Twitter for HR types

Twitter for HR types

A guide for Human Resources, Organisational Development, Learning and Development and Recruitment practitioners to get their heads around Twitter.

© NZLEAD Social LtdReproduce with permission only

Introduction

In today’s world we have access to a wealth of knowledge. With rapid changes in technology, information is now widely accessible and not owned by any one person. Twitter is a great tool for accessing information and connecting with people. It can transcend geographical, industry and professional boundaries.

It's also a great learning resource. The relationships you build and the knowledge shared can become incredibly powerful for your continued professional development.

The NZLEAD community is all about connecting HR professionals from NZ and around the world to collaborate and share knowledge.

We believe that by forming these connections; by sharing knowledge, resources and innovative ideas; by problem solving together; and by offering each other support, we can become better professionals.

Twitter for HR types© NZLEAD Social Ltd

Reproduce with permission onlyPage | 2

However, the volume of information on twitter can be overwhelming. You might not know what to say or have time to participate in conversations. Also, there is a risk that the technology will remove the human-to-human relationships.

In this guide, we will cover how to set yourself up on Twitter; and how to use it in an authentic and engaging way.

We have put together this guide book to help you:

• Grow your networks and meet awesome people

• Filter the quantities of information down to what is relevant to you

• Manage your tweet time• Work out what to say, and how to say it, in

a tweet • Foster authentic human interactions with

people

What this guide covers

Page | 3Twitter for HR types


The basics

Getting around

Getting into tweeting Filtering

information

Twitter events

The basics• About Twitter• Joining Twitter• Setting up a great profile• Some terms



About Twitter

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Twitter is a great tool for sharing information and meeting people.

Essentially you can be referred to great articles, blogs and comments by people you follow.

Likewise, you can share links to great articles, blogs and comments with people who follow you. It’s all about sharing. The best sources are often the most tweeted, so you get a real sense of what is good information and what is topical.

Twitter also enables you to connect with people who have similar interests and challenges. It is a truly powerful networking tool.


Reproduce with permission only

Joining Twitter

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Go to www.twitter.comUnder ‘New to Twitter? Sign up’, enter your full name, email & password.Pick a user name. This will be your Twitter handle. They are all preceded by an @ symbol. For example: @sterling_amanda

For individual accounts: most people go for their first name followed by their last name.

If you’d like to have your name but it isn’t available, you could put NZ on the end. You can be creative with your handle, but remember that if you’re representing your business, it needs to be professional.

For business accounts: enter your business name. Again, if it isn’t available, add NZ or any other variations that could be appropriate.

Remember that your user name needs to be easy to remember, so avoid using random numbers and underscores.



Setting up a great profile

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You want your profile to look professional, but approachable. Potential followers will look here when deciding whether to follow you. You profile needs to tell them about you and what you are interested in. Make sure you include: A brief description of who you are that gives followers an idea of what you might tweet about. Include a link to your blog site or website. Using hashtags in your profile enhances your searchability and makes your description more succinct.

A photo. It doesn’t need to be as professional as your LinkedIn photo but not as casual as Facebook. Recent tweets that demonstrate what you talk about and who you are. A mixture of professional and personal is good.

You can also set your corporate colours or logo as a background image.



Some terms

Tweets are limited to 140 characters. Keep tweets as short as possible but avoid “txt spk”. Make sure your grammar and spelling are correct. @mention is how you tag someone else on Twitter into a tweet. i.e. “Hi @sterling_amanda, where can I find interesting information on leadership?” Direct Message (DM) is a private message. You can only DM to someone if they are following you.

Re-tweet (RT) is something you can do if you like the content of a tweet and you’d like to share the same post. On the twitter mobile app you can also quote tweets. This is helpful if you want to share the tweet with a particular person by adding an @mention.

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Hashtag is a # symbol at the beginning of a word (or series of words without any spaces). A hashtag (#tag) allows you to: • Search for every occasion that word is

said.• Accentuate the word. • Tag that word to a particular topic or

conversation.• Add a #tag to your Discover feed (p.11)

or TweetDeck feed to follow a topic.• Participate in a tweet chat conversation Following people means you see their tweets in your Twitter stream. Every person will have a ‘Follow’ button that you can click on to follow that person.

If you no longer want to follow them, you can click on ‘Following’ to un-follow.



Getting around • Page layout

• Your Twitter stream• Notifications • Finding topics of interest• Finding people to follow



Page layout

Home is where you will find your Twitter stream. All the tweets from everyone you follow will show up here. Notifications is where you will find notifications of where people have followed you, re-tweeted you or favorited your tweets. Discover is where you can find key topics or people you may want to follow. This is also where you can filter conversations by hashtags. Me will show your profile along with all your tweets and photos (as pictured).



Your Twitter stream

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Your Twitter stream is a constant flow of information. You don’t need to read every single tweet. Think of it like a river that you dip your toes in every now and then. Your Twitter stream is a great way of seeing what is topical. Often the most popular tweets are re-tweeted. You can also see what topics people you are following are talking about. Have a look at the most used hashtags. Don’t get overwhelmed by this though. Using lists (p.22) and hashtags (p.23) will help you filter this information and save you trawling through your tweet stream.



Notifications

This is where you can see people who have followed you, replied to you, favorited your tweets or re-tweeted you. It is good practice to thank people who have followed you or re-tweeted you, so keep an eye on this area.

A Favorite is similar to a like. It will send a notification to that person to say you have favorited their tweet.

This favorited tweet will then be available in your Favorites list.

So you can use Favorites to tell people you like what they are saying or to save that tweet for later.



Finding topics of interest

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The Discover screen is where you can find tweets that are recommended for you, as well as suggested people to follow.

You can see trending topics here too. You can filter these by location by clicking on the change text.

You can also find topics that interest you by searching by a hashtag or by a key word.



Finding people to follow

Following people lets you see the tweets they are sharing with the world. You want to follow people who are sharing topics you are interested in. Here are a few ways you can follow people who are relevant to you. Go to the Discover tab and type your keyword with the hashtag into the search function. For example, #leadership.

This will bring up people who are tweeting about that particular topic. You can then click on those people and follow them. Go to the @Connect and look for people who have followed you. Click on their profiles and, if they look relevant, follow them back if they are tweeting about what you are interested in. Keep an eye on who is being retweeted by people you already follow. They might be worth following. Find out the @handles of people you meet at events and follow them. Have a look at the Lists that other people have created. There might be people worth following.



Getting into tweeting • How & what to tweet

• Tweeting authentically• Sharing articles and blogs• Sharing photos



How and what to tweet

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Tweets are limited to 140 characters. This means you have to be brief and to the point with what you are trying to share.

If you re-tweet someone, and the tweet is too long, you can make adjustments to it so that it fits into 140 characters.

Trying to work out what to tweet can sometimes be a challenge. It’s going to depend on you really, but here are some ideas:

• What you’re working on• Something funny that happened to you• A picture of your surroundings• An article or blog you found interesting or

relevant• Or, just reply and ask questions of what

other people are tweeting.

If in doubt, have a look at some of the communities you want to be part of and see what other people are tweeting.

Composing a tweet is as simple as clicking on the icon in the top right hand side of your screen.

This will then bring up a text box, where you simply write your tweet and then click ‘Tweet’.

You can also add photos if you like by clicking on the camera icon.



Tweeting authentically

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Generally, your Twitter interactions are a mix of personal and professional. People connect with other, real, people. So you want your Twitter interactions to reflect this. Here are some tips: Interact – share things that you find interesting and also engage with people who share interesting things. It’s not all about you - If you want to build a professional network you have to show interest just as much as if you were talking face to face. Don’t over promote – when you are a recruiter or business it is easy to constantly send out tweets for new positions you are recruiting for, or the services that you provide. It is important to make the engagement personal and interactive. Be authentic – be yourself. It is easy to be someone else online, but if you want to build this into a professional network with people that you will eventually meet (hopefully), it is important to be who you are in real life.



Examples of tweets that help build authenticity.

Sharing articles

There are a couple of different ways to share articles on Twitter. Scroll down to the bottom of the article and you should see a ‘Share’ button. If you hover over ‘Share’, it will bring up the different options for sharing. If you don’t see a Share button, you might see these buttons (without having to hover over Share). Click on the button for the application you want to share to. You can share to LinkedIn or Facebook this way too.



Sharing articles

When sharing the article, show that you know what the article was about. This encourages more conversation and shows that you’ve read it.

Here are some suggestions: Write a brief summary of what the article was about. For example, I have written “Successful leadership and self-awareness” below. Share one thing that you learnt from the article. For example, leaders need to consider relationships, empathy and righteousness. Share a key point from the article. For example, leaders need emotional intelligence to be successful. Wherever possible, attribute the article to whomever wrote it or shared it with you in the first place. For example, “thanks for sharing @LisaBellHR”



Sharing photos

Photos are a great way to visually demonstrate a point or give insight into your life.

You can take photos with your phone camera and share them straight to Twitter, or upload photos on your desktop.

Some other applications also let you share to Twitter, for example, Instagram.

However, use common sense around what you share. Twitter is very public. You might not want to tweet drunk pictures or anything else that might be inappropriate.

Ask yourself, am I comfortable with my boss and/or grandmother seeing this?



Example of photo shared through instagram

Filtering information • Lists

• Hashtags• An intro to other tools



Lists

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A list is a curated group of Twitter users. Viewing a list timeline will show you a stream of Tweets for people on that list.

You can use lists to find people who are talking about a particular topic, and then follow them. You can also follow discussions from a particular group of users. You can subscribe to lists created by others or create your own lists. To subscribe to other lists, go into the profile of the list owner, go to ‘Lists’ and click ‘Subscribe’. You can create your own list by going to ‘Lists’ in your profile and clicking on ‘Create list’ or do this when you add someone to a List. Enter the details of your List. To add someone to a List, go to their profile and click on the drop down box then ‘Add or remove from list’ and then select the lists.



Hashtags

A hashtag (or #tag) is a word or a selection of words (without spaces) that you use in a tweet with a # at the beginning. Anyone can make up or use a hashtag.These are the main reasons for hashtags:

• Search for every occasion that word is said.• Accentuate the word. • Tag that word to a particular topic or

conversation.• Add a #tag to your Discover feed or tweet

deck feed to follow a topic.• Participate in a tweet chat conversation These are some of the commonly used New Zealand-specific hashtags for HR types:

• #nzrec – for all recruitment related news and insights

• #nzjobs – for all jobs you’d like to list on Twitter. This is a feed for employers, recruiters and jobseekers

• #nzhr - for HR-related news and insights • #nzlead - for connecting NZ HR people with

international HR people

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If you want to create or use a #tag, check first whether it’s being used by others. You can do this by entering the #tag into the search box. This will bring up all the tweets using that tag.

For some #tags, it is perfectly ok, and encouraged, for as many people as possible to use them. However, if you are trying to do a specific campaign or convey a specific message, you might not want to use a #tag that is already being used for tweets that might not align to that. Also, be considerate. Think about the tweets you are sending out and whether someone else is using the #tag to send a different type of message. #tag hijackers are not very popular.



An intro to other tools

If you want to keep track of multiple hashtags, conversations, and Lists at the same time, then using a tool like Hootsuite or Tweetdeck might be right for you.

Tweetdeck allows you to manage your twitter streams much more efficiently and is great for facilitating tweet chats.

The advantage of Hootsuite is that it enables you to manage multiple social media platforms at the same time. For example, Google+, Facebook (including groups) LinkedIn as well as Twitter.

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Tweetdeck

Hootsuite



Twitter events • Tweet chats

• Hashtags at conferences



Tweet chats

A tweet chat is when a group of people all tweet about the same topic at the same time on Twitter. A hashtag is used to identify tweets in the conversation, for example #nzlead. A tweet chat can be quite intimidating at first, so here are some tips for participating in a tweet chat. • Identify the moderator and follow them. The

moderator is the person who will be asking questions and prompting the chat along. Pay attention to what they are asking.

• Reply directly to moderator questions. Most tweet chats will have some structure to the questions and have 3-5 questions. You might see Q1, Q2, Q3 etc. (as in question 1, question 2 etc.) in the moderator tweets. Reply to them with A1, A2, A3 etc. (as in answer 1, answer 2, etc.). This makes it easier for other tweet chat participants to follow your conversation.

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• Include the hashtag (e.g. #nzlead) in every tweet. This means that everyone participating can see what you tweet in their stream.

• If you are chatting with a large group, select a small number of participants to interact with. There can be several different topics going on at the same time so this will help you get the most value out of your conversation.

• Make new tweet chat members feel welcome. If someone joins the chat who you have not seen before, say hello and tell them what we are talking about today/tonight.

• If you are replying to a tweet, include a brief summary of the original tweet. This is so everyone knows what you are talking about. For example, “I agree that leadership self-awareness cannot be learnt”. Rather than just, “I agree”.



Tweet chats

• If you like or support a tweet then re-tweet it. Similar to the previous point, a RT shows that you like the tweet but also means that other participants can still follow the conversation.

• If you want to reply to a tweet or RT, and include a comment, but there is not enough space in 140 characters, you can shorten the original tweet. Copy and paste the original tweet and delete any parts you don’t believe key.

• Follow up afterwards. Tweet chats are great for networking. If you had a great tweet chat with someone, follow them and send a tweet to say thank you. You could even keep the conversation going.

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In a tweet chat you follow a particular hashtag, for example #nzlead



Hashtags at conferences

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Often events and conferences will assign a hashtag. For example, #RHUB (Recruitment Hub), #SOLGMHR (Society for Local Government HR Forum). This means that you can tweet key insights, voice your opinions on topics, meet and connect with other delegates and, in some instances, ask questions of the presenters. Also, if you cannot attend the event you can follow the feed to stay in touch with what is happening. If you are holding an event, just notify attendee’s of the hashtag you have created. It is generally 6-8 letters long, easy to remember and ideally not being used by anyone else.

You can display the tweets on a big screen to encourage people to participate.



Tweets from the recent Society for Local Government HR Forum

Thank you! Resources in this guide book were compiled from a number of sources, including:

• Kirsti Grant (@KirstiGrant), Social Sauce. For what we didn’t know we didn’t know.

• Carol Hyams (@chyams), Firebrand. For writing about Twitter etiquette.

• Sarah Miller (@SarahMillerAU). For great resources on how to use twitter.

For more information and resources on how to use social media for HR type processes please visit:

www.nzlead.com



Twitter for HR types

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