Using Twitter Hashtags and Lists for Building your Network

Image via Wikipedia

Over the last week I talked with a couple of folks in the HR and L&D domains who had started using Twitter but were wondering how to use it.

Twitter can seem daunting for a new user. Unlike Facebook and Linkedin which are "mutual connections", Twitter is a one way connection platform - You follow someone without needing their permission and they are not obliged to follow you.

If you are not a typical social media user then chances are that you would find very few former connections on Twitter. The people Twitter suggests you to follow are usually celebrities and unlikely to follow you back.

So how do you discover people who share your interests?

One of the best ways to do that is leverage what are called as "Hashtags" Hashtags are (according to Twitter) phrases or words preceded by the # symbol

People use the hashtag symbol # before relevant keywords in their Tweet to categorize those Tweets to show more easily in Twitter Search.Clicking on a hashtagged word in any message shows you all other Tweets in that category. Hashtags can occur anywhere in the Tweet.

So one of the best ways to leverage hashtags is to find the conversation related to your domain, in case of HR it could be #HR or #trdev There are also time based Twitter chats that happen using these hashtags like #lrnchat for learning professionals

When you respond to tweets using these hashtags you demonstrate your domain expertise and gain followers.

Lists are some of the most ignored resources on Twitter. You can find people in your domain expertise using Twitter lists of people and create your own lists. For example I have curated global HR and Indian HR folks on Twitter. Following them would help to grow your own network

One can also use sites like Listorious to discover such lists

Need any more help to grow your Twitter network ask me on Twitter :-)