Rachel Levy: Social Media & Marketing

Wow, it’s been a long lapse between How and Why I use Twitter (Part 1) and Part 2! I got excited about writing about video thank you notes, then was out of town, and then was sick with bronchitis. I’m finally back, well, almost 100%!

My twitter profile

“How do I get followers?”
So, just as a benchmark, since that first blog post, I have 130 more followers, wow. The easiest way is to start following people. When you follow them, a lot of people just follow back. They assume if you have an interest in them, then they probably have an interest in you. I’m not sure I necessarily agree with that (definitely don’t agree with the auto-followers), but there may be some truth to it, and it certainly streamlines things a bit. The more quality way, however, is that you tweet about things that people find interesting. When you do, it generates comments or retweets (people basically forwarding on what you wrote). Then it works like word of mouth, in that the commenter or retweeter’s followers all now know who you are. If they find what you are saying to be interesting, they will follow you. In addition, in my last post, I mentioned how you can search for topics that interest you. So, if you tweet something with the word “facebook” in it, and someone is monitoring what is being said about “facebook”, they will also see your tweets and may start following you.

“What do you say on Twitter?”
There is a word in the social media world called transparency. My understanding of this is that you need to be human, and there is no line between business and personal (scary, huh?). So, that means, I not only tweet about social media stuff, but also personal things in my life. Anything from “My 2 1/2 year old niece was standing next to the rabbi on the stage last night and yells out “where’s your hair??” (he’s bald) :-)” to “@johnhaydon loved your video about upgrading to wordpress 2.7. Thanks!http://tinyurl.com/6366k6″ to “I just hear about entrecard from @lisahealth1 – how do you perceive this? Just a way to “buy” blog traffic?”. Whenever I read an interesting blog, I tweet on it. Not only does that get the blogger noticed more (another way to get followers), but it allows me to be adding value to Twitter. If you are new to Twitter, I would recommend sitting back and watching how people interact and what they say. But, for the most part, there is not much that is off limits!

“How is Twitter helping me in my job search?”
That’s a tough one, but here are a few ways:

• Basic networking – I am now much more connected to people who are involved in areas I’m interested in.  Today I heard about jobs available at two companies.  I tweeted two people I met on Twitter, and in minutes I had some information about the jobs.
  

  Social Media Jobs

• I have learned so much about social media (an area I’d like to work in) through reading other people’s tweets
• I am connected to a few people who I would not have otherwise known, i.e. @socialmediajobs or recruiters
• After mentioning my blog on Twitter, another blogger wants to interview me for her blog… who knows where that could lead, as she has thousands of readers

“What else do I learn on Twitter?”

• I am not much of a newspaper reader, but I really find I am able to catch up on the major news through twitter
• Ability to get answers to questions quickly (i.e. I wanted to know about CRM systems, and got a lot of answers in a few minutes)
• A whole bunch of random stuff… events going on in Boston, about people’s personal lives, people debating things, etc.

“Twitter is so basic… are there ways to do anything more advanced?”

Yes, the problem with Twitter in my mind is that it is too basic.  But, the good thing is that a lot of people have spent time developing programs that pick up where twitter has dropped the ball.  Here are a few of my favorites:

• Tweetdeck - A desktop application that helps you organize your information in twitter.  A must have!
  

  Tweetdeck

• Lessfriends - Find out if the people you follow on Twitter are following you (and vise versa)
• SocialToo – Does a lot, but the most useful, is it emails you a summary of who followed you and unfollowed you in the past day, and what you tweeted before that
• Twitter Search – A good way to see trending topics, find people you know, or see hashtag activity (a hashtag is a code created in order to follow a particular topic… i.e. #smb11 tracks all the tweets from the 11th Social Media Breakfast in Boston)
• A few others I know of: Qwitter, Mr. Tweet, Twitter Bar, and Twitterlocal

What do you think?  How and why do YOU use Twitter? Leave me a comment!

Be Sociable, Share!

•