KSL'ism - Twitter is like a hammer.

I'm teaching Social Media this summer and today in class we talked about Twitter. The students were not Twitter users, until today. I've found that many people have the same questions about tool.

• Why does anyone care that I did laundry last night?


• Why do I care that someone is making bread?


• Who has time for this stuff? I can barely keep up with email and Facebook.


• Does Twitter even matter?

To help them understand, I've developed another KSL'ism. (KSL'isms are what happens when I over simplify a situation and use an unlikely metaphor. Those of you who've worked with me are all too familiar. :o)

I explained that Twitter is like a hammer. One tool, with two very distinct purposes.

When you think of a hammer you probably think, like most people, that it's for driving nails. But a hammer has another job, the claw end of the hammer does significant work and shouldn't be overlooked. It can extract a nail driven deeply, with ease, exerting great leverage to pull it out of a tight binding.

Twitter is a tool much like that. Twitter is one way to drive your brand or push information. Every tweet, every link shared, every Re-Tweet, reflects and further defines your brand. But Twitter can be used to extract hyper-relevant pieces of information too. Information that might otherwise not have had the leverage, in the great online content world, to bubble up to a level of visibility that could be helpful. Without Twitter it would be very difficult to extract these pieces of information.

To demonstrate to class I typed into a Twitter search "Social Media" and "Business" or "Enterprise", selected only posts from within the past 24 hours, and only from people within 100 miles of Boston, people we could meet. Then we used google advance search to execute the query, without the location constraint b/c we can't do that easily there. Here's the results.

• Twitter stream
• Google results

Which do you think did a better job of extracting actionable content?

Keep the faith. -KSL

Looking for work? Get Creative.

Looking for work? You're not alone. So how can you stand out? My friend Marie asked me the other day if we (Aleuro) had any packaged services to help job seekers use social media to do just that, stand out. She wanted to create a video of herself, so potential employers could virtually "meet her" and experience her savvy and enthusiasm in a more compelling way than a resume. She felt video was important for her because she's "older" and wants employers to identify with her, not their (perhaps misconceived) perception of her age bracket.

Marie is on the right track. There are so many tools available to job seekers now that can help build their personal brand. Having a great personal brand is compelling for an employer because their own organization's brand equity increases by bringing you on board. Finding new ways to showcase yourself demonstrates initiative, enthusiasm, entrepreneurship, and a resourcefulness that any employer wants in their next hire.

Just this morning at the Social Media Breakfast in Concord NH, I met Lisa Landry of Print Savvy. We chatted about a New Hampshire Creative Club event coming up that I'd planned to attend. The event is a take on Iron Chef. Three creative groups will battle to see who can be the best. They will be given information about a product or service that they have never seen before and will have one hour to come up with a killer plan to promote the product. Cool right? Well what's really cool is that one group is comprised of industry vets who are looking for work, most of whom met online through LinkedIn. Most of this team's members have never even worked together. They decided that banding together to do what they do was a great way to get more visibility in the job market. Brilliant. As an employer seeing that kind of spunk and ambition is great thing. Here's an excerpt from the Creative Club Press Release.

"We think our team, newly dubbed The Marketing All Stars, perfectly illustrates the value of networking and the power of Social Media. Half of us met on LinkedIn!” says All Star Team Member Jeff Savastano. "It started as an idea to gain visibility in the job market and grew into the idea of throwing together a 'virtual' agency, for Iron Design Event. We all 'bought' what we read online and then 'hired' each other, when we finally met. This happened in a few short days, in between other things we're all working on,” explains Savastano. "Our team is proof of what creative people can do when properly motivated. We view this as a fun challenge which will showcase our abilities as marketers.”

So what if you don't know how to use Social Media yet? Or you're just not sure where to start? The best advice I can give you is to do what Marie did, ask someone for help. There are numerous free and low cost seminars on different tools - go to one - introduce yourself and look for someone who can mentor you. Go to YouTube and search for how-to video's. There are tons them just waiting to help you. If you're looking to take your social media presence and personal brand up a notch, then give us a call and we'll work with you to help you find your next big thing.

Keep the Faith.

KSL

PS follow the Social Media Breakfast conversations on Twitter and get to know some of the folks already using these tools.