Are you still not tweeting? Or, do you have an account, but have yet to do much with it? Twitter is a social media platform that can be a very useful tool for young professionals. Unlike other social media sites that focus mainly on friends and photos, Twitter has greater capabilities in terms of branding, networking, and acquiring information. If you want to connect and communicate with multinational companies, influential media, potential employers, celebrities, authors, politicians, customers, and fellow young professionals, it’s time to get tweeting.
Build your personal brand
While our Facebook profiles tend be fairly personal, a place to connect with friends and family and update them about our lives, Twitter accounts can be built more around who you are as a professional, and act as a place to build your personal brand. In 140 characters you can spell out who you are, what you do, and what your interests are, giving potential followers a preview of what sort of content they can expect from you. Are you a skydiving financial planner who enjoys Spanish cooking? Are you a counter-culture “opinionator”/medical sales rep? Small business owner interested in 1960s film and animal welfare? Twitter allows you to create a succinct, yet holistic picture of your personal brand (and similarly for corporate brands as well), which helps facilitate the networking of like-minded people and brands – worldwide. Limitless opportunities for promotion, cross marketing, partnerships, research, and possible employment can be made available right via your smartphone.
Promoting your work, your cause
Whether you are an artist, event planner, real-estate agent, fundraiser, etc., Twitter can help YPs not only connect with people way outside of our current networks, but it also allows us to promote to them directly. When people see your profile and decide to follow you, you already know that they have an interest in you and/or what you do. They are your captive audience, waiting to hear from you on the subjects you are both interested in. Additionally, your followers can then “retweet” your words, spreading you and your work or cause even farther, creating an even greater network. Twitter is an excellent sales tool for YPs, regardless if you are pushing a product or service, skill or talent, idea or opinion.
Fun and informative
Finally, Twitter is not just about business. It can be fun and informative too! Follow your favorite bloggers, celebrities, athletes, CEOs, etc. and get a constant stream of info and entertainment. Additionally, Twitter also allows you to actually connect and possibly even communicate with famous and influential people and businesses that, at a time, were never so publicly available. Tweet to your member of parliament, your favourite author, business mogul, or celebrity crush… and they may just tweet you back.
A Warning
With all that Twitter has to offer to the communicative YP, there are some potentially risky aspects of the medium that must be considered. Tweets are public. Anything you say via Twitter can be read by just about anyone, can be perceived in any number of ways, may be shared any number of times, and can even be quoted in other public forums such as news media. Even your retweets of others’ words can contribute to the public image of you and your brand, so always be aware of the power those 140 characters can hold, and use it wisely.
You can follow Notable’s Jessica L. Scott-Reid @JessLReid for more YP lifestyle advice…and she may just follow you back.