It recently occurred to me that Twitter is the technical version of passing along newspaper and magazine clippings. Early in my career, I was an Assistant Office Services Manager with Litton Educational Publishing. Sandwiched in with the large manila envelopes, bills, and journals were clippings from the New York Times and other publications that had a handwritten distribution list. Those articles fascinated me.
As my career progressed to sales and marketing, I learned first hand the importance of both gathering and sharingi information. A 100 word article passed along to the right person combined with A-1 client relationship management could have a favorable impact on my performance. You see, people remember you not for the simple, every day gestures that say “I care about what is important to you.”
Technologies like Twitter, FaceBook, and LinkedIn have made make it easier to transform handwritten distribution lists into an instant touch across gloabl boundaries that, if done correctly, will catch the attention of hiring managers, recruiters, and professionals.
Here are some do’s and don’ts that will help you engage your audience:
Do
- Treat people as individuals. Share information they want and NEED to read about.
- Use Twitter Search to determine keywords and what people want to know about.
- Be responsive to your followers. Answer and talk to followers as individuals
- Have 2 FaceBook pages – one for yourself and one for your business or services. Post relevant information to both.
- Use a professionally written LinkedIn bio that shows your value as opposed to regurgitating your resume in paragraph.
- Be generous – retweet articles, acknowledge others for their contributions, help your audience connect with other professionals.
- Be consistent and trustworthy. Steady postings that help others will also help you achieve your goals.
- Use Google Chrome to translate Tweets into languages other then English, German, Italian, Spanish, French, Japanese
Don’t
- Post where you are, you might compromise your safety.
- Sell or market yourself or your promote your services.
- Be lackadaisical. The occasional tweet or post is like a drop of water in the ocean. No one notices the impact.
- Make your personal business public. If you have a problem with someone deal with it in private.
- Lose focus of why you are using the technology.
Do you play games like Farmville or other applications. If yes, what has been your experience.
