On Monday 23 and Tuesday 24 February, Dan Martin, editor of BusinessZone.co.uk, would only accept PR pitches on Twitter. We caught up with Dan to talk to him about his experience…

How was the experience of PRs pitching on Twitter?

“It went very well. The initial thought behind it was to cut back on irrelevant pitches from PRs and to see if it could be done. I found that I definitely had fewer phone calls, in fact a reduction from around 20 per day to only two or three calls over the two days.”

Did you receive all the information necessary in 140 characters?

“Pitching on Twitter made PRs specifically target me as a journalist and got them to think about what would be of interest to my readers. When I was interested in the initial pitch, it led to an email conversation, so you can get the right information across to interest me.”

What was the worst pitch?
“‘Are you interested in a great story?’ My answer was no.”

What was the best pitch?
“It was the use of rhyme on DM. I was very impressed.”

Are you going to make Twitter pitches permanent?
“I will accept phone calls and email, but will encourage PRs to use Twitter, especially as I use it both in and out of the office, PRs can get in touch with me wherever I am.”

For our final question, we decided to turn the tables on our journalist:

What advice would you give to a PR wanting to pitch to you on Twitter – in 140 characters!

“Be relevant, be targeted, be clever!”

Wise words I think - however short or long a PR pitch is, it still needs to resonate.

Sara Lewis