Twitter, the microblogging tool, is becoming increasingly important for PR students and young professionals. The smart people are already on Twitter and building their brand, creating relationships and gaining knowledge. But if you’re not and you’re thinking about it. Here are my favorite posts.
Robert French from Auburn University asked his Twitter network recently what value they find in participating. The responses tended to fall in a handful of categories:
- networking
- following news
- finding breaking stories (before MSM gets them)
- opportunity to meet people you’d not have a chance to meet, otherwise
- connecting with the industry
- discovering new trends/ideas
- experimenting with new tools
- finding internships/jobs
- news organizations use Twitter to find leads
You can see all the tweets here.
All of those things are true for me! But twitter is not valuable unless you participate and build a network that extends beyond your circle of friends. So to get started:
- Sign up at Twitter.com
- Create a username that resembles your actual name.
- Include your actual name in your profile
- Create a short bio that indicates your a PR student or a recent grad working (or looking) in PR. This will give you an instant “in” with most professionals. Without exception, PR pros are nice people and will follow you back, answer your questions and interact with you. (For those PRos who are reading, you better be nice, follow back, answer questions an interact!)
- Upload a personal avatar. A photo is great, but just don’t use the generic Twitter avatar.
- Have 10 – 15 tweets. Talk about what you’re doing, find an interesting link or news story to share, discuss an assignment.
David Meerman Scott has probably the best post on twitter and personal branding. Do what he says.
Other tips:
- Dr. V from Clemson has a great post about finding people to follow.
- Shel Israel has a handful of great tips for newbies.
- Julia Roy has a Twitter series. Including how to get more followers and also produces “Tweet Week” about the news and events on Twitter over the last week.
So jump in! You can find me @kmatthews.
