Patrick Garmoe, serves as content and social media strategist for PureDriven, a digital marketing strategy company in Duluth, Minnesota.

I spent 10 years as a reporter in the BT (Before Twitter) era. Now as a social media strategist and public relations professional, I’ve found Twitter to be my primary and most successful method of building and maintaining relationships with reporters. It’s brought myself and clients I work with tens of thousands of dollars in free press coverage.

One public relations agency I work with even grew out of a connection made on Twitter. And that’s perhaps the main reason I advise every public relations professional to become a regular. Just like real life, you communicate with a large circle of professionals, but the bulk of the benefits come from just a handful of clients or connections you make over months and years.

I consider Twitter the tool that delivers tangible value in great gulps, so long as you commit to it for a year. (more…)