In case you missed it, I kicked off the networking discussion with “old school” networking. Now let’s take a look at social networking tools, which allow you to still share inspiration and information with other professionals, but in the online space.
Location, interests, profession, education…you name it, you can be linked by it. The exciting (and somewhat addicting) aspect of using social networking tools is that you can actually see how you are connected to people and then use these connections to meet others. There are many tools available and since most young professionals have been using MySpace and/or Facebook since their college days, I’m going to focus instead on how you can use LinkedIn and Twitter for professional development.
LinkedIn takes old school networking and puts it online, connecting you with people in your field, giving you a venue to advertise yourself, and encouraging contacts to do business with each other. As a young professional, you probably have a lot of questions. How do you negotiate a job offer or a pay increase? How do you troubleshoot technical issues in a project? What are other professional writers doing to stay up-to-date in the field? With LinkedIn, you can connect with people in your field who can give you answers and feedback. And when it comes to job searching, you’ll have yet another resource for finding out what’s available and what you need to be doing for professional development in order to stay competitive.
Twitter, the microblogging service that gives you 140 characters to tell people what you’re doing, can be a great networking tool because it gives people the chance to share tips, articles, blogs — whatever they may be using in their job — with all of the people who follow them. Picture this scenario: you’re at work, trying to come up with a design concept for a new website but finding yourself staring at a blank slate. A graphic designer that you follow through Twitter posts about a “great roundup of business card designs” along with a URL. You click on it and find yourself with 100 sources of inspiration, getting you over your creative block (and yes, this did actually happen to me). You can also find out about events and job opportunities.
How you are using social networking tools to become a better professional writer, editor, or designer? Feel free to share your experiences and tools of choice.
Being a heavy Twitter use, I would say that Twitter is one of the most useful tools online that I’ve come across in a long time. It’s an amazing communication tool.
In that sense, it also takes some work and effort to get value out of it. It’s not something you just setup and you’re golden. It takes a little time to get a network of people (in Twitter) around you, but once you have it, it’s awesome and very powerful.
LinkedIn is great too, but it’s a little less intense as a social tool than Twitter, I’d say.
angelashetler reply on June 16th, 2008:
That’s a great point about the effort required. Do you have any tips to share about how you built your Twitter network?
Well I started with a few people that I knew. Then seeing many @ replies to others, to clicked on other people’s names to see what kind of things they tweeted. If it was of interest and/or relevant to my career, I’d follow them. After following, it’s just a matter of interacting with them instead of just watching them tweet.