If you’re on a job search, you’re already probably spending a lot of time on the internet.
We’ve already talked about how LinkedIn can help your search. But there is a less formal social media platform that can have just as significant an impact—Twitter.
I read an interesting article the other day on Social Media Examiner: 17 Twitter Marketing Tips from the Pros. A lot of the tips in that article are terrific, but I thought they missed a very important marketing angle – marketing oneself on a job search. So here’s my take on their tips…and a few of my own.
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- “Share Valuable Content in Your Own Voice.” I couldn’t agree more! I would add that creatives who are copywriters should craft those 140 characters even more carefully than the general user. Artists and designers should also make sure to include links to their visual work as often as possible.
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- “Share Links to Useful Content.” Their advice is to share more links than you do @replies. This is a good reminder to be helpful. If you have something insightful to say about something you read, link back. If you offer valuable links often enough, your followers will be happy they followed you. You never know who might be reading your feed and looking to fill a creative role!
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- “Use Search Features.” The article talks about using search to find out what your customers want. When you are looking for work, you can use search to your advantage as well. Search ‘“creative” “Los Angeles”’ or “looking for a designer” and other keywords to get a quick list of potential openings and feeds to follow.
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- “Improve Your Networking.” In our posts about LinkedIn, we discussed that joining groups to interact with influencers with whom we are not personally connected is a great tip. Twitter is even better for this since you can follow anyone on the platform. When you find the thought leaders in your industry, follow them, retweet them, reply to them, engage with them. Eventually, you will be connected to them, too!
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- Twitter and Blogs. If you are following interesting people who also write on longer-form blogs, follow their links, read their blogs, and comment on them. This deepens the rather shallow relationships of Twitter into real interactions and might get you another Follower yourself. If you are blogging, make sure you Tweet links to your blog as well. Do it often.
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- Tweet more often. People with large Follow lists will miss you completely if you only Tweet in the morning or once or twice a day. Or they could be in a different time zone and not reading during your workday. Although it is a good idea not to Tweet 10 times in 2 minutes, every half hour or so is a nice place. You can use a scheduler like HootSuite to set up a whole day of posts in 30 minutes!
- Use the limitations of Twitter to hone your message. 140 characters isn’t much but they can be extremely powerful. Eliminate the extraneous. Be clear. Be concise. Twitter is a little bit (only a little) like writing poetry. It doesn’t work until there is nothing left to cut out.
Twitter may be a fun platform for more playful and informal conversation, but it does have some of the social media “etiquette” – write carefully, provide valuable original content, and engage with others. If you put some thought into Twitter, it can work for you in any business context.
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Wendy Stackhouse, for Artisan Creative