29

Sep

Building a Twitter Community

Written by Abby Parnell

Twitter, along with many other social networking sites has become a modern day communication site between anyone who can make a statement worth reading in 140 characters or less. Within those tight requirements people are building an audience and carving themselves into “micro-bloggers.”

 

Twitter is growing at a rapid pace and forming into a world community that has a lot of followers and a lot of non-believers. Job seekers are posting their qualifications, and recruiters are matching them to positions. News reporters are moving from print to online and countries are using it to correlate demonstrations. Look what it did to the Iran Election!

 

 

People are following their favorite bands to see when they are playing their next concert, when their next CD is coming out and what their thoughts are in general about the world. Stores are letting customers know their promotions; associations are announcing their next events and people are going!

 

For job seekers, this is an opportunity to show yourself to the world. Social networking sites are allowing job seekers to market themselves, and this is giving them the ability to explain their credentials in an eye-catching way. Recruiters will post links to job postings, reporters post links to their stories and the list goes on. Be creative and see what you can find!

 

Twitter Your Way to Finding a Job

  1. Create a profile. Challenge yourself! You can market yourself and develop a network of people to follow.
  2. Don’t be shy, advertise your job loss. Telling your “followers” that you’ve lost your job can be humiliating, but it can also help you find your next position.
  3. Don’t tweet without thinking. Remember that you are marketing yourself. Sometimes sitting behind a computer screen may seem anonymous, although just like LinkedIn or Facebook, you do not want to post any questionable content. What you feel might be funny may come across as offensive to someone else.

Visit the New York Times article All You Need to Know to Twitter, by Paul Boutin to find out the “less obvious tips and tweaks to get more from tweeting” at http://tinyurl.com/AllYouNeedtoTweet.