It’s that time of year where I look back at all of the changes that happened in social media and choose those best blog posts that you want to make sure you read. I’m going to start with Twitter for my 2010 best of lists, and I think you’ll be happy with the mix of resourceful blog posts that were published that cover both tips for beginners as well as business-related and insightful analytical posts for intermediate and/or experts. Of course the biggest functionality added to the realtime platform was its new user interface, so I have made sure to …
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I hope that the title to this blog post knocked you out of your comfort zone, because that was my intention in writing this guide. Don’t get me wrong: LinkedIn is still an essential part of your job search, and having an optimized LinkedIn profile and networking with others on that platform is still a prerequisite in helping you land your next job. But where LinkedIn may have been the ultimate differentiator for the job seeker two years ago, it no longer is. Instead, it’s time to start thinking about investing more time in utilizing Twitter for your job search. …
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Once you’ve been active on Twitter for awhile, you will begin to realize that the micro-blogging platform is not just about you and your tweets: it’s about everyone. You could say it’s a huge chat room, and everyone is vying for attention. One of my friends thinks that Twitter is more like a high school popularity contest than anything else. But one thing is for sure: If you’re only talking about yourself, no one wants to listen. Talk about relevant issues to a target audience and people start to follow you and listen to what you’re tweeting. In such a …
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Despite the fact that Twitter has apparently grown from 58 to 175 million users in less than a year, it is clear that some of those “users” are actually “bots” or even corporations who have several different accounts to serve their current and potential customers with. Case in point: Dell alone has more than 30 Twitter accounts. All it takes is an email address to register a new account, so it is not uncommon for even some individuals to have multiple usernames. This may explain why, outside the networking circles of those active in social media, there are many people …
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Today’s blog post is from someone I met Windmill Networking on Twitter, Aaron Lee. Aaron represents how truly global Twitter (and social media) have become, as I have been able to build up a virtual relationship with him being in Malaysia through someone else I met on Twitter that was in Hong Kong! Aaron is very social on Twitter, so if you haven’t been following him, you’re missing out on great tweets and getting to know a great person. When he commented on my previous blog post as to where to find great content to tweet, I thought that we …
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Twitter is both a tool for communicating with your network as it is about sharing information that interests you. While you may only connect with those in your professional network on LinkedIn and friends & family on Facebook, we are also following those that we share a similar interest with on Twitter that is helping to expand our networks. If you are active on Twitter, then, you are probably already sharing information that your target audience, whether personally or professionally, might be interested in. Sure, there’s never a lack of personal information that you can share about yourself, but …
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I find that Twitter is slowly becoming a “last resort” for consumers who are having issues with businesses and cannot get them resolved through the normal means of phoning or emailing customer support. We’ve seen it time and time again, made famous by @Dooce and the Maytag washing machine incident, but repeated by many others, including myself which I documented in my how to deal with angry customers on Twitter post, that a tweet is the most direct and quickest way of getting out your message to the world in realtime when all else fails. As Twitter membership grew by …
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There are many reasons why people use hashtags (#) on Twitter: categorizing a tweet, joining a trending topic conversation, or tweeting about a live event while virtually networking with attendees. Without your knowing it, some of those using hashtags may even be engaging in Twitter Chats: You can safely assume that anyone using a hashtag that ends in “chat” is doing so. Last week I announced that Perri Gorman and myself would be starting a new #JobChat every Tuesday from 5 to 6 PST, so for those of you who are still new to the concept, I have created a …
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The following is a true story. It was late at night when I arrived at my hotel, a little past midnight. It was a long day and I had a morning meeting with a client scheduled for the next day, so I was looking forward to getting to sleep as soon as I could. Unfortunately, circumstances would not allow me to do so: after asking for my name, the hotel, which is part of an American hotel chain with a very well-respected brand image, told me that they had an overbooked situation and had no room for me. This was …
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As social media begins to envelop every part of a corporate organization, it becomes important that every employee begins to have a certain level of literacy in using social media tools. This becomes even more important in outward-facing rules where “social business” is changing the way companies engage with present and potential customers over Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and blogs. At some point, just as companies emerged that used the Internet as their platform (Amazon, Netflix, etc.), we will see new companies arise that purely use social media as their platform. And when that happens, it is a natural that they …
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