@vhernandezCNN FACT: I try to spend about an hour each day searching Twitter for intriguing top talent we may want to recruit. #openingupnewdoors
That’s right, the all-platform journalist programme manager for CNN, Victor Hernandez, spends an hour of his time each day trawling Twitter for fresh new talent. He went on to explain that he looks with no job position in mind but is “always looking for smart, creative, innovative folks…then [goes] from there”.
That’s reason enough.
If your blog is for your niche specialisms, Twitter is the tool to show off all the other interesting parts of your character.
So the drunken Tweets at 4am (Not too many of these if you have the name of your company in your bio), your blatant Tim Vine joke rip-offs and rambles about being on the bus with smelly people are all the constituent parts that make you great. As arbitrary as it may seem, these are the types of Tweets that prove you’ll be a fun person to work with, will help you gain followers and show that you’re not just tied down to one subject.
Of course, your feed can’t just be littered with dirge.The perfect Twitter account strikes a balance between fun, linking to your blog, linking to other interesting bits and pieces on the web, photos and conversations.
Not as easy as it sounds, but to help you along the way here are my top tips to journo students for using Twitter effectively:
1) Build a community. Don’t just follow your friends and celebrities. Instead, build a community of followers around your interests. Follow all the interesting people local to you and local to your uni, follow your journalism lecturers (What do you mean they don’t have Twitter?!), follow everyone to do with your favourite football team or music scene and most importantly – FOLLOW JOURNALISTS (Use Stephen Davies’s blog if you need inspiration)!
2) Check, check and check again. Treat every Tweet as if it is your first feature article for the Guardian. If you can’t Tweet employing all the rules of spelling, grammar and fact checking, then there’s no point Tweeting at all.
3) Use your time wisely. I have mentioned this before in a previous post, but the trick to Twitter (And the industry itself) is being in the right place at the right time. If you happen to find yourself up early or late, this is the perfect time to engage with your potential future employers, as they’re unlikely to have a deluge of @replies from every other chancer like the peak times. And, on the other hand, don’t link to your blog and expect anyone to read it while X Factor is on.
4) Be helpful. Often journalists use Twitter to crowdsource – it got me my first mention in the Guardian. Sometimes those you follow might just want to know the perfect recipe for carrot cake. Whatever their aim, your goal should be to lend a hand. Not only can you feel as though you’ve done a good deed and share your knowledge, it all helps to build engagement within your new-found community.
5) Help yourself. Free promotion is a wonderful thing. The majority of my blog readers are directed from Twitter (Hello!), so make sure the majority of your followers are reading your blog. If you link them, they will come. But don’t advertise yourself too much. A couple of promos at different times of day is more than enough. And don’t just link to your own work – link to anything you find interesting that you think others need to see. But keep the surfing dogs and music videos to a minimum and try to keep the majority of your links as niche as your blog. Aim to post at least one link a day (And if you can post photos, all the better as these always get more interest as they require less time investment from the viewer). Use Bit.ly and monitor which links get the most clicks and post more of the same in future.
Twitter can get you a job and it’s just as important as your CV, blog, portfolio and all your qualifications – it completes your toolkit.
I’m @larakiara by the way.
Coming up soon: Why every student publication needs to have a Twitter account (And how to use it)
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