Rachel Levy: Social Media & Marketing

I asked one simple question of my followers on Twitter, and got 20 responses.  Here are their answers.

JoeManna: The people I have conversations with.

acraKA: Relationship building

alliemiami: Making great business connections is simple I start a conversation with someone of interest & it takes off

joewaters: The strength of weak ties.

econwriter5: Useful exchange of info

dmeiselman: An easy way to connect with new people that share an interest. Twitter lets me start relationships I would not have otherwise.

cargillcreative: Learning from others and making new connections…those are two ways I’ve benefited from using Twitter.

JoeCascio: I get connected to smart, friendly, creative people. I make friends. I don’t have to listen to asshats. Does one need more?

Dawn_Migliore: Getting news before it breaks and great links on topics you’re interested in

LevelTen_Colin:  Networking, hands down.

michaelflint: Reach and search.

jensjewellery: Publicity for my Etsy store.

abarcelos: Definitely for two-way valuable interaction, both personally and professionally.

fairminder: Meeting new friends, maintaining friendships and finding clients and colleagues to complete client projects, all on Twitter

rsomers: A radio-like stream of ideas in the background as I work

melwebster: Links to interesting stuff and a good laugh at all of the blatant self-promotion

Notice, not one person said to “find out what people are eating for lunch” (a big misperception of Twitter!).

What are your thoughts on this?  Anything to add to the list?

BEEN GETTING A LOT OF REQUESTS…. If you can’t make it but would like to, go ahead and register hereon EventBee, and I’ll send out a video recording after the Webinar!

Twitter is about connecting to people with similar interests, and can be used for business or personal reasons, including networking, learning information, getting business, finding a job, etc.

This webinar will be more advanced information about Twitter, and will include the following:

• Twitter’s external applications (i.e. Twellow)
• Twittiquette (etiquette for Twitter)
• Growing your following
• Syndicating you tweets outside of Twitter
• Managing your time on Twitter
• Twitter success stories
• Twitter Lists
• and more!

If you’ve been on Twitter for a little while, but want to take it to the next level, this webinar is for you!

Here are my basic Twitter stats: 6,100 followers, Ranked #25 in Boston, 15,000 updates, Certified Twaddict (Twitter addict)!!

Price: Price is $10 through the 29th, $20 until noon on Dec 2nd, and the $25 after that.  So, register early!!

Hashtag: #BMTwitter

Questions? Contact me on Twitter or by email
I do plan on ending by 1:00pm, but scheduled it for an extra 15 minutes just in case!

See you soon!

On Wednesday and Thursday of this week, I attended the Inbound Marketing Summit conference put on by New Marketing Labs at the Gillette Stadium. Attending this conference was an interesting milestone for me, as it is where I really got my start in social media last year.  Day 1 of the conference last year I showed up without a computer and barely any knowledge of Twitter (I was registered but wasn’t using it, and didn’t “get it”) and much of social media.  Day 2, I showed up with my laptop, and started tweeting.  I haven’t stopped since, and have learned so much since that time about other forms of social media, and have put them into practice at work and through consulting projects.  A lot changed for me in that year.

Anyway, the conference was even more incredible than it was last year, so I thought I’d share some of my favorite quotes/learnings. (Not necessarily quoted word for word; and if you know who said some of the unknown quotes or if I made any errors, please let me know!)

Day 1

• How do you engage customers without pissing them off? Just need to listen. And then figure out WHEN in the conversation it’s right to jump in. ~Citrix (name?)
• SM needs to get out of the corporate communications group. It should be spread throughout the company ~Innovative marketing panel
• In terms if marketing, it’s not about the thickness if your wallet, it’s about the thickness of your mind. It’s a great time to be a poor marketer. ~Justin Rasmussen, Coffee House Ideas
• Who will own social media in the future? PR agencies, interactive agencies or ad agencies? Answer: The companies. ~Brian Halligan, Hubspot

• PR is dead. ~Brian Halligan, Hubspot (I couldn’t disagree more.  I do believe PR is changing, but it will never be dead.  The big difference I see is that rather than companies finding press, the press will be finding them.)

• People turn to social media traditionally to solve 3 problems: 1) sales 2) get the word out , 3) need to make a relationship better or change it.” ~Katie Delahaye Paine, KDPaine & Partners
• You need to look at your “share of suckiness” vs. your competitors. “We suck less” ~Katie Delahaye Paine, KDPaine & Partners (it’s important to look at what your detractors are saying, but also keep in mind industry norms for sentiment.)
• PR = helps groups communicate with one another and facilitate discussions. What is PR2.0? A new approach to PR (PR isn’t just media relations) — it’s about building long term relationships, and now we can do it directlly with the customer. ~Katie Delahaye Paine, KDPaine & Partners
• What is a social media press release? Integrating keywords, SEO, interactive content, links to SM sites, enabled for social media. ~”Getting the Word Out” panel
  
• Measure engagement (not impressions), which will then lead to sales. ~”Getting the Word Out” panel
• Marketing = getting people to know, like and trust you. ~Rich Ullman, Ripple6
• What do you say to the people that say they don’t have time to create good content? Tough! ~Valeria Maltoni, Conversation Agent
• If you’re doing SM, and not email, you’re insane. It has a $44 ROI per dollar spent, on an email campaign. ~Email panel
• Using purchased email lists is just spamming. The people didn’t sign up for the email. ~Email panel
• “Rented list” – means using another list to communicate your message (i.e Daily Candy). ~Email panel
• 20% of tweets mention brands (source http://bit.ly/MVSlV). Twitter users are twice as much likely to engage with brands than on other platforms. ~Jesse Engle, CoTweet
• For a company with multiple tweeters, it’s best to have logo as avatar, twitter background with faces/names of tweeters, and use cotags. ~Jesse Engle, CoTweet
• Kodak’s blog is not about the actual product, it’s about HOW we use our products. ~Jennifer Cisney, Kodak
• Cool free listening tool www.socialmention.com ~unknown
• How to get your video to go viral? Story, spectacle, emotion, conflict, questions. ~Tim Street, APE Digital

Day 2

• Listening helps you find ppl who are passionate about what you do, out on the web. That’s how you build a comunity centric way to market. ~Listening and monitoring panel
• Email’s role in the marketing mix is more important than ever. Email is a main DRIVER of social web activity. ~Greg Cangialosi, Blue Sky Factory
• The blog is the ANCHOR of our social media efforts. ~Paula Berg, Southwest Airlines
• Where else can you get immediate and passionate feedback from your customers other than in social media. ~Paula Berg, Southwest Airlines
• Social Media optimization created the findability of social objects – keywords, titles, descriptions, tags, syndication. ~Christopher Carfi, Cerado
• If there are a bunch of kids in a playground, and there are no toys there, they’re going to leave. (referring to making your Facebook and website interactive). ~CC Chapman, Campfire
• Everyone needs a CMS (even if it’s just WordPress), in order to update site,keywords, tags, etc. ~CMS panel
• Whereever you are finding the most uncomfortable information about you, look there 10 times harder! ~Tim Walker, Hoover’s
  
• What are Social Media Influencers (SIM)? Harnessing social media and social influencers to achieve a goal. ~Shiv Singh, Razorfish
• Market to the community not just the individual. ~Shiv Singh, Razorfish
• Social engagement results in purchases 24 days later on average. ~Shiv Singh, Razorfish
• Focus not just on the platforms, but on the relationsips… focus on WHO is influencing your customer. Research influencers. ~Ken Chow, R2 Integrated
• Great Marketing = Convince people to SELL. ~Dharmesh Shah, Hubspot
• Google’s ranking algorithm = context (does it match what they’re looking for?) + authority (how much does Google trust you?). ~Dharmesh Shah, Hubspot
• Titles are the most important piece of information you’re giving to Google about what the page is about.The MOST important is the one on your home page. Earlier words send a stronger message to Google. So, your title keywords need to be ordered appropriately. Don’t make your Home page titled HOME (even if you sell homes!. ~Dharmesh Shah, Hubspot
• Don’t buy ads on Facebook. Use it to look at the demographic info to find who meets your target profile (brilliant!). (I don’t agree about not buying ads, but the target demos are great!). ~Dharmesh Shah, Hubspot

If you want to see even more highlights from me or others during the Inbound Marketing Summit, check the #IMS09 hashtag on Twitter Search.

Overall, an incredible conference!! A few suggestions for IMS next year. Include people’s Twitter names in the program, on their nametags,  and on the screen while their speaking. Improve the wireless.  Add a case study component… so many great minds together in one room!  We can break into a group of 10 and all work on a different case to put together a social media and marketing strategy and tactics.  Do short presentations so we can all learn from eachother.

(Photo credits: Group, Chris Brogan, iPhone, CC Chapman)

Anything important I missed?  Feel free to add or comment on the above!

Note: This is a version of a post I made on the Wall Street Journal online blog on  August 4, 2009.

I can’t continue to write for the Wall Street Journal “Laid Off and Looking” blog anymore, because I have a new job! I will be the Director of Marketing and Social Media at Second Time Around, a consignment clothing retailer with 19 stores in 8 eastern states (MA, NH, RI, ME, CT, VT, DC, NY). Second Time Around’s owner, Jeff Casler, recently got venture capital funding from Generation Equity Investors, so is slated for more growth in the coming years.

I got this new position through a combination of Twitter, an online job website, and good old fashioned networking. Back when I first lost my job a year ago, I posted my resume on a site called Jewish Jobs. Lisa Colton, the founder of Darim Online, was looking for someone with my background for some consulting work and found me on the website. She also recognized my name because she had been following me on Twitter for a couple of months and liked the things I had to say. So over the next few months, we kept in touch and talked about how we could work together. Then on June 17th, I got an email from Brian Colton (Lisa’s brother-in-law), a partner at Generation Equity, saying they were looking to fill a marketing position at their latest venture, and Lisa had given him my name. One month later, on July 16th, STA offered me the job!

A year ago, I don’t think I would have gotten this job. I wasn’t well versed in social media, but I have been focusing on that for the year I have been out of work. Social media is such an important part of marketing these days, and I was behind the eight ball before this year. I also think that being involved in social media has put me “out there” so much more, that potential employers like Lisa or Jeff could see what I’ve been up to much more easily. One look at my Twitter account, my website, or the posts I’ve been doing for this blog, bring instant credibility to me. You can see the way I write, the way I think and where my interests lie. I know this had an impact on me getting the job I did, and think it’s vital to a successful job search, even for people not interested in marketing.

Note: This is a version of a post I made on the Wall Street Journal online blog on  August 4, 2009.

I was delayed in writing this post for the WSJ blog, because I was hoping to be able to write about a job offer I was expecting to have. It didn’t come. It still may, so I haven’t lost all hope, but it sounds like the company may be unsure whether or not to hire for the position. Sound familiar? I have been hearing this more and more lately with the poor economy. Either the company advertises for a job, and then decides they aren’t hiring any more, or they restructure the job in the middle of hiring because they are trying to accomplish more with less, or they just decide to put the position on hold.
So not only do we (laid off folks) have to deal with the stress of being out of work, and an unknown financial future, we are also impacted by the uncertainty that companies are feeling themselves. This makes it tough, and honestly a bit emotionally trying at times.
The way I have combated this is to try to not get too excited about a job until it becomes a reality. I talk about potential jobs with my friends and family, but try to not go into too much detail. The more we talk, the more excited I get, and the more they ask questions. “Did you get the job?” “When will you hear back?” “Did you hear from them yet?” “What are the next steps?” “Did you follow up with them lately?” It’s supportive, but for me, more and more talk brings more and more excitement, and consequently more and more disappointment when it doesn’t work out. So, no more detailed discussions for me!
The other way I have combated this becoming too emotionally trying is to continue plugging away, even though I have a good feeling a potential job will work out. Don’t stop. You need to keep going until you accept the job, or even the day you start your job. In this economy, anything can happen, and stopping not only wastes time if it doesn’t work out, but emotionally it makes you more invested in the opportunity you are waiting on. Keep many balls in the air, and don’t be “monogamous” until you get the offer, because you know the company certainly is not.

Readers, how do you prevent yourselves from getting too emotionally invested in a potential job opportunity?

So, I’m finally back to work after being out of a job for a year. Overall, my year was tough, but I learned so much about social media, networking, and basically just reinvented myself professionally.  Now, the rubber is meeting the road, and I’m back to work.  I started my job at Second Time Around last Monday, so it’s been a full 2 weeks.  So, I am more stressed or less stressed than I was when I wasn’t working?  Yes :-)

Obviously, being out of work was stressful.  It was stressful financially — how was I making ends meet?  How long was my unemployment going to last? Would I get the client I was trying to get?  It was also just a constant stress of feeling like I needed to do something to move my search or consulting work forward all the time.  Even at night, if I wasn’t out socializing or at a networking event, I was very rarely just relaxing in front of the TV or reading.  For most of the year, I didn’t really take a break.  So, in that way, work seems relaxing!  It’s not such a weight hanging over my head, like I felt all year. I do think I’m going to be working at night a bit, having some work travel, or weekend trips (I was in Chicago this week and am going to CT tomorrow), but for some reason, I’m better able to shut my mind off and relax.  I can come home at night if I don’t have plans, and take Stella for a leisurely walk, get dinner, and watch TV. Love it!

On the other hand, my schedule couldn’t be more different now than it was for the past year.  I got accustomed to having the schedule I wanted.  I went to bed no earlier than 2am on most nights, and woke up by 9am at the earliest.  If I was tired, I took a nap.  I took Stella for a walk in the middle of the day if I wanted.  Now, not only do I need to get up at a normal hour for work, I have started working with a personal trainer and am in physical therapy (for my knee), so get up almost every day by 6 or 6:30am.  Going to bed at 2am no longer works.  Napping in the middle of the day is not recommend, at least if I plan on keeping my job!  So, from this perspective I find it more stressful.

But, so far, I seem to be managing OK, and am getting used to going to bed early again.  I am LOVING the job. Everyone is incredilby nice, welcoming, and very dedicated to growing this company.  There is so much opportunity for marketing and social media, I can’t wait to get some of my ideas moving!

How have you coped with a change in lifestyle like this?  Any ideas to help me or others?

(Photo credit: Money Tree, Clock)

I am pleased to report that I have accepted a new full time job! I will be the Director of Marketing and Social Media at Second Time Around, which is a consignment retailer with 19 stores in 8 eastern states (MA, NH, RI, ME, CT, VT, DC, NY).  Second Time Around (STA) recently got venture capital funding from Generation Equity Investors, so is slated for more growth in the coming years.  I got my offer on July 16th, which oddly enough is the one year anniversary of me being out of a full-time job.  What an odd coincidence!

As with any rapidly growing company I know I will be wearing many hats, but my overall responsibilities will be branding, strategy, social media, internet marketing and general marketing materials.  Second Time Around is already on Twitter (impressive!) (each store has its own account… @STAThayerSt, @STANeedham, @STASohoNY, etc.) and Facebook, but there is a lot of upside with these, and with the website.

So, how did I get the job?  I really WISH I could say I got it through a connection I made on Twitter.  Then maybe people would start believing that Twitter has merit and isn’t just about reporting when you go out for a cup of coffee :-)  But, although I did have many job interviews and leads from Twitter, this wasn’t one of them.  It was from old fashioned in-person networking.

I posted my resume on a site called Jewish Jobs back when I first lost my job.  Lisa Colton, the founder of Darim Online, was looking for someone with my background for some consulting work, so we started talking.   (Update: Lisa reminded me that she actually DID find me first on Twitter… go Twitter!) We kept in touch over a number of months, talking about how we could work together.  Then on June 17th, I got an email from Brian Colton (Lisa’s brother-in-law), a partner at Generation Equity, saying they were looking to fill a marketing position at their latest venture, and Lisa had given him my name.  One month later, on July 16th, STA offered me the job.  And, yesterday, I attended an all day offsite with the new Board of Directors.  My first official start date will be August 24th.

I am so excited for this new opportunity.  It is a great combination of an established company (the first store opened 35 years ago), and a start-up environment with the new infusion of capital and the growth plan.  I will be able to leverage my marketing skills from my consumer products background, but also my new social media skills.  There is a huge opportunity for STA with social media, and they are believers in it, so I am looking forward to implementing some creative ideas.  Overall, I think this is a place where I will be able to make an impact, which is one of the most (if not the most) important qualities for me in a job.

My next post will go more into my thoughts about this past year and what I learned.

Thank you to everyone who helped me this past year.  So many people touched me, and I could never have gotten this incredible job if it weren’t for you.  So, thanks.

I recently attended a Twitter conference in NYC, called the 140 Characters Conference. For those of you not on Twitter, YES, there’s such thing as a Twitter conference (and 140 is the maximum number of characters in a tweet)!  The conference was not about how to use Twitter in the technical sense, but more about how to use Twitter to benefit from it, and as a platform to other social media communities.  In addition to listening to the insightful 100+ speakers and panelists, the networking was amazing.  I met so many people I have talked to online for a while, and so many more new people.  And,  of course, there were some cool Twitter celebrities there too!

My key takeaway from the conference was that Twitter can be used effectively by almost anyone, if done well.  The speakers and panelists included topics on: news, jewelry, fashion, music, artists, performers, athletes, non-profits, small businesses, TV shows, large companies, government, moms, and so many others.  There are those who do it effectively, and those who don’t.  Check out the schedule, and you’ll see the vast array of speakers.

My three pieces of feedback on the conference are: time, money and wireless.  Time — It was too rushed, and tough to get some really good information in the short time frames.  Money — The conference was $895, which was quite pricey (I was lucky enough to be there as a guest).  Wireless — The wireless access was intermittent, and frustrating at times.

My favorite quotes

(not necessarily quoted word for word; and if you know who said some of the unknown quotes or if I made any errors, please let me know!)

• 3 most important concepts on twitter – immediacy, transparency, approachability. ~Jack Dorsey
• My job as a publisher is finding interesting people and amplifying their voices. ~Jack Dorsey
• Create more value than you capture. ~Tim O’Reilly
• “Passed links” get shared much more quickly in social media vs. email — watch your traffic over time from these sites. ~Fred Wilson (?)
• Bummer… just saw a wedding band on @etanowitz :-( ~Rachel Levy (yes, that’s me)
  • From etanowitz: Haha thanks my wife @dsashin is here; she’s from Boston.
• Getting Twitter, means “you know it’s a conversation” ~TV panel
• If you want to talk about your product, talk TO someone. Don’t just blast it. ~Liz Strauss
  
• Blogs allow me to go deep. Twitter lets me go wide in conversations. ~ Liz Strauss
• Communication is when the message intended is the message received. ~Liz Strauss
• Benefit of Twitter is “listening for the point of need” — people express needs more on Twitter than on any other social network. ~Corporate panel
• Start with listening, move to listening and responding, then let people see your brand and tell your story. ~Corporate panel
• Listening sends a message to your customers, as much as it receives a message. ~Corporate panel
• One of the worst mistakes we as mainstream media make is to go in somewhere and not see the story from their perspective.  We need to tell the story as if it’s about your mother or family. ~Ann Curry
• What’s pissing me off is that it’s hard to get Americans to care about international issues. ~Ann Curry
• I want journalists to stop just telling the news, and telling stories again. ~James Cox
• The worst thing you can say about Kodak is nothing — we want to hear the happy faces, and the bitches and moans. ~Jeffrey Hayzlett
• It’s about the 4E’s – Engaging, Educating, Exciting and Evangelizing. ~Jeffrey Hayzlett
• If you’re in marketing, and not on Twitter, you just don’t get it. ~Jeffrey Hayzlett
• It’s not “what are you doing”, but “What are we feeling and what do we have to share?” ~Laura Fitton
• Make your twitter account, even if you ARE a brand, a bit more personable. ~Unknown
• It’s not always about the money…. it can be about awareness and passing the word on. ~Social good panel
• While technology can scale and bring us everything, humans can’t scale. ~Steve Rubel
• People need to hear something 3-5 times to trust it (and people believe it more coming from their peers). ~Steve Rubel
• Don’t get too attached to Twitter.  I believe that Twitter has peaked.  No community has had staying power more than 5 years. Keep looking for what’s next. ~Steve Rubel
  
• To make your own game, you have to be there. ~Chris Brogan
• On Twitter, you have a friend wherever you go. ~Chris Brogan
• Making videos is sharing moments. ~Steve Garfield
• The fact that you have one follower should blow your face off. ~Gary Vaynerchuk
• The variety of ideas and people are what makes twitter a bottom up platform. ~Small business panel
• Small business owners should use Twitter in 3 ways to promote their business, benchmark their business, as an ESP tool. ~Small business panel
• I don’t think you should have someone tweet AS you, but FOR you, is OK. ~ Small business panel
• Question: How do you get your clients to be on Twitter? Answer: Show them that their competitors are there. ~Wisdom of Twitter panel
• Twitter is about finding your tribe and interacting with your tribe. ~Wisdom of Twitter panel
• Try to make sure social networking is not social NOTworking. ~Unknown

My favorite speakers/panels

Liz Strauss
Liz did a great job of pinpointing a few great ways to be successful on Twitter

News Panel

Great passionate discussion with Rick Sanchez and Ann Curry

(Part 1) (starts about 3 minutes into the clip)

(Part 2)

Gary Vaynerchuck

Passionate talk about sharing and scaling

Jeffrey Hayzlett

Very motivational, funny speaker

Steve Rubel
Don’t only focus on Twitter…

Thanks to all the speakers, panelists,  people I met, and most importantly Jeff Pulver, for putting together this incredible conference.  If you missed the conference, you can watch the video recordings of the speakers on the 140conf website.

(Photo credit: 140 crowd, Ann Curry)

What do you think of the above?  If you were at the conference, what were your key takeaways?

Note: This is a version of a post I made on the Wall Street Journal online blog on June 2, 2009.

When my position as the Director of Marketing at the JCC was eliminated in July, it was a complete surprise to me. It was just as the economy started going south, but I didn’t foresee it affecting me so close to home so quickly. Looking back, I wish I had been more prepared rather than being stuck like a deer in the headlights. Here’s what I would have done if I had been prepared.

Get involved with networking groups

Like many people, I used to only network when I was actively looking for a job, but that’s the opposite of what networking really should be. I recently heard a great definition of networking — building relationships before you need them – and I think this is a great way to look at it. So, if I had been more prepared, I would have joined local networking groups across a wide variety of people and industries, as well as industry specific groups. You never know who knows who, so your next job could come from the most unlikely person.

Connect through online social networking

Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn are key ways to network in this day and age. It took me some time when I first got laid off to connect with people I wasn’t already connected with on these sites. And for LinkedIn, I could have asked my former bosses/coworkers for recommendations and answering questions in groups to bolster my profile. Already having these steps done would have helped me hit the ground running.

I didn’t start my blog until after I got laid off, but now provides potential employers a window into how I think, what I’m interested in and what I’m up to. Having that up and running before the layoff, would have given me the benefit of having good content, a readership and comments.

The basics

The next few ideas are probably the most obvious ones, but were still important for me to get started on! I needed to update my resume, particularly with quantitative numbers from my job. I should have registered on the major job search sites, and started receiving emails or RSS feeds for relevant jobs. And finally, I could have gotten back in touch with recruiters. It never hurts to have them keeping you top of mind early on in the process.

Do you have any other ideas for how to be prepared for a layoff?

Note: This is a version of a post I made on the Wall Street Journal online blog on May 12, 2009.

Twitter seems to be all the rage these days, especially since it made headlines with the Ashton Kutcher vs. CNN battle, and more so when Oprah joined. But, there are a lot of misconceptions out there about Twitter, the two most common I hear are that it’s a young population using Twitter, and that people are sharing just the “mundane details of their lives.” Neither of those is true. In fact, 76% of Twitter users are over 35. And, while Twitter can be about the mundane details of people’s lives, for the most part, it’s about people connecting with others who have similar interests. For example, since I’m interested in Marketing and Social Media, I follow people who are also interested in the same, and we share information on topics relevant to us. I have learned so much from interacting with people on Twitter since joining in September.

To understand how Twitter is helpful with networking, I like to think about how I do networking without Twitter. Normally, someone I know introduces me to someone they think I should talk to. I then email or call that person and set up a time to get together for coffee. We meet, and talk about their work, what I’m looking for, any opportunities they know of, other people they think I should talk to and any advice they have for me. I get home and send them a thank you note, and usually connect with them on LinkedIn. And, that’s it. We go our separate ways. They go back into their life, and may remember me, but within a couple of months, I have most likely slipped into the depths of their memory.

Enter Twitter. The process can be the same, but after we go our separate ways, we continue to interact on Twitter. They get to see the value I’m bringing; instead of making an impression on them in an hour long coffee meeting, I am making an impression in the coffee meeting, and on a regular basis after that. I am staying much more top of mind. I have had many situations with people I have had coffee with, where they spontaneously write me a couple months later, saying that they are still keeping me in mind for any opportunities they come across. That doesn’t happen as much with non-Twitter networking.

The other benefit is being able to find new people who I wouldn’t have met otherwise. Oftentimes, I’ll see someone interesting on Twitter and ask them to get together. Or, if I have a specific company in mind that I want to talk to, I look the company up on an application called Twellow, find out who works there who I am following (the term for being connected with someone on Twitter), and I ask them to meet with me. In both these cases, it’s like a “cold call”, but there is a lot of information about me at their fingertips to make me less “random” to them. They can read my bio, click thru to my website, see what I am doing on Twitter, and the value I provide.

And then there’s the more casual networking. Twitter is basically a big networking meeting going on 24/7, that you come and go into. I have had so many people just contact me and say that they have seen me on Twitter, and they know of an opportunity they think would be perfect for me. There are also a variety of “Tweetups” (events run by people on Twitter) that are basically networking meetings. That, again, provides a whole new group of people to network with that I might not have otherwise met.

Here is one specific success stories about networking on Twitter. I registered for an event at Harvard Business School to listen to a panel about the future of Marketing. Coincidentally, the day after I registered, one of the panelists (Diane Hessan from Communispace) started following me on Twitter. I sent her a private message saying that I was looking forward to hearing her and meeting her at the panel. She wrote back and said she was impressed with my background and she would see me at the panel. When I met her in person, our introduction was much more meaningful, as she already knew who I was, and I could stand out from the other people she was meeting. Fast forward three months later, and she just referred two potential consulting clients to me.

In addition to this, I have been referred to countless potential new clients and potential jobs. Twitter is definitely a great way to network.

What do you think?  How have you used Twitter for your job search?