“Which tactic in this campaign surpassed your expectations?”

That was one of the questions winners at the PRNews Digital Awards were asked to address in their brief acceptance speech. As I sat there trying not to throw up at the prospect of having to give an acceptance speech, my mind immediately went to what I would consider to have been our most (surprisingly) effective tactic from Zenyatta’s “Quest for Perfection Campaign” for Breeders’ Cup.

The answer was easy: Twitter.

It sounded simple enough in theory when we were brainstorming ideas (and, admittedly, a little hokey) that we would set up a handle and Tweet as Zenyatta. People went wild for it. Through the combination of humor and exclusive access leading up to the biggest race of her career, Zenyatta grew a following of nearly 1,600 in less than one month. Stories online linked to her handle and her Tweets were being quoted – for the first time fans were given direct (somewhat) access to their favorite mare. We hadn’t even considered the horsepower (pun intended) that such a tactic would generate.

I love Twitter as a key communications tool, and that love grew during the Twitter panel at the PRNews Digital PR Next Practices Summit the following day. Burson-Marsteller’s Dallas Lawrence said something that resonated with me, “Twitter has become the mainstream newsroom.”

As PR practitioners, our landscape is continually evolving-the lines between news outlets and blogs, journalists and bloggers, fact and fiction is continually being blurred.  You could make a solid argument that Twitter has been the most dominant force in that shift. Not only is Twitter where news tends to hit first – as opposed to the old days when the morning paper dictated “news of the day” – but it is also increasingly becoming a resource for journalists.

That same panel at the conference cited a recent study that said nearly half of all journalists turn to Twitter for information and sources. HALF. If you’re not on Twitter, you’ve just significantly reduced your odds of being sought out as a resource by a journalist. Having an opinion, a voice, in this day and age is not only necessary, it’s expected. So easy, even a horse can do it.