I’ve been watching several of the presentations from the recent #140 Conference in LA, a conference that explores Twitter’s impact on everything from politics to news to art to education to science (and everything in between).
Sean Percival (@lalawag), Alexia Tsotsis (@sfweekly), and Erin Broadly (@laweekly) presented “Twitter for Rock Stars” and discussed what Sean Percival described as “giving good tweet” and getting your “15 characters of fame.” Here were my top takeaways from their presentation.
- Have a great avatar. If you think this isn’t important, read this post.
- Have a sense of humor and let your personality come through.
- Listen more than you talk. Don’t just post information about yourself. Share other people’s successes, retweet their tweets, and don’t saturate your peeps with tweets.
These tips are great guidelines for job seekers as well. Here are a few more tips for using Twitter in your job search.
- Don’t tweet that you are looking for work. Instead, tweet about relevant projects, professional association meetings, or volunteer work you are doing. Position yourself as an active professional, even if you aren’t actively employed.
- Tweet job leads that might help others. Try Twitter Job Search or Twitter Job Cast.
- Follow recruiters and companies with brands you admire. This may help you find a contact inside the company, get closer to the decision maker, and better understand the company’s corporate culture.
- Find hashtags that are relevant to your industry or job function. Start by following the hashtag and then contributing to the conversation.
- Monitor who is following you and proactively think about how you can help them gain visibility on Twitter through #FollowFriday or retweeting. Genuine reciprocity is an important component of a strong networking strategy and Twitter can help you recognize others in your network.
Want to view this presentation and others from the conference? Watch the #140 Conference videos or read more by following the Twitter hashtag at #140conf.
