Twitter for Professional Purposes: 21+ Tips

Summary: Many people still don’t “get” Twitter – especially from a professional perspective – or are uncertain whether there is any value in using it. Many others have set up an account but feel overwhelmed and/or unsure about how to maximize the potential benefits. Still others think they’re using it properly but really don’t know if they are. I recently led a webinar hosted by University of Virginia (UVa) Alumni Career Services that helped these Tweeters and more by sharing 21 best practice suggestions for using Twitter for professional purposes. (from the Denovati SMART Blog)

On October 18, 2013 I led a webinar for UVa Alumni Career Services that offered 21+ tips for using Twitter for professional purposes. The webinar was open to everyone, not just UVa graduates. Here’s the official description:

Many people still don’t “get” Twitter – especially from a professional perspective – or are uncertain whether there is any value in using it. Many others have set up an account but feel overwhelmed and/or unsure about how to maximize the potential benefits. Still others think they’re using it properly but really don’t know if they are. This webinar will help these Tweeters and more by sharing 21 best practice suggestions for using Twitter for professional purposes, including:

– Leveraging Twitter for career management, business development, job search, etc.
– Account/profile set up
– Determining who to follow (and unfollow)
– Building Twitter engagement into your daily routine
– Using the right language and other conventions
– Using hashtags appropriately
– Striking appropriate balances between quantity/quality, personal/professional, and private/public

At the end of the session everyone will be better able to tweet without looking like a twit!

Even though Twitter the company is about to become public, it’s still a big mystery to many folks. The response we got to this webinar certainly reinforced that. Almost 800 people registered, nearly 200 participated live, and the chat channel was very lively with both questions and comments.

The webinar was recorded for those who weren’t able to attend live (both audio and video – a first for me), and the recorded session is available to everyone. It can be accessed here, in one of three formats, or via the event page on the UVA Alumni Career Services website. If you have trouble viewing the recording, please send an email to [email protected]. Note: It may take a while for all the content to render, so please be patient and give it some time before assuming it’s not working.

Correction: I listened to the first 30 minutes of the session and need to clarify one thing: Twitter currently has about 200 million accounts (I accidentally said 2 million – oops!) Please let me know if there’s another place where I may have misspoken.

In addition to the recording, we have uploaded an expanded version of the webinar slide deck onto our SlideShare channel. You can view the deck here.

I thoroughly enjoyed the experience and am glad it was so helpful to folks. Many thanks to Mary Ann Stumbaugh for inviting me to share my expertise and for facilitating the event. I look forward to our next collaboration in 2014.