All right, all right, I just read a comment from a sourcing professional regarding Twitter and referring to it as a place only to post announcements. Granted I’m paraphrasing, but that was the gist. Just announcements? Seriously? Let me give you a hearty “OMG”! Are you kidding me?! I was just stunned and shaking my head.
This is a blog, so obviously I’m not going to go on a 100 page rant but let’s do my Twitter elevator 
speech, and I’m caffeinated and can channel a New York accent when I need – so get ready.
Twitter is Huge. Yeah, with a capital H. It is an amazing way to network with people throughout the world on a variety of topics. Sure, on Linkedin you can build your nice little profile and make it look like you’re not looking for a job when maybe you are and you can connect to a gazillion people – but when do you talk to them? Build any relationships? Maybe you learn more than you wanted – M. Homula of FOT now knows that I spent a couple of hours hunting for my old Pearl Jam cd’s (he may have inferred I’m a dinosaur!) after seeing K. Dunn post another photo of Eddie Vedder on his HR Capitalist blog. Definitely, it’s a site for exchanging information beyond just announcing what most fabulous thing you’ve recently accomplished or product you’re rolling out.
I have a wide array of people I follow, and there are some I really want to read – like Adam Ostrow – his posts are always filled with information that I can use, and it would take serious hours on my Reader to get through to the same info. Twitter is good for announcements, I’m just saying there is more to it. You can take advantage of this site and really make it as functional as you want it to be and build connections with people or merely gather information.
I follow all kinds of people on Twitter and learn a lot professionally and personally, and I’m sure they do as well. It’s this little corner of the net where you freely share info, and when most of us joined, we created mini-profiles – really mini – no resumes here. But you know what? There are job titles and links to home pages and places of employments. So my dear AIRS alumni, how are you going to process that info from a candidate sourcing perspective? Hello! We can XRay and FlipSearch the site to our hearts content. I actually had a recent example of running a search for a structural engineer, found a great candidate on an anonymous blog – but I PeerSearched his username – which he also uses on Twitter and got the candidate’s real name and a link to his current employer, which gave me more people just like him! Boo Ya!
And friends, I hear your critique that you’ve been on Twitter and all you’ve heard is tweets on what people are eating. Hmmm, how to say this…you can choose who you follow as you can choose who follows you. If you don’t want to view someone’s daily chug-a-lug of yucky fermented tea….don’t! You can edit your follow list anytime and should. It’s your time, make the most of it.
Next time I need a rant, let me go back to how some professional dissed Second Life…..but until then, follow me and I’ll follow you…..find me on Twitter at www.twitter.com/sourcerkelly.
As an equal opportunity research technique and tactic user, Summize (http://summize.com/) should also be mentioned as a worthy tool. You can search Twitter and have it sent to you (via rss): http://is.gd/OdV
Summize is amazing — and watch out – rumor is before the end of the week Twitter may be announcing it’s acquisition.
And, you should also check out TweetDeck. I’ve been testing it out the past couple of days and am liking it…although do have a couple of complaints…..but we’ll see if they shake out by the end of the week.
Kelly
Hey Kelly – love the post…great work…
I just took your advice and downloaded TweetDeck – will let you know what I think…
http://www.tweetdeck.com/beta/
That’s great Michael….I’ll be curious to see what you think. I like the summize function within it and the display is very iphone-ish but it doesn’t seem to show all my FOT’ers…..like Jessica Lee? I can’t find her when I use TweetDeck….it also doesn’t show my UK friend Matt Jessop….so, we’ll have to see. Twhirl is better at showing me everyone’s updates..
I love Twitter, though I have to admit I hate it alot at the moment. It’s that Love Hate relationship.
I’ve been using it for over a year now, and though it had it’s downs before, they always seemed to be relatively short periods. At least short compared to now.
For the past few weeks it’s been so unreliable. I can’t view all the tweets. Tweets don’t always get posted. Error message here there and everywhere…and a million other problems.
I’ll probably end up staying with Twitter because I’ve developed my ‘network’, but am definitely preferring blogging as the safest way to get something out to people.
It’s definitely not about broadcasting though!
i’d like to see how many new followers you have as a result of this post!
my struggle with twitter though is that it’s so hard to put into 140 characters much that is compelling or provoking. i usually just end up posting crap… so if anyone were to look at my twitter feed, i’d hate for them to think of it as any reflection of me, my professionalism, or savvy.
I find I’m always trying to strike a balance on Twitter – I mean why am I there? For me it’s uber networking, getting alot of info for my sourcing research and blatantly promoting my employer(s).
And as for the 140 word limit – it’s a challenge – I like to watch some of the best get their point across – and some of the funniest. Check out Penelope Trunk – granted not really focused on the professional all the time in Twitter – but hysterical – and almost a guide as how to get your point across.
Tweet away…..and yeah Jessica…….I’m striving for 500 followers thanks to this post!
Kelly
Hi Kelly,
Great post! Agree that you can control the content easily by simply following people that interest you. Someone recently mentioned an 80/20 rule and I try to follow that with my posts, 80 business related, 20 personal (or in my case, food related).
I think Twitter is an incredible tool, and that we’re only scratched the surface of what is possible with it.
~Pam
Summize is great for tracking conversations but I’m finding Twellow just as useful, though it doesn’t seem to get much air time in the sourcing community. They categorize by industry/occupation and seem to organize people intelligently, beyond keyword searches of tweets and profiles.
140 characters is a good limitation in a Jane Austin sort of way. Makes you think about what you’re trying to communicate. I’d like to enforce that in the emails I send and, especially receive. Try it, we’ll all live longer and have more friends. 8~)
oh, and of course… http://twitter.com/williamu