PR Ponderings

You need to get in touch with a writer. Say you happen to follow them on twitter. Or are facebook friends. I get that it is one thing if you are actually friends and hit them up because you have that relationship and you know that they will respond to this form of contact as opposed to the general email. For whatever reason you don't want to pick up the phone, or they aren't answering. Is it appropriate to contact them on these other forms of internet?

For example, Jada Yuan of Party Lines in NYMag. I email her all the time. Is it OK if I also add an umph of "Hey @jadayuan, sent you an email!" on the twitter? I've seen it done from one peer to another but they are friends with each other. For example Jason Kennedy and Lizzie Grubman. Lizzie was asking about Fatjew and Jason wrote, "check your email Lizzie!". I don't know their relationship but an alternative way of communicating was available and he used it.

I don't think I would ever send a pitch on facebook to a writer but it's just something I was thinking about. I have facebooked a couple writers in my day, after a couple email correlations with them in the past. So now if I lost their email, would it be bad to write them on facebook and ask them for their email because I have a pitch I want to send them?

The reason I really ask I guess is because for many people, these are their personal sites. Just like we discuss how twitter and facebook for me is NOT my resume, but can be seen by others and if its ethical to judge me based on it for a job. If this is their personal site, do they want to deal with work? Is it inevitable to crossover? How do writers feel about this? And while I'm on the subject, are writers ever weary of publicists befriending them? Any writers have anything to say about this?