You’re skeptical, but you’ve heard that Twitter can help you with executive job search, so you decide to take the plunge and set up an account, even though you have no idea what to do with Twitter.

You’ve selected @yourname, or a variation, for your username and popped in your email address. Then you moved on to the “Profile” page. You inserted your location and put in your LinkedIn profile URL for “Web”, because you don’t have a personal website. And you added the same photo you use on LinkedIn.

You can’t figure out what to put for your “Bio”, so you skip over that. You decided you’ll slowly feel your way around first, then come back to it, once you’ve got a handle on how to use Twitter.

That’s your biggest mistake as a newbie.

One of the first things you’ll be doing with your Twitter account is finding and following the right people . . . people you can learn from . . . people you can network with . . . people you can help . . . people who can help you achieve your career goals, or connect you to those who can help you.

These are people you want to stay top of mind with. You want these people to follow you back and watch your tweets.

Think about this. Unless these people you follow automatically follow back everyone, they’ll probably take a look at your profile before deciding whether or not to follow you back. I know I do. I’m selective about who I follow.

When I look at the profiles of new people who have followed me, too often all I see is a nice photo (or sometimes no photo at all), their name, and maybe their location. Since they’re newbies, they haven’t tweeted at all, or only a few times. And they’ve skipped over the bio.

How can I determine who they are and what they’re about with so little information? They’re not generating interest. They’re not giving me a reason to follow them.

With a branded keyword-rich Twitter bio – even one that fits into only 160 characters – I can get a feel for whether they’re someone I want to follow.

If you haven’t worked on branding yet, at least get your job title and most important relevant keywords into your bio. You can go back later and get some of your brand messaging in it.

And you can change your bio at any time. In fact, it’s probably not a bad idea to tweak it from time to time.

Increase your credibility and follow-ability by taking a few moments to write your Twitter bio.

Related posts:

Twitter Turbocharges Executive Job Search and Personal Brand Visibility

How Twitter Helped Me Build My Personal Brand

Twitter Executive Branding Strategy: The Beauty of a Retweet

55 Top Job Search Experts To Follow On Twitter

photo by josh semans

So many of my c-level executive clients and potential clients are surprised that Twitter is such an integral part of my personal branding and social media marketing efforts, even though it’s wildly popular and stories about its value for business-building and job search abound.

They still think Twitter is a time-drain for people who have nothing better to do than tweet about what they had for lunch, or other trivial matters.

My Twitter ROI was dismal at first when I started tweeting seriously late in 2008, and I thought I was wasting my time. It took about 6 months of tweeting several times every day (except weekends) before I could see that my time spent was gaining traction, and I was beginning to make a mark.

I certainly haven’t been as heavy-duty a tweeter as many others, but I’d say my Twitter schedule is realistic for someone who is actively job seeking. Some say it’s better not to tweet too much anyway, and risk overwhelming your followers.

Because tweeting is micro-blogging, Twitter is a natural complement to my blogging efforts. It fits in perfectly with the kind of marketing that works best for me – spreading my own content across various social media channels, showcasing my writing skill and its value to c-suite job seekers.

It’s all about getting my brand and promise of value noticed by potential clients and those who can lead me to more clients, and getting recognized as an industry thought leader and expert.

The idea is to get on their radar and stay top of mind with them so that, when they have a need for my services or know someone who may, they’ll reach out to me.

Sounds just like job search networking, doesn’t it?

Good networking on Twitter, just as in real-life or through any social media channel, works when you think “give to get” – promote and help others, and they’ll likely reciprocate. I’ve built professional friendships with all kinds of people (other career professionals, executive job seekers, social media experts, entrepreneurs, etc.) with whom I’ve formed alliances.

We’ve become brand evangelists for each other. I support them by retweeting them, tweeting their blog posts, spreading the word about them and referring them to good-fit clients. They’ve reciprocated by referring potential clients to me and sometimes their contacts in the media who are looking for career experts to interview and/or to contribute to their publications.

One of my Twitter strategies is using relevant keyword phrases often, in my retweets and original tweets, and/or adding hashtagged (#) keyword phrases at the end of tweets, if it will still leave room for others to retweet them.

Savvy Twitter users search these phrases for information, products, services, and to find people to follow. Here are some of my recurring keywords:

#C-suite
#PersonalBranding
#JobSearch
#Executive
#SocialMedia
#LinkedIn
#Blogging

Other strategies I use to attract potential clients, colleagues and thought leaders within my niche:

• Using hashtags on my relevant keyword phrases strategically, tweeting with and without them.
• Retweeting people I want to notice me, if they’ve tweeted something relevant and worthy.

And my efforts have paid off:

When I published my executive branding and job search ebook, I knew I could rely on my Twitter network to help promote it.

Many of my blog posts have gone viral, broadcasting my name and business on many other sites. People have referred to and linked to my blog posts on their blogs, helping to build SEO on my sites and bring more visitors … all potential clients or people who can refer potential clients.

About 15-20% of visitors to my blogsite come from Twitter. If I’ve tweeted an especially popular blog post of mine, that number can jump to more than 50%. Those visitors are people who probably otherwise wouldn’t visit my site. Every visitor is a potential client or may know someone who is.

Some clients who found me by Googling relevant keyword phrases, landing them on my blogsites, said they wanted to work with me because of my Twitter and other social media involvement, indicating my expertise in online identity and online reputation management. They watched my ongoing activity in the Twitter stream on my blogsites.

Leading job search experts who found me on Twitter have included me in their lists of approved career services providers.

Your takeaway:

As an executive job seeker, if you build a realistic strategic plan to incorporate Twitter into your search campaign – even as little as 10-15 minutes a day – you’ll get the word out about your unique promise of value to the companies you’re targeting.

Many of them are on Twitter, tweeting opportunities and updates on their products and services, which could alert you to needs of theirs that you can fulfill. Job search experts are on Twitter, tweeting valuable (and free!) information that can help you. They’re all active on Twitter. You should be, too.

Related posts:

Twitter Turbocharges Executive Job Search and Personal Brand Visibility

Twitter Executive Branding Strategy: The Beauty of a Retweet

14 Reasons I Won’t Follow You On Twitter

Twin Twitter Executive Job Search Tips

photo by josh semans

So much has been written and said about whether social media brings enough return on time invested.

The key to getting value is choosing a few platforms and leveraging them well. We can easily get consumed and overwhelmed by dabbling in too much social media , and making an impact with none.

Running my business is similar to running an executive job search campaign. I tell my c-suite clients that, just as I do, they need to think of themselves as a company of one – Brand You – and determine what differentiates them from their competition, then promote that unique value they offer.

Using social networks and social media helps you (and me) uncover opportunities, build community and brand evangelism, make connections with potential employers’ hiring decision makers, and demonstrate your thought leadership and subject matter expertise.

In my opinion (and that of just about any career professional), executive job seekers MUST get involved with LinkedIn, at a bare minimum, just to keep pace with their competitors in today’s job market. But is that one channel enough? How many are too many? And how much time should you spend on each?

It’s all about creating a realistic strategic plan, and understanding that social media has a cumulative impact. It takes time for your efforts to gain traction. Don’t expect too much to happen until after several months or more, depending upon how active you are and how quickly you build connections, followers, visitors, etc.

Blogging, LinkedIn and Twitter are my social media of choice – the biggest pieces in my online brand communications plan. Here’s a taste of the ROI value of each for me:

BLOGGING

No question, most of my business comes through my blogsites. They are the single best tool for marketing my brand and the services I offer.

I write a total of 2-3 new posts each week on my two active blogsites, Executive Career Brand and Executive Resume Branding.

By concentrating on SEO (search engine optimization) – using enough relevant keywords in the right ways and places, frequency, and building back links from sites with good Google juice – I’ve been able to maintain strong search results for the keyword phrases that prospective clients use to find careers industry professionals like me.

LINKEDIN

Because my LinkedIn profile lands at the #2 or #3 spot in Google search results for my name, many click through to my LinkedIn profile and assess whether to do business with me based on what they read in my profile.

And, many of my clients are LinkedIn members who find me through a LinkedIn search of relevant keywords.

I keep LinkedIn working for me by:

• Making my professional headline SEO-friendly – it contains the keywords my target potential clients use to find people like me.
• Integrating my blog posts with LinkedIn, so that new ones are automatically posted to my profile.
• Staying active with the LinkedIn Groups my potential clients are active in.
• Growing my number of good quality connections, so that I have that many more second and third degree connections.
• Keeping my connections updated on my latest activities.

TWITTER

Twitter does require diligence and an active presence, but I happen to really enjoy keeping up with it.

Good networking on Twitter, just as in real-life or on any social media channel, is all about “giving to get”. I’ve built professional friendships with all kinds of people (other career professionals, executive job seekers, social media experts, entrepreneurs, etc.) with whom I’ve formed alliances. We help each other promote our brands and businesses.

I’ve supported my Twitter friends by retweeting them, tweeting their blog posts, spreading the word about them and referring them to good-fit clients. They’ve reciprocated by referring potential clients to me and referring me to their contacts in the media who are looking for career experts to interview and/or to contribute to their publications.

About 10-15% of visitors to my blogsite come from Twitter. Those are people who probably otherwise wouldn’t visit my site. Every visitor is a potential client or may know someone who is.

Here’s some of my Twitter strategy:

• Tweeting several times a day (except Sundays, and sometimes Saturdays).
• Making sure that the 4 most recent tweets in the Twitter stream shown on my blogsites are no more than a day old.
• Integrating my blogging with Twitter, driving more visitors to my blogsites.

You can see that my choice of social media channels and strategy have great value in building my business. Similarly, as an executive job seeker, your own well-planned strategy can help you get the word out about your unique promise of value to the companies you’re targeting and those who have first and second degree connections to hiring decision makers at those companies.

You may not choose the same mix of channels I did. Find what works for you, create a realistic strategy and stay with it until things start to stick. Another benefit to your efforts is that you will be positioned as up to date and social media savvy — qualifications more and more companies are seeking.

You’re probably wondering why Facebook isn’t in my mix. I tried. I just couldn’t realistically manage it, with the others. And I was never a big fan. But many job seekers are having success with Facebook, connecting and networking, so it might be right for you.

And now Google+ is in front of all of us. Like many, I’m still waiting to determine whether it’s worth it to carve out some of my limited time for that.

Related posts:

LinkedIn Guide for Executive Branding and Job Search

You’re a C-level Executive Job Seeker and You’re NOT Blogging?

Twitter Turbocharges Executive Job Search and Personal Brand Visibility

Twitter Executive Branding Strategy: The Beauty of a Retweet

photo by John-Morgan

You’ve got a good handle on today’s executive job search.

You know what you need to do to land your next job, and you’ve set about doing it.

You’ve already done the following:

• Compiled a list of 15-20 target companies that are a mutual good fit.
• Researched each company’s current needs and challenges, and how you can help them solve their problems.
• Identified a few key decision makers within each company.
• Started connecting with these key people through cold contact, introductions, LinkedIn and/or other networking methods.

Take your social networking beyond LinkedIn and at least dabble with Twitter. Here are 2 easy ways to use it to accelerate your job search. Of course, you’ll first have to join Twitter and post a relevant key word-rich bio:

1. Search Twitter for your same target list of companies and key decision makers.

• Follow them if they’re there. Listen in on their conversations to get a feel for the corporate culture and for job opportunities, market intelligence and due diligence.
• Follow the people they follow.
• Retweet (RT) them regularly (to get on their radar and stay top of mind).
• Send them an @reply or @mention from time to time, but don’t overwhelm them. Both include that person’s @username, so will show up in the @Mention tab of their home pages. They’ll notice you.
• Direct message (DM) them to make contact, if they’ve followed you back and when/if you’re comfortable reaching out to them.

2. Use LinkedIn’s Tweets Application.

You can choose to display your most recent tweets on your LinkedIn profile. I suggest you be careful with this. I find that not all tweets are LinkedIn-worthy.

Another important feature of this app is that it gives you instant access to the updates of people you are following on Twitter and the power to tweet, reply, and re-tweet — all from your LinkedIn home page.

Related posts:

Twitter Turbocharges Executive Job Search and Personal Brand Visibility

Twitter Executive Branding Strategy: The Beauty of a Retweet

14 Reasons I Won’t Follow You On Twitter

Are Your Target Employers on Twitter?

55 Top Job Search Experts To Follow On Twitter

10 Ways I Use Twitter to Build My Personal Brand

Does Your Twitter Bio Pack an Executive Brand Punch?

Photo by Meg Guiseppi

Many people look forward to catching up on reading over the summer. Light novels and other diversions are popular.

But if you’re in a job search, or think you’re headed there, summer is a great time to strategize your search, do some career planning, and actually get a foothold and gain some traction.

Your target companies may be hiring this summer . . . and they may be looking for candidates like you.

To entice you to buy and read my ebook this summer — and learn some basics on how to navigate the complex world of today’s executive job search — I’ve reduced the price.  Read about and purchase my ebook here.

The ebook will help you pull together all the pieces:

• Targeting
• Branding
• Career Communications — executive resume, biography, and other career documents
• Storytelling
• Online Identity
• Online Reputation Management
• LinkedIn
• Twitter
• Blogging
• Social Networking
• Social Media
• Networking
• Interviewing

Along with taking a little time to recharge from your job search efforts, devote some of your reading time this summer to accelerating your search by learning how to better manage it.

Happy reading! Happy summer!

Related posts:

Chapter 1 of My Ebook: 23 Ways You Sabotage Your Executive Job Search

Why I Wrote My Executive Branding and Job Search Ebook

10 Things I Learned Writing My Ebook

March 8th was the 100th anniversary of International Women’s Day, first celebrated in Austria, Denmark, Germany and Switzerland. In tribute, Krishna De (@KrishnaDe on Twitter), a fellow Reach Personal Branding Strategist, has compiled a free Slideshare report, 100 Voices in Business.

Reaching out for contributions from women in business across the globe, she asked us to share our best Twitter-sized tips and advice – 140 characters or less – in several categories. Some are practical, some are inspirational, all are worth taking to heart.

It was hard to select just a few juicy tidbits, but here’s a taste.

In the category Leadership and Inspiring Your Team:

#4 by Jennifer Brennan, a Communications Executive from Ireland (@jenn_bren_ on Twitter):

Be fair, honest and helpful. Always do what you feel is right. Help others, say thank you don’t forget to pay it forward.

#9 by Heather Gorringe, Managing Director at Wiggly Wigglers in the UK (@wiggled on Twitter):

Remember – success is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm.

#22 by Gillian Meussig, President and Co-Founder of SEOmoz.org in the U.S. (@SEOmom on Twitter):

Always remember to bring your personal values to the corporate table.

In the category Networking and Building Effective Relationships:

#28 by Toby Bloomberg, President of Divamarketing Blog in the U.S. (@tobydiva on Twitter):

The secret to building relationships with women is embarrassingly simple. Listen. Hear. Ask. Respond. Chocolate is always good too!

#32 by Megan Fitzgerald, Expat Coach at Career By Choice in Italy (@expatcoachmegan on Twitter):

Maximise enjoyment and success by using your values to guide your choice of clients, partners, projects, teams and people in your network

In the category Productivity and Time Management:

#43 by Jennifer Britton, President of Potentials Realized in Canada (@jennbritton on Twitter):

Keep your vision in front of you, your eyes on your goals. One step a day consistently over time leads to results. Celebrate often

My contribution, #47 (@MegGuiseppi on Twitter):

Resist the urge to check emails and social media first thing each day. Put in 2-3 solid hours of beneficial work before getting sucked in.

In the category Professional Development:

#68 by Joanna Penn, Author, Speaker and Blogger at The Creative Penn in Australia (@thecreativepenn on Twitter):

Identify your passion. Research how other people are making income in it. Learn fast – Try it out – Fail fast – Persist – Learn more – Share

#75 by Viveka von Rosen, CEO and Founder of Linked Into Business in the U.S. (@linkedinexpert on Twitter):

Stop playing small. No more “Little old me” syndrome. We have the tools to claim our voices and our genius. So let’s do it!

In the category Work Life Balance:

#81 by Grainne Byrne, PR Consultant at GBC PR in Ireland (@grainnebyrne on Twitter):

Worried? Ask yourself will it matter in a week, a month or a year? Only the last one needs attention

And maybe my favorite, #95 by Anette ni-Dhathlaoi, Marketing Manager at ESB in Ireland (@nettyni on Twitter):

Learn 10 different ways to say no, without ever saying ‘No’

Does your executive job search brand communications plan include Twitter? If you’re not on Twitter because you don’t think you’ll have time to come up with enough quality tweets, reconsider.

I’m about to explain how you can leverage the value of Twitter with very little time and effort.

If you are on Twitter, what do your tweets look like? Are they mostly about what you had for lunch or what movie you saw last night or how lousy the weather is in your area?

Sprinkling in some of those kinds of tweets is okay, but for the most part, you should focus on reinforcing your brand and ROI value in tweets that will resonate with your target audience.

If you’re active on Twitter or want to be, and need help creating good tweets, you need a retweet (RT) strategic plan.

Even if you do nothing else on Twitter, posting relevant retweets can be a powerful way to build brand evangelism, a quality Twitter following, and get on the radar of people you want to rub elbows with, such as subject matter experts in your niche and hiring decision makers at companies you’re targeting in job search.

First, gather up a long list of people to retweet. Who are these people? Colleagues, industry thought leaders, and CEOs and other C-level executives at your target companies, to name a few. Search for them on Twitter, follow them and retweet them. More about this in my post, Twitter Turbocharges Executive Job Search and Personal Brand Visibility.

Break up the long list into various categories to help you prioritize and manage your retweet strategy. One category should be your favorite go-to people (those you can always count on for a good tweet)

Use Tweetdeck or another Twitter app to help you organize and manage your lists.

Create several Twitter lists (see the “Lists” tab on your Twitter page), broken into your various categories.

Here’s some advice on how to retweet well and get more retweets, from the people at Twitter, social media strategists and me:

Twitter describes the mechanics of retweeting simply:

1. Hover over a Tweet
2. Click the retweet link, highlighted below
3. The Tweet will then be forwarded to all of your followers

And where to find retweets:

• Click the “Retweets” tab on your homepage to see what you’ve retweeted, what’s been retweeted by people you follow, and who retweeted your Tweets! The following items appear in a drop-down menu. Click one of them to see results.
• Retweets by others: read the retweets posted by people you follow under the first tab, ‘Retweets by others.’
• Retweets by you: read your own retweets- it’s like the sent items in your email account. If others have also retweeted, you’ll see their profile icons listed.
• Your Tweets, retweeted: find out who retweets your tweets!

Check out Ruhani Rabin’s (@ruhanirabin) excellent post, Secrets of How to ReTweet Effectively Better, for more on the basics.

His post covers the bases so well, Twitter refers to it in their Official Twitter FAQs.

Here are some of my own “give to get” retweet strategies:

Keep your retweets consistent with your brand and ROI value. That doesn’t mean you can’t RT off-topics and humorous tidbits.

Don’t automatically retweet something containing a link without first checking it, to make sure it’s not a bad link and doesn’t lead somewhere you don’t really want to send people.

Structure your original tweets so that they’re short enough to allow for more than one retweet by others, without alteration.

As a thank you to new followers whom you may or may not follow back, find a tweet of theirs to RT.

Take the time to tweet a thank you to people who RT you, even if you’re not the tweet originator.

It’s always nice to include your own brief supportive comment with a re-tweet that’s exceptional. If you’re having a hard time generating conversation on Twitter, retweeting in this way will help.

Boost a Twitter newbie by checking in on them from time to time and retweeting their relevant tweets.

Don’t change the wording of the original tweet, except to abbreviate for space.

However, use abbreviations sparingly. A jumble of single letters and numbers can be confounding and doesn’t give a professional impression.

If a good retweet doesn’t mention the original author, take the time to track them down and give them attribution with an @mention.

If you’re not already following someone you want to retweet, coincide retweeting with following them. Sometimes this gets their attention. But realize that some popular Twitter folks don’t want to follow a lot of people, so they may never follow you back.

Retweeting using the retweet button many websites have installed makes it easy to support the writer. But sometimes they haven’t customized the plug-in to include their @username in the RT, or the generated tweet includes the website name making the RT too long, or a guest writer wrote the post, but the author isn’t given attribution in the generated retweet. Take a few moments to restructure and tweak the RT to fix it.

Use hashtags in your RTs when you can. Read BenParr’s (@BenParr) HOW TO: Get the Most Out of Twitter #Hashtags, at @mashable for all the skinny.

Want to boost your chances of being retweeted yourself? See Dan Zarrella’s 5 Proven Ways to Get Retweeted.

Related posts:

10 Ways I Use Twitter to Build My Personal Brand

Does Your Twitter Bio Pack an Executive Brand Punch?

14 Reasons I Won’t Follow You On Twitter

photo by Josef Dunne