Exciting stuff and I hope you enjoy these additional selected articles for your Sunday Brunch Reads (along with Your Sunday Brunch Silicon Valley Catchphrase of the Week) . Eat well and have a great Sunday.
Your Sunday Brunch Silicon Valley Catchphrase of the Week: Solutions That Scale / We’re All About Scalable Solutions.
I hope your Memorial Day Weekend was filled with the company of family and friends around the barbecue grill. Well, that’s how we roll here in the Kansas City area.
It does ring true. I think the show’s most successful in highlighting the deluded self-perception of so many in the industry.“To make the world a better place,” is a running joke and one that struck me as the funniest. When I was a kid, everyone wanted to be in a band—that was the path to girls, adulation, money. By the time I’d reached college, everyone wanted to be a doctor or lawyer, for similar motivations. Now it’s dot-coms—start-up founders are the new rock stars; and the self-importance on display is obnoxious, especially when masked by fake altruism.
Your Sunday Brunch Silicon Valley Catchphrase of the Week: To Make The World a Better Place.
Thanks and enjoy these links as part of your Sunday Brunch: (more…)
I’m publishing this blog post to help every Apple Keynote user on the planet. I encountered this familiar problem last week when using the Keynote software last week: My text kept getting resized as I continued building my deck. A quick Google Search proves I shared this pain with countless users. 1,570,000 Google Search Results Pages (SERPs) can’t be wrong: (more…)
Writing to summarize results and convey information
Writing to communicate ideas or explain informaton clearly
Incorporating information to develop strategic insights
57 Resources to Land that First Marketing Job
There's Hope, If You're Willing to Put in the Work. These various resources are categorized to aid recent college graduates who majored in marketing and communications (or current students majoring in these fields) during their full-time job search (or an internship search for current students).
These resources (along with resources from previous posts in this series) can give recent graduates ideas, strategies, and tactics providing a competitive advantage not only in the job search but also in developing several of the requisite skills and knowledge employers say recent graduates lack.
The categories are listed below with a make-shift table of contents:
Resource 1: Your Online Portfolio, Evan Kirsch and FolioMatch.com
Resources 2 – 9: Resources / Ideas from Tom Peters, Seth Godin, Mitch Joel, and David Meerman Scott
Resources 10 – 18: Career Success Ideas from Dan Schawbel for Young People and Millenials
Resources 19 – 20: Job Search 101
Resources 21 – 28: Interviewing 101 (and Beyond)
Resources 29 – 30: Using Twitter's Real-Time Capabilities to Power Your Job Search
Resources 31 – 46: 21st Century Marketing and Communications: Walk-the-Walk and Talk-the-Talk
Resources 47 – 49: LinkedIn
Resources 50 – 51: Preparing Your Resume
Resources 52 – 57: Inspiration on Demand
Resources 2 – 57 are in no particular ranking or order. I included numbers to track the number of items and subsequently group them with some logic.
Addressing Unmet Needs. FolioMatch.com fulfills HUGE unmet needs for young people who may have recently graduated, will graduate in Spring 2014, or are current college students seeking internship opportunities while in school:
Providing a living/breathing, on-demand online portfolio capturing all relevant projects, class assigments, internship deliverables / work products, accomplishments, awards, etc. throughout a college student's four-year college career
Making it easy to manage and deploy this online portfolio in a one-screen world
Devoting a career-focused, portfolio-centric, social network for a narrow audience (college students AND ambitious high school students)
From the Video."We started FolioMatch to be a one-stop resource for a student to keep track of all the projects they've completed over the years. Since then we have started sponsoring educational challenges so that we could help boost the content of students' portfolios."
Required Full Disclosure / Am I Receiving Any Money / Am I Receiving Any Equity / Am I an Advisory Board Member and other Boilerplate B.S. I Have to Write For Speaking So Highly of Evan and FolioMatch.com. I receive zero, nada, nothing, and any other cliche, etc. in financial compensation for talking up Evan and FolioMatch.com.
If you're a parent who's worried your son/daughter who graduates from college in Spring 2014 may face difficulty in this brutal job market (because the odds are he/she will), go to the FolioMatch.com site and register.
2.Tom Peters / Fast Company: The Brand Called YOU: This August 1997 article is the original classic highlighting the rising importance of personal branding. Mr. Peters was ahead of his time in publishing and describing these timeless career management principles.
Bonus.David Meerman Scott — Inbound Job Search: David published this video on December 2nd. He shares five (5) inspiring stories about people publishing creative and remarkable content to win dream jobs. One of the stories is how his daughter, Allison Meerman Scott, leveraged her personal blog to differentiate herself from thousands of outstanding Columbia University undergraduate applicants to win admission!
I do. And, even though he's 20 years younger, I believe his teachings apply to any age group or professional experience level. He's the epitome of entrepreneurial hustle
These Mashable articles do a great job in describing the basics AND the things to do to stand out. The common theme here is "put in the work." No magical formulas. Just get to work.
The common theme throughout these articles: Prepare. Prepare. Prepare. Do this and you'll eliminate 50% – 60% of your competition before walking in the room.
When it comes to real-time news and responsiveness, there's Twitter and then there's everybody else. Leverage its real-time capabilities to your advantage. Finding out about that open, entry-level position before other candidates is a competitive advantage.
You don't have to memorize vocabulary lists by rote. But, you have to credibly demonstrate your awareness of how marketing, communications, and public relations are constantly changing.
51. LinkedIn Labs Resume Builder: This handy app transforms your LinkedIn Profile into a PDF resume. Therefore, fill out your LinkedIn profile with as much detail as you can.
Inspiration On Demand
52. to 55. LinkedIn Influencers — My First Job Job Series: If you're getting down on yourself during the process, GO HERE IMMEDIATELY. Everyone had to start out somewhere. That includes some of the world's most influential movers & shakers in every industry.
My First Job. I started out as an unpaid, summer laboratory tech intern / dishwasher at The Washington University School of Medicine. Luckily for me, the department's head researcher paid me that fall because my boss said I was a good guy.
56. Jonathan Fields — The Good Life Project: Jonathan is an A-List entrepreneur and a person driven to help others succeed personally and professionally via entrepreneurship. His video interviews are inspiring.
57. Video: Best Day of My Life (Dog Version) by American Authors: Trust me, this video will make you feel soooooo good after watching it no matter how bad you feel. And, it's probably why American Authors are my new favorite band and why this song is now my all-time favorite.
Closing Thoughts
This is post five (and the final one) in a series to help new college graduates and current students land full-time jobs or internships.
If you're a college graduate looking for work, a concerned parent, a worried relative, or a current college student, please let me know in the comments if the content here helped (or if it didn't).
What should be kept on this list? What should be taken off? What resources did I miss? What should be added?
Please help me in continuously improving this page as a helpful resource to others.
Six (6) months have quickly gone by since I started this blog. Without a doubt, it's been one of the most educational, rewarding, and fulfilling experiences I've ever had. For this post, I hope you won't mind me sharing some key lessons.
1. Keyword Phrases / Keywords are Vitally Important in Titles and URLs Google Analytics and Google Webmaster Tools helped me identify the keywords and keyword phrases currently driving my blog traffic from Google searches. For my posts landing on the first pages of Google searches, it's due to specific keywords or phrases in either the title or post URL. Here are some examples:
* Example A — "state of inbound marketing" * Example B — "best invitation on LinkedIn" * Example C — "inbound marketing by brian halligan and dharmesh shah" * Example D — "charlie rose ken auletta"
Search engine optimization (SEO) plays an important role in blogging. Since I'm not a famous blogger with hundreds of other bloggers linking to my blog, I have to pay close attention to optimizing my titles and URLs for Google searches. In each blog post title, I purposely use a keyword phrase or keyword that I think will have relevance or authority in Google. Each of these blog posts earned a first-page Google search result because of the keyword phrasings I highlighted above:
2. An Idea Collection Process and Writing Schedule Will Increase Your Blogging Frequency Google rewards websites that frequently update their content. This is why blogs perform well in search rankings. Plus, every newly published blog post means another opportunity to index a new page in Google's search engine (which increases your chances of being found in organic searches). That's why you want to publish posts as frequently as possible.
When I first started, I struggled to publish a post once per week. As part of my 2010 New Year's resolution, my weekly goal is two per week. By focusing on this goal, I've seen an 80% increase in my blog traffic in the past four weeks. What's been the biggest difference?
A. I started an idea collection process. I now capture blog ideas in Google Docs, Delicious Bookmarks, or a personal email folder. I revisit these collection areas on a periodic basis to remind myself of my original intentions or thoughts for future posts. In the Google Docs file, I usually type out a few bullet points for future reference so I don't forget the idea. I find this tactic especially helpful if it's an idea I that may be one of my next four (4) posts.
B. I follow a writing and publication schedule. To hit the twice per week target, I start writing initial drafts on specific evenings or mornings. When published, the post might not necessarily be perfect and I've learned to revise later. And, that's a huge luxury blogs provide over other publishing mediums.
Here's some of the best advice I've read for improving writing habits and increasing blog post frequency:
* Do your comments get noticed by the authors of the blogs you comment on?
* How often do blog authors acknowledge and respond to your comments?
* Are you leveraging the opportunity to earn more inbound visits to your blog or website from other commenters who might want to learn more about you because you left a thoughtful and helpful comment?
I'm currently reading the outstanding book, Inbound Marketing, by Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah (they are the founders of HubSpot). This book is filled with many pearls for any professional marketer about inbound marketing, and provides clear examples that great marketing isn't limited by the size of your wallet but it's actually your individual creativity and investment of time.
This book has many insights to help professional marketers find ways to increase the online visibility of their companies and thought leadership. One of the many insights they focus on is commenting on blog as a strategy for building your online reputation. For this post, I will focus specifically on being a first-mover in commenting on your favorite blogs so you or your company have better chance of getting noticed by the blog author or other commenters.
Before we go into the specifics of the post, I want to explain how I'm a big fan of the company HubSpot and am an avid participant in their Inbound Marketing University (IMU) curriculum. IMU helps professional marketers from both large and small organizations make better online marketing decisions regarding search engine optimization (SEO), social media, blogging, lead nurturing, and many other important topics. The content shared in IMU is outstanding, and I highly recommend studying its content which HubSpot generously shares online.
Build Your Online Credibility by Commenting on Blogs
"Street cred" in the online world takes time and patience. Halligan and Shah spend a good portion of their inbound marketing strategy on commenting on the blogs of influential bloggers. Building relationships with bloggers starts by commenting on their blogs, and it's a great way to begin building your individual or corporate blogging reputation about a specific industry or online marketing topic (i.e., personal branding, social media strategy, web analytics, etc).
As I've analyzed the inbound link traffic or referring websites to my blog, I've noticed more traffic is coming from the blog posts I comment on. If I write a comment that other commenters deem credible, my web analytics follow-up indicates that other commenters are checking out my blog to learn more about me. These new blog visitors provide a great opportunity to potentially convert new visitors to new subscribers.
Get Noticed by Blog Authors & Their Readers
Halligan and Shah point out that you don't want to be commenter #14 because your comments can be lost in the shuffle. Whenever possible, make it a goal to be one of the first three commenters on a newly published post. How I wish I'd implemented this strategy many months ago when I first started commenting (but that's okay, it's part of the learning process).
I diligently comment on my favorite blogs ~5 to 7 times per week. Now, I respond faster to post my comments and implement a smarter strategy that increases my chances of:
* Earning a response from the blog author and * Attracting inbound traffic to my blog from other commenters
Use a Heads-Up-Display (HUD) So You Respond Faster
One of the best ways to ensure you are one of the first two to three commenters on a post is to create a heads-up-display (HUD) in your iGoogle Home Page. Halligan and Shah recommend setting up a HUD or other monitoring tool via RSS feeds so you're in touch with what's going on in the blogosphere. By the way, this method also works great for Competitive Intelligence gathering (and will probably be the subject of a future blog post).
I monitor the RSS feeds from my favorite blogs to look for newly published posts. This is a more efficient way to stay-up-to-date on great blog content and look for blog commenting opportunities. I initially tried monitoring individual RSS feeds but I found this too cumbersome. A quick scan takes only a few moments (about the length of time to sip and drink my morning cup of coffee).
BTW, let me know if you get a kick out of the screen reflection of my Sunday Morning BedHead! After all, I want to provide some on-screen entertainment – LOL and thanks for reading if you've made it this far.
According to the Bloomberg article, Microsoft has Herculean Task in Taking on Google, Americans conducted 65% of their online searches using Google in May 2009. Bing, Microsoft's latest competitive offering, is making some headway and apparently caught the eye of Google co-founder, Sergey Brin (click here for the June 14, 2009 Mashable article). Bing's potential competitive threat benefits all online users because Google will continue improving its core business. This August 10, 2009 Mashable article discusses how Google's engineering team is upgrading the speed, accuracy, size, and comprehensiveness of Google Search. The project is still in beta mode and is code named, Caffeine. In the foreseeable future, Google's online search dominance will continue so understanding its influence and impact on your online visibility is critically important.
Various reputable news sources report signs of an improving U.S. economy, but I'll believe the economic turnaround when I see it. Unfortunately, Corporate America is still conducting layoffs. Therefore, high online visibility to potential networking connections, corporate recruiters, or employers is vitally important. Whenever any of these three contact points researches "your name" on Google, you want to dominate the first and second page search results. If you don't own the majority of the Top 20 Google results, you may as well be invisible.
To boost your online visibility, I suggest the following five tactics. Each tactic is worth your time and effort. Remember that perfection and technical expertise are not a requirement — Just Get Started! The most important critical success factors are your commitment and persistence.
Start a Blog
Create a Google Profile
Participate in the Big Three Social Networking Sites: Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn
Post Comments on Other Blogs
Register with Frequently Updated Profile Sites (i.e., MyBlogLog, FriendFeed)
Tactic #1: Start a Blog Blogs rank high in Google search results so this tactic cannot be emphasized enough. The Google algorithm rewards websites with frequently updated content. High ranking blogs are routinely updated on an hourly and daily basis. As a result, blogs garner a distinct advantage in the search engine results pages game (e.g., SERPs). This advantage is exactly why businesses and individuals should implement blogging as the foundation of an online marketing strategy.
For an easy-to-understand primer on how to create and maintain a blog, I highly recommend Dan Schawbel's eBook, Blogging Your Brand: A Complete Guide to Your Success. This well-structured reference literally walks you through a step-by-step process that's accessible to both Beginner and Expert bloggers.
Tactic #2: Create a Google Profile One of the quickest and easiest ways to achieve a front-page Google search engine result is by creating a Google Profile. Google introduced this service in Spring 2009. For individuals completing a Google Profile, their name and profile is shown as Google search engine result #10 (in a search for that person's name). The Google Profile launch received a lot of press during this time which triggered a "land grab" for individual names. Still, this shouldn't discourage you from filling out an individual profile.
Another important reason for completing a Google Profile is you can use the customized URL created for your Google Profile as a "virtual business card" when posting your comments on other blogs. When you post a blog comment, you want the blog author and other respective commenters to "see who you are." Until I got my blog up and running, I relied on my Google Profile for posting blog comments or other instances when I required a personal web site URL.
If you need more information about Google Profiles, here are some helpful online resources:
Tactic #3: Participate in the Big Three Social Networking Sites: Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn On June 18, 2009, eMarketer published the article, Facebook Overtakes MySpace. The statistics confirmed Facebook's supremacy as the top social networking site. Additional data I found interesting included how Twitter experienced explosive growth of ~2,700% and LinkedIn grew by 90%. MySpace still ranks as the second largest social networking site, but its traffic and membership are steadily declining. Profiles from these sites rank high in Google Search, but I recommend focusing on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn (especially if you're a social networking newbie). To maximize your online visibility, make sure you consistently employ your real name as your profile username (i.e., www.twitter.com/yourfirstnameyourlastname or www.twitter.com/tonyfaustinoor www.facebook.com/tonyfaustino).
Tactic #4: Post Comments on Other Blogs Commenting on other blogs provides an opportunity to demonstrate your knowledge in a particular subject or industry. In the online world, commenting on another person's blog is the equivalent of attending a face-to-face networking event. Take advantage of this opportunity to make a great impression! Your comments also give Google another means of indexing your name. By consistently posting blog comments, you'll compile a critical mass over time. As a result, Google will display these comments in future search results related to your name.
Also, register with BackType.com so you can maintain an online record of all of your blog comments. You never know when those comments might come in handy for a future blog post.
Tactic #5: Register with Frequently Updated Profile Sites (i.e., MyBlogLog, FriendFeed) Member profiles in social networks like MyBlogLog.com and FriendFeed rank high in Google Searches because their content is frequently updated. These sites aggregate your activity or updates in other social networking sites such as Twitter or Delicious.com. Therefore, every time you send out a tweet or bookmark an article or website, the activity is automatically recorded as "an information stream." These "information streams" are searchable, indexed, and provide a great opportunity displaying your name in the Top 20 Google Search results.
It’s hard to believe I graduated from Washington University twenty-plus years ago.Since that time, I’ve made many important professional relationships.“It’s not what you know, it’s who you know” is more than a clever cliché.Relationships and access to key individuals is vitally important to succeeding in any organization, conducting a job search, executing a strategic plan, or selling a solution.
I started using LinkedIn more than a year ago to build, centralize, and maintain my professional relationships.LinkedIn is a social networking site targeted to business professionals.According to its website, LinkedIn counts 43 million+ members in over 200 countries.In many ways, it’s the business audience version of Facebook.Similar to growing and keeping in touch with Facebook “friends,” your primary purpose is to grow and maintain your LinkedIn “connections.”
Participation in LinkedIn is Important for Personal Branding and Online Visibility When I started documenting ideas for The Social Media Reinvention Blog, I naturally thought of writing a LinkedIn-related article, and its importance in personal branding.Here are some helpful online resources describing the importance of participating in LinkedIn:
Your individual, LinkedIn Profile is a personal branding opportunity that promotes your skills, capabilities, and connections to:
·Your current employer
·A prospective employer
·A prospective connection
Even more importantly, LinkedIn public profiles rank very high in Google Searches which significantly increases your online visibility.My public LinkedIn profile consistently ranks as my highest Google Search Engine Result when searching for “Tony Faustino.”
The Popular Profiles Section Measures Your Personal Branding Efforts Within LinkedIn Many LinkedIn features are highly useful in personal branding.For this post, I will focus on the “Popular Profiles” feature found in the LinkedIn Company Profile Page of a respective company.
In a LinkedIn Company Profile Page, the top five Popular Profiles are displayed for that respective organization.According to LinkedIn’s Frequently Asked Questions: Origin of Data for Company Profiles, a Popular Profile is defined as: “These are LinkedIn users who have the most Profile views for the Company Profile page you are viewing.”
Therefore, the Popular Profiles Section measures your LinkedIn Profile’s “findability” or “searchability” to other LinkedIn members.This is extremely important so I monitor my profile’s popularity on a weekly basis.This monitoring activity helps me gauge how well I’ve optimized my profile with important keywords and the effectiveness of my comments in various LinkedIn Discussion Group forums.
Note: I checked with LinkedIn Customer Service if the Popular Profile algorithm also factors in the number of views of one’s public profile – it does not (e.g., LinkedIn profiles views resulting from Google Searches).
I’ve Maintained a Popular Profile on my Firm’s LinkedIn Company Page for 22 Consecutive Weeks Maintaining a Popular Profile on LinkedIn takes significant time and commitment.When I discovered the Popular Profiles feature, I made it a personal goal to get my profile listed in this section.Here are the four tactics I employ to continue achieving this result:
·Optimize Your Profile for Important Keywords (Particularly The Specialties Section)
·Thoroughly Describe Your Work Experience
·Frequently Update Your Status with Useful Content
·Actively Comment in LinkedIn Discussion Group Forums
In LinkedIn Lessons Part 2, I will describe in further detail how I specifically employ these four tactics.
Note: This blog post is Part 2 of a two-part series on LinkedIn Lessons.The first blog post is titled, LinkedIn Lessons Part 1: Monitoring Your Personal Brand on LinkedIn with the Popular Profile Section.
For 22 consecutive weeks, I’ve maintained a LinkedIn Profile that’s listed on the Popular Profiles Section of my firm’s Company Profile Page.
Here are the four tactics I employ to continue achieving this result:
·Optimize Your Profile with Important Keywords
·Thoroughly Describe Your Work Experience
·Frequently Update Your Status With Useful Content
·Actively Comment in LinkedIn Discussion Group Forums
Optimize Your Profile with Important Keywords It’s important to include keywords in your profile so a prospective employer, recruiter, or connection can easily find you.In particular, the Specialties Section provides an outstanding opportunity to highlight your skills and capabilities.Make sure this section fully lists and describes the knowledge you’ve acquired throughout your entire professional career.Too often, people make the mistake of not fully elaborating on the many skills they’ve implemented in different jobs.In the leaner world of Corporate America, you’ve probably developed additional skills that weren’t part of the original job description by frequently multi-tasking.Make sure you describe those skills in the Specialties Section!
A leading indicator of your profile optimization is the “Who’s Viewed My Profile” Section.This section is located on the right side bar of your LinkedIn Home Page.“Who’s Viewed My Profile” measures how many people recently viewed your profile, and the number of times it appeared in search results.
Thoroughly Describe Your Work Experience LinkedIn allows you to host and exhibit your entire resume online.Take full advantage of this opportunity!I recommend copying and pasting every bullet point from your resume into the LinkedIn template.A full explanation of your work experience ensures your profile contains several keywords.In addition, LinkedIn provides the option to make your public profile available with a customized URL that includes your name.A customized URL with your name provides another search engine opportunity for Google or Bing to identify and display “your name” in search results.Remember, LinkedIn Profiles rank very high in the Google Search algorithm so take advantage of the customized URL option.Doing so will maximize your online visibility to prospective connections or employers.
Frequently Update Your Status with Useful Content I view the Status Section as channel for sharing content that other connections will find personally or professionally beneficial.This philosophy is similar to my strategy for crafting a tweet on Twitter.Whenever possible, I link an article or online reference to my status update.Using a URL shortening service like bit.ly makes it easier to accomplish this task because you’re limited by character spaces.
Here’s an example of a LinkedIn status update that connections favorably commented on: “A permanent job is a temporary one disguised with benefits.” Reinvent Your Job-Forbes http://bit.ly/EuuO8; One connection even tweeted this article to his Twitter followers and referenced me.
I wrote this updated linked to a New York Times article on the recent Yahoo-Microsoft deal: Why Carol Bartz Sold Yahoo Search: Matching Google & Microsoft's investment level is unsustainable strategy; NYTimes http://bit.ly/g5G8D.
Here’s the status update I provided this Friday morning: Is Universal Care & Cost Containment Viable? France's universal healthcare experiencing challenges|WSJ http://bit.ly/1U412E
Actively Comment in LinkedIn Discussion Group Forums Joining and actively commenting in LinkedIn Discussion Groups allows you to demonstrate your knowledge in particular topics or industries.It’s important to write thoughtful and helpful comments because this is how other LinkedIn members will primarily interact with you. Essentially, these discussion forums are the online equivalent of a 24/7 networking event.After all, it’s called social networking for a reason!
Starting or posting a Discussion Topic is one of my favorite ways to establish a presence on LinkedIn.In my own experience, trial and error determines what types of posts other members will favorably respond to and provide comments.When a particular post strikes a favorable chord, the results are absolutely rewarding.Four months ago, I posted a provocative article in my graduate business school’s LinkedIn group.The article, RIP MBA: The Economic Crisis has Exposed the Myth of Business-School Expertise, and the ensuing discussion generated 33 comments.I acted as the discussion moderator and let commenting activity take a life of its own.More importantly, it gave me a credible entrée in connecting with other business school alumni that I otherwise would never personally meet.And ultimately, isn’t that what we all would like to achieve through LinkedIn …
I love Twitter, and I’m a proud and devoted user since March 2009.The 140-character or less micro-blogging service is an important aspect of my online personal branding or online personal reinvention strategy.I utilize Twitter like it’s a blog and link my tweets to news content relevant to M&A activity in the pharmaceutical and biotech industry, new trends in social media / digital marketing, and important developments in technology.
Looking back, if I only knew then what I know now, here are three pieces of advice I wish I someone would have shared with me before using Twitter for the first time.These three learnings focus on:
·Selecting What to Tweet
·Understanding Twitter Etiquette and Writing a Compelling Twitter Headline
·Simplifying Tweeting
Lesson 1: “What Are You Doing” Really Isn’t the Question You Should Be Answering People ask me why don’t I consider Twitter a tremendous waste of time.After all, who really cares about random strangers sharing what flavor of cream cheese they put on their bagel for breakfast.I agree that tweets of this sort hold zero interest for me.To be fair, there’s nothing wrong with using Twitter as a real-time Facebook status update.This June 2009 USA Today article titled, There's an Art to Writing on Facebook or Twitter – Really, is an excellent example of this phenomenon.
However, if you desire to thoughtfully and consistently demonstrate your knowledge or opinion of a specific industry, industry event, or other business-related content, “what are you doing” is not the question you should be answering.David Meerman Scott addresses this very topic in his blog post titled: Hey Twitter: What are you doing? Wrong question!The comments generated on David’s post provide very diverse opinions on this subject (including my own comment) and provide a representative glimpse of how people utilize Twitter.
Therefore, the litmus test question I ask before publishing a tweet is: “Will this information personally or professionally benefit another person today?”
This is why I consistently link my tweets with news or online content.I invest significant time researching and selecting what type of industry or business content I share with my Twitter Followers.My motivation is to deliver content that mutually benefits a fellow follower.Marc Meyer’s blog article, Do Twitter Users Have an Obligation to Provide Value, is a great example of this personal motivation.My comment and Marc’s kind reply are included in his article. One of the best articles I've read about what makes a Tweet valuable comes from this recent Mashable article titled: Twitter Talkback: What Makes a Quality Tweet. The author, Soren Gordhamer, provides his analysis of four (4) categories of Tweets. The examples I provide in this post focus on Mr. Gordhamer's Category #1 called Informative: Help Us Learn …
The trusted folks I follow on Twitter are often a better source of professional content or personal learning than my own Google Search.I’ve carefully selected the individuals and organizations I follow on Twitter and 90% of them graciously follow me back.It’s my hope that they’ve stuck with me for the past 4 months because I’m “giving something valuable back.”
Okay, time to put my money where my mouth is.Here are four personal examples of tweets I composed, and I know a trusted follower found useful.How can I validate or quantify that statement?The ultimate Twitter Compliment or “Shout Out” — A follower retweeted / RT’d the example tweet (e.g., she/he forwarded the tweet to their Twitter following).
·STILL THINK TWITTER'S A FAD-THINK AGAIN; Dell Generates $3M in new revenues via Twitter|Bloomberg http://bit.ly/Po3VE
·NPR'S 3-PRONGED STRATEGY: Local-Social Media-Ubiquitous Access; Why NPR is Future of Mainstream Media http://bit.ly/13ejaL
·For Sales Growth, C-Suite Worries Most About Opt Mktg Mix ; C-Level Execs on Mktg Success | eMarketer http://bit.ly/3Hv0a
·Celebrity Patient's Backing Turns Sour for Drug Company | WSJ http://bit.ly/12xHAL
Lesson 2: Review Trusted Resources on Twitter Etiquette and Writing a Compelling Tweet There are multitudes of “how-to” blog posts and articles about effectively writing a tweet or Twitter Headline.Here are two trusted, online resources I still refer to when I need to get back to Twitter basics:
·The Twitter Book Sneak Preview eBook by Tim O’Reilly and Susan Milstein: My favorite resource in Twitter Etiquette particularly in how to build a loyal and relevant following through the use of the retweet / RT.Heard about positively influencing co-workers’ egos with the power of the e-mail cc: or forward?The Twitter RT is Web 2.0’s powerful equivalent of the email cc: or forward, and O’Reilly and Milstein share their advice in an enjoyable and easy-to-understand format.
Lesson 3: Download and Learn How To Use TweetDeck TweetDeck makes using Twitter so much easier. You can download TweetDeck and it’s a free application. It’s very intuitive and highly user-friendly. Key features that make "tweeting" simpler include:
·One-click “retweeting or RT’ing” that automates forwarding another person’s tweet
·One-click URL shortening so you can link your tweet to useful online content (i.e., a news article or blog post)
·Multiple column viewing or an executive dashboard view that allows you to categorize the tweeters you follow (i.e., industry, discussion group, news)
For iPhone users, the TweetDeck app is fantastic.If you haven’t already downloaded it, go to the App Store today.I’ve been using this app since its release and highly recommend it.
TweetDeck is just one example of a Twitter application that simplifies tweeting.For a general overview of helpful Twitter Tools and apps, I also recommend these two articles:
