful for your own writing as well. I recently reached out to an online forms expert for a piece to see if she was interested in being interviewed. She ended up being thrilled with the idea and piece turned out great — and it all started with a tweet.

Heck, you can even pitch story ideas that are simply personal interests of yours too. I’m a big sports fan, and I pitched that news surrounding my favorite team get mentioned in a popular site. And it worked!

Include your company in your bio

While you need to keep an active Twitter profile to be successful at PR using the site, you should also identify yourself in the bio of your profile. It doesn’t need to be anything fancy. Just include a couple lines of what you’re interested in and then the company you work for. Not including your company sends a “that company’s not even important enough for him to include in his own tagline” message. And that’s not the message you want to send.

All of the tweets shown above led to published posts. I’d be lying if I said it worked 100% of the time, but Twitter, if used well, can be your best friend for getting your company’s brand noticed.

Do you use your personal Twitter account for PR purposes? How has it worked? Let us know!