RISMEDIA, August 3, 2009-Now more than ever, it pays to be a regular user of Twitter, Facebook and YouTube as employment odds are increasingly favoring social media addicts. Employers are searching for people who are “addicted” to these sites, because social media is the cheapest and most effective way for brands to build their reputations. Your odds of getting a job simply because you can use Twitter are fantastic: 69% of Americans don’t even know what Twitter is, according to a new LinkedIn/Harris poll. That cuts down the number of people you’re competing with.
Recently on a popular job board, a search for “twitter” popped up over 7,500 social media openings, with annual salaries ranging from $30,000 to $110,000. “Career coaches have always counseled job-hunters to improve their communication skills, but now we’re training people how to tell a story in 140 characters or less,” reports Nance Rosen, a social media expert who coaches companies and employees on business communication.
Rosen is adamant that even if spending your day making friends and gaining followers is not your idea of a dream job, social media prowess may still be a critical factor in your winning or losing a job. Employers want every employee to do more than the job they’re assigned.
“Accounting, technology and administrative people are human assets that must be multi-functional in order to be attractive right now. Like a photocopier that also faxes and scans, an employee who can talk up the company favorably on blogs or forums is more desirable than one who can’t,” Rosen says.
By using keywords to search any social media site, it’s easy for employers to see who’s talking about the topics that matter to them. As Rosen says, successful job hunters don’t fritter away the opportunity to make a good impression. They use Twitter to get ahead.
Tips for job hunters on Twitter
-Identify the companies you’d like to work for, and tweet news about them.
-Quote the companies’ CEOs or respond to their tweets, using the @ sign along with the CEOs’ Twitter name.
-Re-tweet news about the company or industry.
Nance Rosen is the author of Speak Up! & Succeed, a faculty member at UCLA Extension, and former marketing executive at The Coca-Cola Company. She’s a frequent expert resource for media including New York Times, CNBC, ABC, Investors Business Daily, San Francisco Chronicle, and MediaPost. For more information, visit http://www.nancespeaks.com/ or reach her directly at: (310) 622-5936 or Nance@NanceRosen.com.
