Linked In and Twitter

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Permalink Reply by Amanda Hite on January 21, 2009 at 10:04pm

Brianna,

Great discussion topic!

My best advice with social media is to remember it's all about networking/building relationships it's just taking place online. It's about meeting new people, connecting, giving them something first then building a relationship. Giving... helping others first = good karma back to you later.

To many people end up spamming potential contacts by screaming advertisements to people they don't know, because they don't get what I just said.

Imagine attending an industry conference you wouldn't go up to someone new and say "Hi my names Amanda would you like to buy a sexy thinker t-shirt?" People would look at you like your nuts and politely say no thanks - unless you like the cool shirt. Instead you might go up introduce yourself and ask the person what they do? You'd engage in some dialog, build a relationship. You'd figure out how you can help that person and eventually the relationship would benefit you both. Online networks are no different.

That said, let's get to some technical stuff:

Linked In:

1. A good best practice for Linked In is posting your openings in the groups. Some restaurant/ hospitality groups have thousands of members. Linked in allows you to be in up to 50 groups. Members either opt for daily or weekly updates. So every member get's your post. Remember to also post useful links and resources to balance give/take.

2. You can also search companies and browse through their employees on linked in, find the person you want to recruit. If their email is not listed on their profile page go to google and enter *@companydomain.com will allow you to figure out their email sequence ie first initial full last name example: ahite@talentrevolution.net.

3. Browse through your connections contacts. Don't pay for additional services. Email your contact offline and ask for the person you want to recruits email.

4. Keep your status bar updated with things like "Looking for a Dynamic GM in Beverly Hills" These updates will appear on your contacts updates.

Twitter:

I'm addicted too. Twitter is micro-blogging under 140 characters.... Guy Kawasaki who has over 51,000 followers.

I'm not sure our industry is ready for it (we are so behind!). Companies like Zappos are doing a great job READ HERE. I don't use if for recruiting -yet... But I do use it for Marketing. Twitter is the number 5 driver of traffic to my site Talent Revolution
.

Basically you can invite people to twitter or search people on twitter to "follow". Many times they will follow you back. Tip find someone you know in the industry who's already on twitter browse through their followers and follow the people you want to get started. You can also search for keywords like Restaurant, Recruiters, HR to find people. I like to follow people I normally wouldn't get to interact with like Seth Godin, Guy Kawasaki and yes I'll admit Britney Spears. Two days ago I engaged in a live chat with the CEO from Zappo's because he was testing out a new live video/chat and put the link on twitter if anyone wanted to join him. During the chat he showed us pictures of Obama's train in the back ground. I couldn't get an appointment with him if I ... well let's just say he's one popular guy!

Here's the basics to getting started:

1. Upload a good avatar. Always use your pic vs. a logo. People connect better to people.

2. Write clever tweets that people would find entertaining or interesting. One of my followers wrote this today and made me laugh out loud. It was plain but entertaining.

"trying to be productive, one sick kid, too much to do, they are threatening to call children's services if I don't get to the grocery soon"

2. Share great information and links. Tinyurl.com is a site that shortens urls so they'll fit within the 140 character limit.

The CEO from Zappos gave us inauguration event updates for the last three days linking cool tweet pictures (Him shaking Bidens hand, A big Bush blow up doll people were throwing shoes at, him with McCain) - I told you he's a popular guy.

I often link interesting blogs or video linking twitterers back to TR like this:

2009 BE the change you wish to see. http://ping.fm/ST2oV

or this:

Wrapping up a brilliant week. Working with this talented team gives me an elysian work life! http://ping.fm/qKfTj

3. If you want to reply to a follower put @ in front of their name. You can also DM (Direct message) a follower if you want to keep the message private.

4. You can ReTweet something someone else Tweeted (sending it to your followers). Imagine if 1/3 of Guy Kawasaki's followers RT him you can see where it begins to multiply.

5. Two useful twitter applications are tweetdeck (for managing groups and followers) and SocialToo. (for automatic replys and follow stats.

If you decide to jump in the game be sure to follow me at: http://twitter.com/sexythinker and I'd be happy to show you the ropes.

As I come across educational links I'll post them here.

Good luck!

Permalink Reply by Brianna Foulds on January 22, 2009 at 11:49am

Great information! Thank you very much for sharing. I am going to investigate Twitter now with a much better understanding of its functionality.
Have you used search4candidates.com? I find it very useful when looking for corporate positions. It searches through LinkedIn, Google, MySpace and several blogger sites.

Thanks again!

Brianna

Permalink Reply by Amanda Hite on January 24, 2009 at 6:39pm

Thanks for the lead. I gave the link to my team to give it a try!

Brianna Foulds said:

Great information! Thank you very much for sharing. I am going to investigate Twitter now with a much better understanding of its functionality.
Have you used search4candidates.com? I find it very useful when looking for corporate positions. It searches through LinkedIn, Google, MySpace and several blogger sites.

Thanks again!

Brianna

Permalink Reply by Amanda Hite on January 28, 2009 at 8:15pm

Here are two great twitter links:

How to increase followers by the number #2 followed guy on twitter (88,000), Obama is #1 by techcrunch

How to win friend and twinfluenence people by mashable