Should You Pitch Top Magazine Editors on Social Media?

Should you send that pitch via DM or LI InMail? Do editors ever post their email or calls for pitch topics on social? What's the best way to connect with editors as well as use social media to get published in publications?  This week's livestream is going over how to pitch magazine editors on social media, what's the best platform to use between LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, what to do if you want to write for a certain magazine but hate social media, and how to have your pitch standout on social media vs. email. 

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Should You Pitch Top Magazine Editors on Social Media?

Do the best magazine editors at the top magazines want you to pitch them on social media? Are they interested in getting pitches via DMM or LinkedIn message or as a tweet? Like these are things that we're gonna talk about today. 'cause I think they're really important. Hey, Mrs. Blim. I think that's how you say it.

Blim, right? Blem. B L E H M. Bbl. Hey, flower Power. Um, let's see in the comments. Um, People are getting puppies. They're getting puppies, and they're doing amazing stuff. That should be fun. Oh my gosh. Oh, and you have another one. So you have a puppy and a two year old. Oh my gosh. I just have this one. I just have this little burrito over here.

She's sleeping. Let's see if we can get her a little paw. She's like a little bit over there. She is sleeping, being snugly. Hanging out. All right, so let's talk about some things. So we're gonna go over a few things about pitching ma uh, magazine editors on social media. So the first thing we're gonna talk about, hold on.

Let's get it together, Mandy. Okay. Let's see. Hey, Vicki. I always love the wave. The wave is amazing. I wish I could do it back. I don't think I can do that in my program. Like I don't think I can just put emojis in there, which is a bummer. And a cat. What? It's pet Palooza over there. All right, so let's talk about number one before I get distracted by dogs and cats.

And pets. Okay. So we're talking about, um, when we're talking about social media. So first thing I think is, um, we're talking about how to actually do it. So every platform has its own weird little quirks. So this is something that I think I get a lot of. I get a lot of questions about LinkedIn and Twitter, right?

So for me, when I think about social media, um, oftentimes, you know, there's Facebook and there's Instagram and TikTok and all that stuff. I haven't seen Facebook, Instagram and TikTok be super great for pitches. I think sometimes Instagram can work where you can hop in a DMM and say, Hey, I've got a good pitch.

Um, can I send an email to you about that? So I think sometimes Instagram can work, but most of the time, I think a lot of editors are more so on Twitter, they're definitely on LinkedIn. Um, I think that's kind of, I think when you're thinking about platforms you should think about like where are they constantly active, right?

Not just that you're on the platform, but that they're on the platform. So when you're actually pitching these editors on social media, yes. The answer is yes. There are lots of editors who do take pitches on social media. I don't do this. 'cause this is just like, I don't like to be on social media a ton.

Uh, I'm on LinkedIn a bunch and I am on Instagram and doing stuff, but, um, I don't spend a ton of time on there. But I do know writers who spend a lot of time on Twitter. Um, they're looking for calls for pitches or they're looking for editors who are saying like, here's my email. Send me some ideas. Um, or they're just sending quick little dms on Twitter.

Um, I think that if you spend a lot of time on Twitter and you're looking for calls for pitches and you see that a lot of the places you wanna write for are posting about it, then yes, I would do it. So if you are gonna do it right, if you're gonna go forward and pitch some editors, there's a couple ways to do it, right?

So Twitter's a good example. Someone posts that they're looking for pitches or they share their email or they say, Hey, we're gonna do some special sections on these topics or these types of, um, These types of specific things, you know? Then I would send them, like if they have their email on Twitter, right, send them an email.

Right? That's why they're sharing it on Twitter is so you can send them an email pitch. They're not sharing their email, so you can then send them a dmm. Then go send them an email. So don't fill up their inbox with unnecessary stuff. So if you are gonna pitch things on there, there's a couple ways. Like we wanna make sure if they're sharing an email on Twitter, they want emails.

Editors are in their inbox all the time. They get hundreds and hundreds of pitches. Not just like they could get 'em a day, but they could get 'em every week, like a thousand pitches. So, It's, uh, it's really a priority not to make sure, like, to make sure we're not filling up their inbox or filling up their stuff with unnecessary things.

So if we are gonna pitch, there's, right? If you, what number one is, if you see that they put out a tweet that says, here's my email, here's what I'm looking for. Send them an email. Two, sometimes they'll just post kind of topics and you can, you know, put a little tweet in there, right? You can respond to their tweet and say, Hey, what about, uh, like, you know, write one sentence.

What about an idea about blah, blah, blah. And see if they'll answer that. 'cause if they're asking for feedback on Twitter, or if they put something out where they're asking for comments and little ideas, that's a good way to do it. So that's two, three, is that you find an editor on um, Twitter, or you find someone and you just send them a dmm, right?

Hey, I have an idea about, I forget how long Twitter dms are, but short and sweet, right? So short and sweet. If you're gonna send someone a dmm, and this applies I think to Instagram too. Instagram dms, you can make 'em pretty long, but. Short and sweet. Hey, I have an idea about this. It covers X, Y, Z. Uh, if this interests you, can you share your email and I'll send you the full pitch, right?

That's the format you wanna use. The format you wanna use is, Hey, in the dmm, Hey, I have an idea about this thing. It covers X, Y, Z, or it's answering x, y, z questions. Uh, if this is interesting to you, you know, can I send, uh, can you share your email so I can send you the full pitch? 'cause you're not gonna have enough space to send a full pitch in a dmm, and you shouldn't.

It's really hard. With those little tiny bubbles to read 'em on a phone, right? So not a good look, not a good practice. What you're looking for in these dms or these messages is to get the email right? The whole point is to get someone's email. The whole point is not to send a full pitch in a DMM or like four dms.

Don't do that. So I think, um, I think when you're kind of going through this, your goal is to get to the editor's inbox. So yes, a lot of writers do have success with this, especially with Twitter, because they're getting to the inbox, right? They're sending someone a tweet or a dmm. They're sending an editor, a DMM saying, Hey, I have an idea about this.

It answers X, Y, Z questions. Or It covers X, Y, Z topics. You know? Can you share your email so I can send you the full pitch? Right. So then they say, yes, send me the full pitch. Here's my email. So now you don't have to dig around and find their email, which we know at top publications, they can have like five or six different email conventions.

So I know that for me, um, there's been magazines I've worked at where everybody that I've worked with, like four or five different people have different email conventions. So an email convention is like the format of their email, right? It's like first name@magazine.com, or it's like first letter, last name, or first name.

The letter of your first name, last name@magazine.com, or it could be at the, like the overarching publication, right? So it could be, you know, last name dot, first name at overarching thing like meredith.com versus Conde Nas Traveler, right? Or whatever it is. I. So there's a lot of different email conventions.

So in order to not have to do all that searching, that's why we're sending the DMM is just to get their direct email. We send them the full pitch. So if you're gonna use LinkedIn, my thing is kind of the same thing. If you're going to send a message on LinkedIn, do a connection request versus a full message.

So we don't wanna send our pitch in the full message. We wanna make sure that we are. Um, we're just getting their email, so send a connection request. Hi, I'm a freelance writer in blah, blah, blah, niche. I have an idea about this thing. It covers, right? Same thing. It covers these, these questions or it does these things.

Would you be able to share your email, send the connection request, see if they'll respond? I don't think for me, uh, I think a long time ago I did send a few pitches. Through LinkedIn, um, messaging and uh, it just was not a good idea. 'cause they're always like, Hey, can you send this to my inbox? I think that was what happened one time.

She was like, Hey, can you just send this to my inbox? Like, I don't spend a lot of time on LinkedIn. I was like, okay. Um, so it's just better just to get their email that way and send it. Um, I think there are a bunch of good ways to kind of get in the door. And we also wanna make sure that, especially when we're thinking about LinkedIn, that we're connecting with editors.

So even if you're not sending a connection request, looking for their email to send a pitch, you definitely wanna connect with your editors on LinkedIn. 'cause they move a lot. They get new jobs, they work at different publications. They get into editorial, they get out of editorial. So you wanna make sure that you can kind of see where they're going and see if they're still at the publication.

Right? So you wanna make sure that you have, um, that you have all these things to kind of track where they're going to know where you should send the pitch to see what kind of convention. That's what's cool about LinkedIn is like you always know who's working where. If you need to double check something, LinkedIn is where to do it.

Uh, Twitter, I, people do update their Twitter bios and stuff, but I feel like it's better just to do it on LinkedIn. 'cause LinkedIn is, Um, it's a lot easier to see like, you know, this person connected to this person or, or, uh, your editor who used to work at a magazine is connected to the new editor that you need to send the thing to, which is Twitter wouldn't tell you that it would be a disaster to go find that person.

So there's all these different ways of doing it. Most of the time though, that I think the most important thing to take away is the whole point of pitching on social media is short and sweet. You're getting their email so you can send them the full pitch. It's not to send your full pitch in 85 dms, or it's not to send your full pitch in a LinkedIn message.

Right. Your your idea is to get their email because this is where they spend all their time and it does work too. Like this is cutting down time. Right. So this is something that I feel like I've been talking about with a bunch of my breakthrough community members and my Wealth Lab students. Is, there's like a, if you know, you know thing, right?

It's like I, whatever. It's like I, uh, I Y K Y K, right? If you know, you know, it's like a thing. So there's a thing about editors and emails, right? That's one of like the tests. This is like a very long old thing that's happened, right? So in order to like, Be able to, to pitch them, you need to find their email.

Right? This is kind of a thing where a lot of writers won't share their emails, right? They won't share their editor's emails at top publications, because it's really hard to find those emails sometimes, and they did all this legwork and you didn't, right? And you're just like sending a pitch, right? So there's all of this kind of research that goes into finding an email sometimes, and that is kind of the qualification to get to pitch that editor, right?

It's kind of this crazy thing. So, You're looking through all the conventions, you're figuring out which one it is, and in doing that research right, you really wanna pitch that publication. You're going through the trials and triumphs of finding these. These, um, these emails and actually sending it, that kind of shows the editor that you're able to research, right?

That you do a good job, that you're able to figure it out, that you're able to move forward and then pitch them. Yes, there are totally, uh, a bunch of databases with editor emails. There's lots of places like hunter.io or even sometimes LinkedIn or social media where they will list their email. That's totally fine, but I also feel like there's kind of this, um, There's, I like, this was something that I learned about magazines, which is like you, if you're a new kind of writer and you're not like that proven, there is kind of like a barrier, I guess.

There's kind of this like, you need to go do the research, you need to go find the email because we don't kind of know what your skills are, right? There's kind of this thing where they're like, Hey, if you wanna pitch the New York Times, you gotta figure out how to do that. In order to do that, you going through all the steps in order to find the email or figure out what to pitch or do the research on creating a good pitch, then sending the pitch that makes you more of their kind of like tier of writer rather than someone just being like, give me an email, I'll send a pitch.

Right? That doesn't really work very well, so a lot of times there's a protectiveness too. So I will be, I, I'll just be 100% upfront. I am 100% protective of my editors and my editors emails. I have seen lots of times where this blows up in the face where people share emails. They're like, oh yeah, here's my editor's email.

And then someone sends a pitch and they say, so-and-so writer told me to send this to you. And, um, you know, like, here's this terrible pitch. And like they're just, it's not good. They didn't actually try, they were just like, here's this thing. Uh, and that reflects poorly back on you. So there is kind of this protectiveness where.

I will protect my editors from wasting their time with bad pitches or with, um, stuff where I'm like, Hey, I need to know if I share my editor's email with you that, that you're on the same caliber. Like, I've seen your pitch. I know your writing skills. I know that, um, I can kind of filter that. It's kind of a, a good thing that my editor is really gonna like, and it kind of reflects on me that I'm helping my editor versus.

You know, there's times where people get an editor's email and they send 'em like a hundred pitches in a week without actually doing research, without actually doing anything good. They just keep emailing them over and over and over again. Right. So there's, I I think that's something to know too, is like we, we wanna be protective of our editor's time.

We wanna be protective of like, You know the help I guess, that we're giving to our editor. We wanna be make sure that, you know, we're kind of also getting good reflection back on us, right? Every time you're doing a referral, every time you're connecting with another writer, if that writer goes off and goes ballistic on someone and sends them a hundred pitches every single week that aren't even close to the pitches they will accept, right?

Or it's just flooding someone's inbox that reflects poorly on you. So there's also this kind of thing, and I think that's more so with these Newand magazines, right? They're the magazines everyone wants to write for, but no one wants to do the research and the hard work to get there. They're just like, just send me the email.

Right? So this is something to know. Yes, there's databases, yes, you can do it, but I also think it's a good practice to learn how to do it right, because there are sometimes publications where it's really hard to find the email. There are big publications. Or there are publications that each different, like version of the publication in the region that it's in has a different email convention or, or it's, it's totally hard to find in those cases.

I think it's better for someone to do the research. That's my honest opinion. I think it's better if you really wanna pitch that publication, you need to do that research. Finding emails is an essential skill of our business. This is one of the things where it's like, I always think of it as like, it's not just if you know, you know?

Right. Like, you know, you need to go find their editor's email address and not just like, tell everybody to give you one. Um, but I think it's also this thing where it's like teaching you how to phish because finding emails to send Lois, or, or letters of introduction, Lois, uh, to send pitches to a bunch of magazines where no one has the email.

Right. Or just learning how to, to do research, look through LinkedIn or look through the Twitter or look through social media or, uh, look through different databases or use hunter.io or check all my tweets. Or, you know, like that's a, a very important skill that we need to send Lois and pitches. Right? And if everybody's just giving you emails, you are not building that skill.

You're not learning how to fish. And I think that's a really important thing that like, I feel like it's. It's, uh, you know, if you're just feeding someone all the time, right? Like, what if you just don't have, you know, like I, I just feel like it's a really important skill that writers learn how to figure out email addresses.

They learn how to. Email the right person. They find the right editor, they look through the mast head, they figure out who they're supposed to go for, right? That's a skill. If everybody's just feeding you stuff all the time, you don't actually learn anything. You're just like, oh, I just send it to so-and-so, right?

Like you're not, you're not like, oh, I know what this type of publication, I need the associate editor at this type of publication. I need, uh, the editor in chief, which is very rare, but I'm just using it as an example. You're like, at this publication, I need, um, You know, the special sections editor in this publication, I need this.

Right? So there's all these different things where you have to learn how to do it, and I think that's one thing that I think about is it's not just skills. It's not just quality of work. It's not just quality of pitch. It's also teaching someone how to fish. So I think this is, um, this is something that I learned over the years that it's kind of frustrating 'cause you're like, please just give me the email.

Right? You're just like, I just wanna send a pitch. I wanna really be in this magazine. Right? I really wanna have a byline. I love this magazine. Right. But there's also this, like, I, I, I understand from my own stuff, like I don't wanna put like my editor on the chopping block of getting all of these unsolicited pitches and then people saying like, you know, uh, they're just like saying stuff that's not even a good fit for that magazine.

Right. I think that we, um, I think that there's like an understanding. It's like it's not, I mean, maybe it's a little gatekeeper, I feel like in a way, But it's also like all of those skills in order to do it, hi, wiggle all those skills in order to find an email, connect with someone on social media or figure out the convention or send a good pitch.

Those are, you have to do those. No one's gonna do it for you. So even if you have the editor's email, that doesn't mean you're gonna get a story. It doesn't mean you're gonna get a byline. It doesn't mean they're gonna like all your pitches. Right. So I think that in the process of learning all that stuff, hi Lou.

Did you wake up? You alert now? Uh, I think in the process of learning all that stuff and think of thinking about like how much you had to do and how much you had to grow and how much you had to learn how to fish, just to be able to pitch like National Geographic, right? Then you're kind of like, well, why am I just like cutting out all this, you know, all this learning that someone needs to do, right?

I think that's just kind of, I think it's kind of, um, I, I think it's like. Cutting you off from your growth potential, almost like preventing you from learning how to actually fish. I think that just kind of ends up becoming a disaster. Like I think it be can, it ends up kind of making your business more difficult because you're not actually learning all the skills you need to run your business, right?

Yes. W maybe let's do some woo time real quick. All right. Woo. Did you wanna tell everybody how you're doing with your dental? You look super cute in your blanket. You look like a tiny mermaid. So here's the deal. Charlotte, um, is doing better from her dental. We had to take her in on Monday just to check.

'cause we were really worried that she had an infection, um, in her little area. There you go. Whoop. In her, um, her top canine, her top left canine that was removed. Um, we wanted to make sure you, okay. It is a little crunchy. We wanted to make sure that she didn't have an infection, so we took her in. Seems like she's okay.

We've been giving her some pain meds still, so we thought she was doing okay. So we took her off the pain meds, but uh, it turns out that was not the case, so we put her back on. Um, she's doing a lot better now, so she, her, her gums are healing up still and she's, uh, feeling a lot better. Yeah. And, uh, she's eating like she's eating better than she was.

So like for a while she just would like not eat. She's still wanting to be hand fed. So every single meal she gets like the, uh, I call it the fine dining experience. So she gets the fine dining experience of us, uh, soaking her food in beef stock. And then, um, we hand feed her. You go, there you go. Um, 'cause hot water just isn't good enough.

So she gets beef stock, marinated food, and, uh, but she's doing a lot better, so she's feeling better, which is good. And, uh, her stitches look like they're healing really nicely. The other one though, the other one though, the other one, other one, her stitches look a little, uh, look better than they did when we took her in on Monday.

She seems to be, you know, more interested and. Rolling around outside, which is what she does. Like when she feels really happy, she goes outside and she um, she rolls around in the grass and gets herself all dirty. You might even see like some, she already did it, so she has grass somewhere on her back somewhere, but, uh, so she'll go outside and roll around in the grass and, uh, she's allergic to like all the stuff.

So she's like a typical, she's a pit bull Frenchy mix, so she's kind of like a typical pit bull where she has a lot of allergies. And I guess Frenchies sometimes have allergies too, so. She, uh, she rolls around in everything that she's allergic to and she eats leaves. So she goes around our whole yard and she will just pluck off individual leaves out of all the plants that are growing around our yard.

So she's allergic to all that stuff. Like she, we had to give her baths, uh, every week, or we're supposed to, we haven't been, 'cause she had surgery and I don't want her to get an infection. Um, but so she rolls in everything, so she, she's. She's just like constantly, you know, she's a wild beast, but she's doing good.

You doing good? You feeling better? Yeah. Yeah. You're feeling like a superstar now. Yeah. Feeling like a superstar. She's like, she's like, don't pet me, I want snacks. So that's kind of our Charlie update. She's doing. She's doing a lot better and, uh, she does not have an infection in her gums, which is really good.

Yeah. And, uh, she's, she's being a superstar. She's just being a superstar. Being, yeah. Do you wanna lay down? There you go. All right. Let's talk about two. Karen says she's super cute. Thank you, Karen. She is super cute, Elise. I think so. Um, okay. Let's talk about two. Oh, and Vicki says, thank you for, uh, thank you for this extremely useful etiquette teaching.

Yeah. I think that this is something that is kind of talked about, but not really. So there's like, pitching on social media is an okay thing to do, um, pitching on social media, I think especially if you're just giving an idea and you're kind of driving towards their inbox of getting, uh, their email and just kind of keeping it short and sweet.

I think that's totally fine. Don't bombard someone. But I also think that this learning how to phish thing is really important. There's a reason why someone just doesn't hand over their editor's email, right? Like, let's say they, they've spent a long time. So like, there's times where, um, there's many editors that I've talked to for years, like there's publications I've, I've worked with for years and years and years.

And I'm not gonna, like, I'm not gonna jeopardize my relationship to just give an email out, right? Like I spent a lot of time pitching or working hard on my content or making sure I'm following all their guidelines or finding their emails or doing all this stuff, or, um, doing all the edits. Like I've done all this hard work of.

Following up or building the relationship. And then it's like, I'm not gonna kind of tarnish that. That's a really important thing. Right. Um, and I also think the, the piece to think about is like, editors want good pitches. They don't just want more pitches. Right. So we kind of, I feel like especially for us writers who, um, can help other writers and teach them like how to write a good pitch, um, and help them understand how to get in the magazine versus just like sending them an email.

Right. I think that's more important and teaching you how to fish, teach you how to pitch, um, so that when you do pitch, you get at least an answer, a yes or no answer or something. I think that's more valuable than forking over an email address and being like, good luck. I just, I think sometimes, um, that, like, I think there are times where sharing email, excuse me.

I think there are times where sharing email addresses. Is important and useful. Um, and there are times where like, I think people need to do a little bit more work before they kind of get that email. Like they, like, you know, they need to work on their pitches, they need to kind of like understand the magazine a little bit more.

Um, they need to like actually do the research. 'cause if we just kind of do that all the time, then people don't know how to do it, right. There's no. There's no like, um, extra piece of teaching them how to fish to like, because then they're like, well, does anyone have a, an email for someone at so-and-so company?

Right? Like, all of these are, are, are, um, domino effect skills that apply to your whole business. And I don't think cheating someone out of learning that is useful to their business, I think it's kind of like cutting them short almost. Okay. Let's talk about this. So we've talked a little bit about two already, but for two, oops.

Hold on. But for two. So, um, I still, I think if you're gonna pitch, I think your best things to do these short pitches are if you're gonna send a LinkedIn connection request. Um, or if you are, um, going to do something on Twitter, Instagram, sometimes it really depends. But I think Facebook and. TikTok or just like a no go.

I just don't think those are useful. So we also wanna make sure that they are where the editors are. Right. Are your editors spending a lot of time on Twitter, which is pretty common. Editors are more so on Twitter than I've seen, than Instagram. They might have an Instagram profile, um, but it's not a place where they do business activities.

Twitter, LinkedIn are places where they do business activities. Flower power is a question. Quick question. Okie dokie. Flower power says. Sorry. How do you recommend redirecting when someone, okay, wait a minute. How do you recommend redirecting when someone knows you've worked with X, Y, Z and have someone's email, not gatekeeping, but not wanting to risk your professional relationship with the business or like publication?

Okay, so for me, um, I do a couple things. So, um, I, this is a really good question. So you, the first thing to remember is like you're, just because you worked with a publication or a company does not mean you're obligated to fork over an email. That's it. Number one, you're not obligated to do anything. Two, this is why I always recommend that people make a lot of freelance friends, so that you have like a network that you trust that you can share these things where we don't have to worry about a question like this.

We're like, I've known like, um, my friend Amy, I've known Amy. Since 2016, I would trust her with anybody's email. Like I've seen her work, I know her stuff. So that for me is, is a lot easier. So if I have a random, like a random person emailing you saying like, Hey, I saw you wrote for blah, blah, blah. Can I have their email?

And you don't know that person, don't share the email, right? This would be someone that you know, this is someone that you either like have connected with, you, have a relationship with them, you know, this person. It may not be as deep as someone you've known for years, but this particular question, Um, I think the deal is that I do recon straight up.

I'll tell you right now, if someone that I kind of warm, like it's kind of a warm no, like I'm, I don't know them deeply and I, it's not cold, but like I've talked to them a bunch and I kind of know them. I. I go do recon. I look at your LinkedIn, I look at your website, I read a bunch of your clips, I see what you've done, right?

I look at kind of what you've been working on and uh, I will decide from there. So there's that. So number one, if I'm gonna do recon first, if you go look at their work and their work is good and you're like, sweet, that sounds like a good thing, then you can say, Hey. Um, and it's someone, you know, okay, you're sharing an editor's email with someone you know, and you've looked at their work, you know that they do good work, then you feel comfortable sharing it.

Do so. Um, if you are looking at their work and their work is not good and you're just like, this is not, you know, not gonna work, um, you can always redirect by saying something like, Hey, the email that I have is from years ago and I know that they changed their email convention. 'cause those magazines will change their email convention all the time.

So you can say something like, Hey, they've changed their email convention, or, um, I don't feel comfortable sharing that editor's email with you right now. Um, but best of luck in your pitching, right? So you can go tell them to do the research. Hey, go look at the new conventions. My editor's email's super old.

That editor isn't even at that publication anymore. Obviously tell the truth where like, you know, it applies. But, um, this is for also, um, You can recommend databases. So the first thing is like re do recut on their work. Decide if you just wanna straight up share it and it's someone, you know, two, you can say like, Hey, I worked with them a long time ago.

Or, um, I know that their convention changed, or I, sorry, I just don't feel comfortable sharing my editor's email address. You know, best of luck in your pitching. Um, and then the third thing is, um, you can look at their pitch. You can say, Hey, yeah, uh, do you want me to send, you know, I feel I would feel more comfortable sharing my editor's email.

I. If I read your pitch first, you know, if I could see kind of like what you're doing, um, you can always do that. But there's always kind of this thing where, um, I feel like there's times where that you will get people that you kind of don't know their work or you kind of like they're in the same circle, but you don't really know them, know them.

Um, you can always say like, I don't feel comfortable sharing my editor's email address. Um, you can always say something like, Hey, can you share your pitch? Do recon on them. Um, You can, um, make sure that they're kind of like in the same kind of level. 'cause there's lots of times, and this is, this is a thing that I've noticed, there's lots of times where someone will send me a pitch or I'll read through their work and their work is fantastic.

And I'm like, yeah, you definitely should be pitching this place. Like you work is great. You're like, you, you should send pitches and then I'll share the email. Um, the other thing that you can do is just send them to a database. Hey, um, I, you know, I'm not sure if my editor's email is still accurate, or you can say, um, Hey, I don't feel comfortable sharing my editor's email, but if you go to blah, blah, blah database, right?

There's the travel magazine database. Lindy Alexander has a database. There's tons and tons of databases out there, um, that are giving editor emails or giving ti uh, tips on pitching. You can send them to a database and tell them to do that recon on the, on their own. Um, but yeah, I think, um, a lot of times, like there's no, there, you're not obligated to share anything.

You're not obligated to share any emails or anything just because you've written for a publication or just because someone wants it. Right? Like, that would be crazy. I. So you can redirect in a number of ways. Um, but like you can always straight up just tell 'em, Hey, I don't feel comfortable sharing my editor's email.

Best of luck pitching. You can share a resource. Hey, you can try hunter.io or try blah blah blah database to find an email. But yeah, like I think, um, this, this is another good point I think is good to mention here is like there'll be a lot of times where you talk to businesses on social media.

Businesses will not understand how publications work. They're like, they, they think that if you've written for a publication or you have a contributor status or something that you can just write about whatever you want. Like they, they literally think that there's, they don't understand the journalistic ethics.

So this is another thing that will happen with businesses where they're like, Hey, can you just send your editor's email over? Or, um, Hey, I saw you wrote for blah, blah, blah publication. Can you, um, just pitch us out? Can you pitch our company out? Or can you just include us in the, your next story? Like, they don't understand that journalistic part, uh, the ethics part.

So this isn't just a question you'll get from other writers. This isn't just a question that will be like, give me your thing. Um, this will also be something that your business clients will ask. They will say like, we really wanna be in blah, blah, blah publication you've written for them. Just write about us, or, um, can you just pitch us to your editor or send us your editor's email or whatever.

That's a no-no. That's a no-no. Okay. Journalistic ethics, like, don't do that. Don't do that. Okay. Um, I know a bunch of comments came in. So Flower power Patric. Uh, Patty says that Charlotte is a beautiful wild beast. She is a beautiful wild beast. Look at you, you little funny little cutie. You wanna give everybody some high fives?

Good job. Yeah, she's doing much better after her, after her dental. Good job beam. You do another one? Kind of, sort of, but not really the other one. Just this one. Okay. She is a beautiful wild beast. She's a cutie. All right, so let's see. Um, hold on. I know there's other comments in here, but there we go. Okay.

Um, flower para says this is all super helpful. It's hard when it's that middle ground with newer folks who are still learning research detective skills and don't have a lot of experience but wanna share. Thank you. Yeah, there's there. That's why I like to do recon. So like if I have someone who's kind of in the middle where I'm like, Ooh, I don't know.

Um, I will do recon on their work. Like I will go look at their stuff and I will kind of guess what they pitched and what they didn't. So I'll kind of see like, okay, if someone was either assigned this or they were pitching this, I will look at their stories. I will look at the quality of their research, I will look at the quality of their interviews.

I will look at the structure of their stuff. I will look at. Uh, how they're kind of going about, like how does this story flow in con, like, is this a story that really sticks out from the rest of the publication or is it something that really fits in? Like, there's a lot of things where I, I think the recon helps with kind of that weird gray zone where you're like, uh, maybe, maybe not.

Do the recon on them, go look at their stuff. Um, and I think the other thing too is like there anything that you do in your business or as a freelance writer, if you don't feel comfortable with it straight up, just say that, Hey, I'm not comfortable doing X. Just say that. There's nothing wrong with having boundaries and there's nothing wrong with you.

Um, choosing whatever you want. Like if you just decide, I'm never giving out any editor emails, you can decide to do that. Lots of writers have done that. Right? When I, um, was kind of like 10 years ago, plus more than 10 years ago, there were lots of writers who just like straight up wouldn't share their emails.

The emails of editors there, you know, there's a, there was like an older kind of this like older mindset of like, Nope, I had to find it. You do too. So like, there's still that, but I think that, um, At a certain point, there's a good place to share. So like if I have someone who I know and have known for many years, I know their work, I know the quality, I know how diligent they are.

I know that they do good stuff and that they like I, I'm like, why haven't you pitched, you know, this publication? Then I'll kind of share it. But in the middle ground, like I said, you can always say you're not comfortable. You can always say the email convention changed. You can point them to resources that have editor emails.

Media Bistro is another one. And there's lots of places to find it. Right. That's the thing that I think is kind of missed too with, when we're talking about social media, there are lots of places to find all the conventions, all the emails, who the person is, you just have to do some research. Yes. There are some publications, so like for example, one of my students is trying to pitch aaa.

AAA pays really well. It's a super cool publication, but it's really hard sometimes to find emails because every publication is different and every single AAA publication has a different convention and it's, it's not just@aaa.com, it's like a different, uh, the whole thing is different. It's really hard, so every once in a while there will be publications where it's really difficult to find an email, or at least for me, it was.

And then there's sometimes where there's publications where they just have like 10 different conventions and you just have to send an email to each one and see which one doesn't bounce. Um, so yeah, like there's a lot of these things where, um, it, it's not, it's, there's very rare cases where it's hard to find an email.

So you also kinda have to weigh this kind of like, are you just being lazy or you legit can't find it? Or like what have you done? Right. So like if we are doing all of these steps, right, we don't just assume everyone else is, right? So if I'm going through hours of research, if it takes me three hours, like let's say there's a really difficult email to find, it takes me three to four hours to find it and someone else is like, just give me that.

You're like, well, I just spent four hours of my time trying to find this email address. Why would I just like. Give it to you. Right. So there's a lot of different, um, things that I feel like come into play too, especially when someone isn't willing to do the research. Like if someone comes to me and they're like, I've spent two weeks.

I cannot find it. I don't know how to do it. And you kind of like say, here's how to do the research, and they're like, I did all that. Then you can consider that. But kind of remember that. Um, just because someone's asking for an email address for an editor or trying to pitch an editor that you've worked with doesn't mean they actually went and did the research.

'cause you can find them. We all do. Right? There's lots of us who've, um, I went and go, found all the editor emails pretty much that I needed. There's a few that, um, I think there's like a couple, like maybe three that someone shared with me, but all the other ones I had to go find myself. And I feel like one, it's a scale.

Two, you don't know how much research someone's doing. And three, you kind of can set boundaries on that. Okay. Um, let's see. Go away. There we go. Um, hold on. Vicki says, thank you. I recently had a chance to make the, that wrong choice, but didn't, I was a bit confused why the person was treating me like a company insider.

So you mean like someone asked you for the email and you didn't give it, or like they wanted something at a publication? Vicki says, it's not just other writers that you don't know how serious they are. It's cheap companies. Yeah. There's lots of companies who will do that. Like I said, like there's plenty of times where a company will say, I wanna be in blah, blah, blah, business publication you've written for that publication.

Will you just write about us or will you just give me your editor's email? Or will you tell me like how to do this? Or will you just pitch it to your editor? And that's a big ethical No-no, don't do that. Okay, so moving on. There's a couple other things. Would you like to say anything to the, to the people?

Charlotte? She's like, Nope, I just wanna sit like a sad stuffed animal. Like a tiny little eor. Here you go, kitty. Good girl. You're so funny. I can't believe you sit like that with your little mermaid feet. Your little mermaid feet. All right, let's continue on. So, just general thing on two here, uh, LinkedIn and Twitter are your best betts.

Uh, short and sweet. Moving on. Um, But remember, your whole goal here is to get to their inbox. Your whole goal is to get an email address. That's the point. Okay. Let's talk about three. We're actually gonna combine three and four 'cause this is going like way longer than I thought it would. If you feel like this has been helpful, give it a thumbs up.

If you wanna learn more about, uh, building a freelance writing business, you adore, or pitching editors, subscribe. Okay. So, um, if you hate social media, I think this is an important thing. Um, oh, Vicki says, A cheap company was asking me who to pitch at a publisher I'd written for, and I was wondering how in the world they could find they couldn't find 'em on LinkedIn.

Yeah, sometimes people just like, don't even try. They just straight up don't try. They will just go to someone. Who's written for the publication or who recently posted about it, or they'll just go to any writer. Like they'll just look at who, who ever byline was the most recent. And they'll just email that person, right?

Because our emails are really easy to find. You go to our website or LinkedIn and they're just like, give me this thing. And you're like, no. So yeah, there's a lot of times where clients will e even, they just don't understand the process or they're just like, just give me that. Um, so it's just kind of like, There's a, a, a laziness factor sometime where people are, they think it's networking.

It's not networking to share someone's email where they're gonna bombard them with random stuff, and then they're like, well, you know, Vicki gave it to me and like, Vicki worked with you. No. There's a big difference between networking, preserving relationships, and preserving your own kind of like quality reputation of working with other people who kind of like act like nice people, right?

Rather than bombarding people. So, yeah, I think that's it. It's, remember the journalistic ethics and remember, you can always say no to whatever you want. Okay. So if you hate social media, that's totally fine. Send an email. Don't do social media. I always feel like I need to say this because there's people who will watch this video and they're like, well, I don't wanna do that.

I don't wanna get on social media. Then don't. Don't you have to do something regularly. Pitching and connecting with editors is all about consistency and regularity, right? Which are the same words. So it's all about consistency. Your job is, I, I always send emails like I don't do any of that pitching on social media.

I just know writers who spend a lot of time on there and that's how they get work and that works for them, which is totally fine, do that. But you have to do what works for you. And I feel like. For me, the logic was always like, well, the drive is to get back to their inbox. Why would I go to social media just to go back to the inbox that I was already in?

Right? So for me, I feel like if you hate social media, fine, go do the research, find the email. It's really not that tough. It's not. Um, like I said, every once in a while you'll get a publication where every single publication has a different convention and it has a different, um, website. So it'll have a different.com at the end, and that can be really tough.

But most of them you can find and figure out. Um, and if not, try 10 different conventions. Literally, I've done that to pitch, uh, a couple magazines where I just try like 10 different options. Like first name at publication, first name, last name at publication, first letter, last name. You know, I've tried a ton and eventually it works.

But, um, I think a lot of times if you just don't like social media, you don't wanna pitch an idea, you don't wanna be on there, don't now you don't have to pitch on social media to use social media as a tool. So, for example, you could go to Twitter and just look at someone's, uh, look at the editor's tweets, right?

If you wanted to look and see like, are there specific topics they're pitching? Am I interested in those? Could I have some ideas? That's an option. The other thing is there's a tool, I, I'm pretty sure, uh, the tool still exists. It's called All My Tweets. So if you go to all my tweets and you log into Twitter through all my tweets, you can just see the tweets of of one account, right?

So like if I go to an editor that I know I wanna pitch, right? I know it's the right editor for the section, or for who takes specific pitches, I can use all my tweets. To pull all of their tweets. Right? And I can just do like command F, right? The fine tool or control F if you're on a pc. And just look for.com and I can just scroll through all their, you know, all the ones where.com comes up and see if their email's in there and poof, now I have their email, I can move on with my life.

So a lot of times there's different ways to go about finding their email or using social media as a tool to figure out like what they're looking for, what special sections are coming up, if there's certain ideas they want or if they're looking for certain types of writers. Right. So, um, a lot more publications have been looking for, uh, to be more inclusive.

So they're looking for a bigger, um, more wider range of perspectives. So sometimes they will tweet about like, Hey, we're looking for more writers who are, have these kinds of ideas or these kinds of perspectives. So that's another option as well. But I always feel like if you don't like social media, don't do it.

There's a lot of like, um, um, Vicki says, hooray, I've advanced to having people with laziness factor asking me for stuff. Yeah. You know, that means that they think that you are, uh, a person of interest. I always think, um, um, what did I call it? I used to call it like, um, um, What did I call it? There was like a joke that I used to have with myself.

Um, and Tommy knows the joke. I used to say like, I'm a per uh, there, um, like a, um, not a person of note, but like, I forget what it was, but I used to have a phrase that I would joke about is like, when I would get these things where someone's like, give me an email. I'm like, oh, I'm like a person of interest, right?

Like I, I'm like someone who's like not an, an unknown goop anymore, right? So I would often joke about that, but it is a thing like people, you know, you start becoming more well known. So you either get more press releases or people start emailing you about weird stuff or, um, it is kind of like this thing where it is like a, a person of note essentially.

Okay. Um, with social media. So, okay, let me go back. There's a lot of times where people will say, you have to do X to be successful, right? You have to get on Instagram in order to do this, or you have to do, um, social media's hot, you gotta do this thing. Or there's nothing that will work if you won't do it consistently.

Okay? So no matter how amazing it is to do whatever, like no matter what newfangled thing or what or any, um, Like trend or they're like, oh my gosh, writers have to be on blah, blah, blah platform. You don't, there are writers I know who do not have LinkedIn and do not have a website. They've been writing for a really long time.

So like different story. But there are writers I know who do not have LinkedIn, who do not have a website, who literally just email stuff and then, and they get work, right? But they've been working for a long time. They have a lot of clips, different kind of than today's writer. But if you hate it and you won't do it consistently, don't do it.

Okay. Pitching. Pitching needs to be done right. And it's something where you need to do it in the format that works for you. For me, that's doing my, like emailing, just doing regular email. Yeah. Sometimes I guess I'll flu around on social media for that, but, um, I think that a lot of times I get, well not think, I know I get notes from people saying like, so-and-so expert told me I had to do this, or else I'm not gonna do this.

The only thing you have to do is get your stuff out there. So you do have to send Lois and you do have to send pitches. That's something you have to do. And that's part of getting clients. You've got, you know, if you don't get clients, you don't have a business, right? So that's something you need to do, but you can always do it in the way that works for you.

You can always, like even people who, um, even students I've had who said they hated marketing, like once we kind of went over how to do it in their own way or we kind of like, Figured out how to remove some roadblocks. Then they're like, great. I love it now. It's fun. It's fun. Now it, there's a lot of things that I think when we think about sending pitches that get in the way of making it seem fun.

Or making the process more fun. And I think that if you just kind of like think about what works best for me and what you can do consistently, then it's a lot easier to kind of go through it rather than worrying about, I hate social media, I don't wanna do this kind of stuff. Okay, that's three. What do you think, Charlie?

Charlie, should we do one more P date? What do you think? Yeah. Oh my gosh. Why do you look so cute today with your little funny legs and your little side side? You're so cute. Yeah, I. I know it's harder to chew with four less teeth, right? It's harder to chew with four less teeth. But you know what, Charlotte, those four less teeth were holding you back.

So you should be back to being a sparkle pony any day now. Okay, let's talk about four. So, um, let's talk about pitching, uh, standing out. So when we're talking about social media versus email, Your pitch stands out on social media by getting to the effing point. Okay? So like when you are, when you are pitching on social media, do not send, I've said this, don't send a ton of dms.

The social media thing is to send a DMM and say like, Hey, I have an idea about this. It answers X, Y, Z questions, or It covers X, Y, z things. If this is interesting, could you share your email? I will. Can you share your email and I'll send you the full pitch. So social media is all about get to the point and the of of what you're pitching and ask for the email or.

On social media, you're looking for like topics, uh, things they're looking for, pitches on types of writers or types of things that they, they want or perspectives, um, or you're looking for, like, did they share their email and I can just send them an email. When you're sending an email pitch, send them the whole pitch.

The email is all about like actually doing the pitch. Okay. So social media is a, is like, is the crumb. Of the email. Okay. Your social media stuff should be the crumb of, I know you're so cute. With your little licks. Should be the crumb of the full cookie. That is the email. Okay. So your email is the full pitch.

I like, kind of like a four paragraph pitch and those paragraphs are short. They're like two to three sentences. So like it's, I always say this headline, first paragraph is like, you have to hook me in. It should be exactly in the same style and tone. Um, and. Structure as what they have in the magazine. So that first paragraph needs to be exactly like as if I'm reading it in the magazine already.

It should be style, tone, structure. Do they start with a question? Do they start with a stat? Do they start with a shocking first liner? Right? So that first paragraph is like questions, stats kind of build them in. Second paragraph can be supporting evidence so it can be more. Stats or more information that's useful.

Third paragraph can be, should be like, in this article I'm gonna either interview people and or pull some research and I'm gonna answer these questions. And then your last paragraph is like, I'm a writer. I've either written for these publications or I have worked in this field for a while, or at least some, some kind of bio about yourself.

And that's it. Move on with your life. Your, it's much, much more advanced and it has a lot more stuff than what you do on social media. I personally, and I'm sure there's people who have found this differently, but I personally, the most successful writers that I know who have pitched on places like Twitter, um, they go short, sweet to the point email and then they send the full pitch to their email.

So don't go droning on. And I, uh, the same thing with LinkedIn messaging. Send a connection request with a similar thing. I have an idea. It's covering these things, it's answering these questions. I would love to connect and. If you like this idea, um, share your email. The other thing is once you send an email pitch, okay, once you've sent your pitch, go connect with your editor on LinkedIn.

I've done this every single time and it makes it very, very easy for me to figure out, like when I have another pitch, like, should I pitch that person again? Do they still work in that publication or did they move? Uh, it gives you a lot of intel into what's going on. So every time you send an email pitch, connect with that editor on social media or on LinkedIn.

When you go to LinkedIn and say, Hey, so and so, I just sent you a pitch. I would love your thoughts, but I thought it would also make sense for us to connect on LinkedIn. Even if they never answer your pitch, at least you're connected on LinkedIn. So, you know, like if they go to another publication, you could pitch that publication or you know that if they change positions and now they're editor in chief, you need to pitch somebody else.

Right? Really important stuff there for knowing who to pitch where they are. Uh, what kind of the structure is. Do you want some more snacks? She's like moving around. I know it's tough being a tiny mermaid. Okay, so email versus social media. Your drive is always to email, but remember that social media is kind of your cookie crumb and then the whole cookie is the email pitch and keep it short and sweet to the point.

Okay? We're gonna pop Charlie on 'cause she looks Charlotte. We sometimes make jokes that Charlotte is all neck and shoulders. So this is like actually a really good view of her. Like she, she just has a very small neck, but it's all like neck and shoulders. Here you go, Keating. So she just looks like a, she just looks like ior.

There's so many times where we just look at her and she just looks like a sad, stuffed animal, Eeyore. And one of those times, this is how she normally looks. You guys normally see her from the front, but most of the time when we see her, she looks like this. She looks like that from the back. She's kind of like leaning on something, which she is right now, or she's got her little legs stuck out like her little Turkey legs and she just looks like this little.

This little bat. This bat that got lost somewhere. Okay, so I hope that this was helpful. I hope it kind of helps you understand like how things kind of get structured, how we kind of work with social media and top magazines and editors, how like I always kind of think of this last little piece. I think this is important too.

It's your job. It's your job to go find the editor, to go figure out who that is, to find the editor's email. Do that. No one is supposed to do your job for you. Don't shortcut yourself by trying to just go to everybody and get emails. So this is something that can be kind of common is people are like, I don't wanna do the work.

I'll just go get it from someone else. You are really shortchanging yourself. These are really essential skills that you need to run your business. So, As you kind of like, no one is there to do your job for you. No one is there to just like, you know, continue to give you a break by giving you every editor email ever, right?

That's, that's not, um, that's not their job. Your job is always to go find stuff. You have to run your own business. Freelance writing is running your own business, so it's your job. To find editors, figure out which editor's the right one to figure out resources to learn what to do, to figure out how to do, uh, find the editor's emails, um, and to build connections.

'cause like, I feel like a lot of times building connections is one of those ways where like maybe, you know, you don't, um, you don't end up getting some, you know, you're not gonna get something right away. But building those relationships, um, is like really important to. Um, getting work or helping other people get work or helping other people figure things out, right?

Like I said, like I have a friend, Amy, who I've been friends with for a very long time. If she was like, I wanna pitch blah, blah, blah publication, and I had the email, I'd be like, here's, here's the three conventions I know of. I would tell her, because I trust her, right? I have built many, like, we've built many, many years of a relationship and I know her work and I know the quality of her work, right?

So I feel like a lot of times when we're. Going through this stuff, just kind of remember that it's your job to do these things. Yes, you can ask for help. And yes, there are plenty of times where building relationships comes in handy. Um, and there's plenty of times where like you can, um, if you just spend an hour, you can find the email or even 10 minutes, like it could, it could pop up pretty easily and you can send the pitch and move on with your life, right?

So a lot of times there's this. This is kind of the thing I think about. Like if someone just comes to you and says, can I have their email? And they like, right. Like let's say there like, this is why editors hide their email, right. So like, let's say for, for a random reason, someone, um, one top editor had their email on their, like on LinkedIn or on Twitter, and someone emailed you instead, like they didn't even bother checking that editor out on social media or checking them out on LinkedIn to find their email.

They just emailed you, right? That wouldn't feel very good to just fork over the email when someone easily could have found it online, right? This is kind of the thing I think about is like, if they're not doing that research, that doesn't reflect very well on their pitch and it doesn't reflect very well on me for sharing that email.

Right. There needs to be a level of, of research and accountability for finding your own stuff and being responsible for your own business. Uh, and there also needs to be kind of a level of like them being, being driven and interested enough to go find those things, right, to go figure it out. So I feel like there's, um, like kind of remember that it's not that you're being, like there's times where people will say like, they're a bad person 'cause they didn't do this thing.

No. That person needs to actually help themselves before you help them. They need to kind of do some stuff before you just fork it over. Right? So I think that's really important. Karen says it was very helpful. Amazing. I'm glad you liked it, Karen. I'm glad it was helpful. So, uh, we're here every Friday. I do a live stream every Friday at noon central time.

We always do a new topic, so if you ever have a topic or a question that you want me to answer on the live stream, you can just put it into mandy ellis.com/question. Yes, you can be anonymous if you like. Um, and if you haven't gotten my free pricing guide for freelance writers and content strategists, go to mandy ellis.com/pricing guide and grab that.

One last thing, um, for those who asked, runway is coming up on Monday. So, uh, the best way to hear about Runway first is to go to mandy.com/pricing guide, get the pricing guide. Runway is opening for enrollment on Monday. So if you, um, were like, runway is, uh, typically two 50. So right now you can get runway.

If you go to mandy ellis.com/runway, you can purchase, uh, the lifetime access version for two 50. But sometimes like. On Monday, I run runway for a special price. So if you are interested in that, grab my free pricing guide. It'll add you into my weekly tips and tricks emails. And on Monday we're gonna talk about runway.

So that'll be coming up. Um, I hope everybody has a good weekend, just like Flower Power says. Everybody have a good weekend. Um, I hope that, uh, you guys found this helpful and um, I will see everybody next Friday at noon Central time. Um, have a good day. Bye.

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