When you want to share another person’s tweet, it’s important you cite who tweeted it in the first place.

This is called a retweet.

Placing “RT” before the user name and posting the tweet to your stream is the most common usage.

“RT @melissawalker Attending the @PSAMA networking on 1/25 http://bit.ly/com/86frtx”

This lets all my followers see that I am sharing this event, its link, and who tweeted it originally. They may be interested in following Melissa Walker, too, if they don’t already, not to mention how to learn more about the event. The tweet also virally spreads news of the event because my followers can also retweet it.

If you receive more email than you can deal with in a day, following an organization’s updates on Twitter is an easier way to stay current – and not miss out on great networking opportunities.

There is a trend emerging with organizations reducing their reliance on email marketing and web sites to communicate with their audiences.

Using Twitter provides a real-time tool that sends communications to people who choose to receive the organization’s news. The threshold to entry is very low and (for now) Twitter remains free with virtually no technical skills required.

Join the Conversations

The openness of Twitter enables any one to join a conversation.

When you want to contribute to the debate, don’t just promote yourself or your blog. Self-promotion is smarmy and unwelcome.

Instead, provide information that is useful and a link to where others can learn more. Pointing back only to content that you have created is a closed loop that is self-referential. If you are tweeting links to your blog, be sure your blog post is not purely promotional about you. The blog posting should have direct value and usability for the reader. For example, a how-to, a coupon, or analysis of a news story.

Enrich Your Tweets with Pictures and Sound

TwitPic.com works with Twitter to post links to your photos in combination with tweets.

This works great when you want to shoot pictures on the go with your cell phone. Whether on vacation, at a concert, or just with friends, adding a picture adds that extra impact to make your 140 characters have more depth.

Sign in with your Twitter log in and password to get a free account. It works in connection with the Twitter application on your cell phone or the TwitPic site.

You can upload the image from your computer on TwitPic’s site or email it to an address that the site will provide especially for you. If you email it, put your photo’s tag line the Subject line of your email – not the body of the email.

Other Twitter-related applications for cell phones have photography capabilities built in to insert a link to make your photo viewable online.

With millions of people to pick from, deciding who you should follow is no small task. Twitter blogged about discovering who to follow, and I recommend you read it before continuing this post.

Additional Sources for Follows: Journalists

Many columnists and reporters now post to Twitter throughout the day. The blog Journalistics provides a handy listing of sites that list journalists who use Twitter.

The publications and shows for which these journalists work also post tweets of interest. Refer to WeFollow.com for the top and local listings.

WeFollow.com is a directory where you can add yourself and select five keywords (hashtags) that define who you are. The site also provides major category directories of Twitter people ranked by the number of followers each has. This is a quick way to find top leaders in many fields, and a way for you to be found by others.

Add yourself to be easily found by others searching for Twitter people on your topics.

Look through your favorite news sources and you can find the publication’s user name or the reporter’s user name. You can also search for them by name on Twitter.

Don’t expect to be followed in return by each of these since they have huge followings – hundreds of thousands of people at times – so it’s not feasible for them to follow every one in return. That means you won’t be able to send a direct message to the person.

Now you can tweet at the user to share your opinions or feedback on stories.

Many news organizations are using this technique also to source information from their audiences to enrich their stories.

With shrinking budgets in news organizations, this substitute method of information gathering can provide a vital link that keeps viewers and readers informed through on-the-spot sources in real time.

Additional Sources for Follows: Twitter Directories

As with all popular sites, related sites appear on the scene to attract traffic and provide unique value.

MrTweet.com is another source for Twitter follows.

MrTweet examines your tweet history, followers, and follows to recommend others with similar activity.

While you will need to accumulate some followers and follows after you have been tweeting for a while to get the best results, the service is a good one to revisit periodically.

Be sure to follow @MrTweet, too, for tweets directed at you about new suggested follows.

These tools are free. Bookmark them and revisit every other month to expand your Twitter network.

When You Get a New Follower

Since Twitter is driven by content and influence, you need to demonstrate both at each opportunity.

When you get a new follower, send a reply “thank you” so that your current followers see who is following you. For example:

@bobthompson Thanks for the great speech last night and the follow!

Don’t thank the person through a direct message. You want to share with others who else follows you.

This is a viral technique to get one another’s followers to follow the two of you as well. Why? Because your follower thinks:

“If David Doe is following Jane McDoe now, then I bet David’s tweets are great like Jane’s. I will follow him, too.”

While some of this sounds like you are gaming the system to increase your follow count, that is not the purpose of these techniques. Your goal is to attract a quality network of people you can share with and influence.

If any of this strikes you as bragging or showing off, remember that the rules of engagement and standards for behavior are different in the world of Twitter. These are accepted norms and not actions that are viewed in poor taste.

How to Be of Value

The best contribution you can make is to answer questions posted by others. Similar to how the best and most popular news articles bubble to the surface based on how many people are sharing links to them on Twitter, the best answers to questions tend to bubble up, too.

These phenomena happen because we trust others in our networks more than information sources we do not know or trust as well.

A plumber may label himself “Five-Star Jim’s Plumbing” in a yellow pages ad, but does he really offer five-star service? I prefer to ask my neighbor who did the best job for him when he’s used plumbers in the past.

Word of mouth provides that unconscious third-party endorsement we like to find as a way to validate our choices.

Be As Good As Your Last Tweet

As with all social networking and social media sites, being an active participant is the key to being recognized and valued in an online community.

With Twitter, influence can be measured in part by the number of followers you attract. That does not mean that Twitter is simply a numbers game, where the guy with the most toys wins. Rather, the way to attract a solid following is by delivering good content that is useful, and to deliver it in the right way.

Status Updates

Twitter prompts you by asking, “What are you doing?” Do not type, “Reading the newspaper, going for a walk afterward.”

Tweets should include opinions, announcements and conversations.

As Joel Comm remarks in his book Twitter Power, “Produce content that’s interesting, fun, and valuable.”

Finding Content

Whether you read magazines, books, listen to radio shows or podcasts, or prefer to watch television, any media you consume likely has an online presence.

Instead of visiting multiple news sites throughout the day, I recommend using an RSS reader to follow your favorites news sources, blogs and web sites. I consume news by the bucket load every day. I use RSS feeds to follow topics in national news, business news, technology, design, and social media along with a few niche topics.

By setting up an RSS reader on your computer and populating it with RSS feeds, you create an easy way to find content of interest to you. Doing so also enables you to easily share content with people in your social network.

RSS readers commonly have sharing functions built in at the news article level. Sharing the item across any network then only takes a few clicks.

RSS stands for “really simple syndication.” It provides a news feed that the reader tool pulls in to your browser.

When you see the icon below, click on it to add the web site’s feed to your reader.

Commonly found icon for RSS feeds

The Google Reader is a very popular reader because of its simple interface and easy method for adding feeds. Google provides excellent resources for learning how to use their reader at http://bit.ly/GglRdr

Building Your Following

What interests you? Is it the latest news about a particular celebrity, athlete, TV show, or musician? Do you want to keep instantly up to date on the latest happenings in your industry, your city, or other news streams?

Whatever information you want to follow, there is a tweet stream to follow.

A good strategy is to identify two to three major topics that interest you.

Using those topics as hashtags, and search for them in Twitter. This will show all the tweets on that topic, from newest to oldest.

Another simple tip: give your hashtag context. Most people won’t actually know what your hashtag means, so give a quick explanation in one of your tweets or, if you’re making a hashtag, make it very apparent what it’s talking about.

Finally, if you’re looking to create a hashtag, be sure that it adds value for yourself and your followers. The best way to utilize them is when you need to organize information. Conferences, major events, and even reminders (i.e. #todo) can help organize specific tweets and make life easier on you and your followers.

Read through a few dozen and see if any persons stand out among the crowd. Look for frequency of postings, how well their tweets are written (do they include links and credit others when they retweet?), and how often does it seem others are retweeting the person’s original tweets?

This is not an authoritative means to evaluate a person’s knowledge on a topic, but it gives you an indication of how active she is.

Click the user name to learn more about the person. Active and high profile users (key influencers) will customize this page with their own artwork and details about themselves.

This provides a quick way to judge if you want to follow the person or not.

For example, I scan a person’s latest tweets to see if I’m interested in what they tweet about. I read their bio line and if they posted a link to a site, I click through to it as well.

In 30 seconds you can determine whether the person is a match for you.

Now that you are looking at other people’s profile to see you want to follow them, you can better appreciate why your own profile matters so much.

Follow those who look interesting, and don’t be surprised when they follow you in return. That’s common courtesy in the world of Twitter.

I typically test-drive a Twitterer for a few days to a week. If they appear to post only personal thoughts and opinions at random, or reply to other tweets with “Oh yes! Totally agree!” or other remarks that do not add value to the conversation, I unfollow them.

There are simply too many good tweets with usable content to read that I do not want tweets with little to no value clogging my stream.

People self-select over time who to follow and who to unfollow. Usage on Twitter also fluctuates so you may notice your number of followers go up and down over time, rather than a consistently upward trend.

Twitter debuted is new Lists feature in late 2009.

Lists let you organize the people you follow into groups. It is a way to group Twitterers into common topics to streamline your reading experience.

I use this tool to put all my technology follows on one list, while all of my social media follows are on another. When I read through my tweet stream, reading them grouped by similar topics focuses my attention and prevents the distraction of jumping from topic to topic.

By putting people on Lists, you streamline your experience of reading tweets. If you are like me, you like to mentally check off tasks as you complete them. By organizing people I follow into Lists, I can group their tweets for quicker consumption.

If you prefer to keep your follows in a single stream, you may find it hard to keep up with the various streams of conversation because each tweet will jump from one topic to another.

By grouping follows into Lists, you maintain a manageable degree of similarity from post to post so you don’t have to do so many mental acrobatics to follow the thread of a conversation.

Some Twitterers use the number of Lists on which they appear as a measure of their reach and influence. This is akin to the sheer number of follows and followers a Twitterer accumulates as a badge of their popularity, and can be a competitive effort to see who can appear on the most lists.

As I constantly say, focus on the quality of your content and contributions – not the quantity. Popularity rises and falls with the times but quality will endure.

You may find it useful to peruse the Lists of others as a way to find interesting new people to follow, especially when you are new to Twitter.

Lists can be made public or private, depending on your preference.

See the Twitter help page for detailed steps to creating a List and adding people to it at http://help.twitter.com/forums/10711/entries/76460.

A Tweet Before We Go

Twitter is a popular, easy-to-use tool that engages users with frequent updates to topics that interest them and simplifies the process of sharing information across your social network.

I recommend diving in feet first with Twitter to experience it in full, then decide to what degree you want to pull back to make it both useful and not overwhelming. Finding balance takes some exercise, but you will quickly gauge what works for you.

Twitter is an incredible resource that will endure and evolve but it can feel like drinking from a fire hydrant for new users. Learning to moderate is the key to enjoying your Twitter experience.

Contribute, engage, share and always be of value are the primary goals to remember as you tweet, tweet, tweet.

How Do You Tweet?

Tweet us a Comment and we’ll tweet you right back. Tweet me @geofftucker.

When you attend conferences and networking events, you may notice that people will write their Twitter handle on their nametag. This is a clever way to communicate their name and promote their Twitter feed. I recommend you do this for any event you attend where you think it’s applicable.

Let’s Tweet!

Writing your first tweet can be as confusing to write as your first blog posting. If you intend to tweet about a particular topic, now’s the right time to announce that. Some examples are below:

• “Tweeting today about the city mayor’s campaign updates. Vote Thompson 2010!”
• “Looking for professional bloggers to follow. Suggestions?”
• “Offering free math tutoring lessons for grade school kids in May. Tweet me for details.”

Enrich Your Tweets

Since Twitter is such a streamlined platform, you must do a lot with a little. One way to make your tweets more valuable is to share links to articles, videos, web sites, and other online content that is relevant to your typical tweets or your followers.

For example, professionals who follow the news in their industries will post links to articles throughout the day. This provides a rich reading list that is endorsed by your followers as worthwhile.

Let me sidestep for a moment regarding why this matters.

Rather than reading the newspaper cover to cover each day – still a great pastime for me – you can trust that your follows’ judgment is as good as yours when determining the value of a particular news story. This third-party endorsement filters popular stories to the top of the trend of topics throughout the day. The sum result is, “Everyone is tweeting about this. I should read it, too.”

This is not groupthink. Rather, it’s pulse-taking and a means for you to participate in the topics of the day. It also slims down your information intake on a daily basis to only key items if you want a quick digest instead of full, deep analysis.

We all suffer information overload, and cannot possibly read as much as we would like to each day. If we did, we would have no time left to do our jobs, engage in real life, and remember to take out the garbage. In short, be willing to skim, contribute, acknowledge, and move on when the conversation fizzles.

URL Shorteners

When you want to share a link to a news story, you probably copy the web site address from the address window in your browser and paste it into an email, then send that to your friends, colleagues, and others.

This limited form of sharing makes passing along information cumbersome. By using Twitter to share links, all of your followers see it and judge for themselves whether to click through. By tweeting, you did not add yet another email to a person’s inbox (remember how overwhelmed we already are with information?). By using Twitter you made it easy for your followers to share it to their followers (called a “retweet”).

So what happens when the web site link is more than 140 characters long? That leaves no room for your tweet itself.

The solution is to use a URL shortener service.

Here’s two popular, free services and how they work:

• TinyURL.com is a popular URL shortener, and an early entrant to this field. Simply copy the web site address, paste it into middle window, and click “Make TinyURL!” You are given a new URL named http://tinyurl.com/ followed by five random numbers and letters. Now your tweet has a link and room for your message. You can copy and paste this into your tweet.
• Bit.ly is a newer, more popular URL shortener. It’s popularity grew because it also provides statistics on your shortened URLs. If you like to know how popular your tweets are, it will show how many people clicked on the links you post. Again, copy and paste your link into the window to receive a shortened URL of http://bit.ly.com/ followed by six random letters and numbers.
• Like TinyURL, Bit.ly offers a drag-and-drop tool for our browser toolbar that turns the conversion process into a one-click step. Click on the Bit.ly toolbar button, and a side panel opens. The URL is already shortened and the Twitter field is pre-filled with the article’s headline. This makes tweeting an article almost effortless.

I prefer Bit.ly for its clean interface, the statistics it provides, and the easy tools it provides to tweet links. The traffic they attract also bears that they are now a dominant service provider for URL shortening.

Hashtags

Hashtags are another element to add your tweets. They are preceded by the pound symbol #.

Think of them as tags that highlight keywords in your tweet. Using this technique makes your tweets more searchable and easy for followers to find.

There are a few methods to using hashtags.

The most common is to enter them at the end of your tweet or in the body. For example:

• “Looking forward to tonight’s rally http://bit.ly.com/8wzEMF #Thompson #mayor #2010”
• “Looking forward to tonight’s @BobThompson2010  #ThompsonRally”

This tweet communicates what this user is involved in, her attitude toward it, and includes a link to the candidate’s web site in the first example, and the candidate’s Twitter handle in the second example, along with hashtags that make it easy for other supporters of Thompson to find each other.

Conferences and events have begun to include the hashtags that tweeters can add to their tweets. This provides a real-time tracking tool to follow the comments and thoughts of the crowd at an event. Some will post “What a great event tonight!” to “@BobThompson2010 ‘Let’s work for a new era in our city. #Thompson #mayor #2010.”

That second example is a very common type of tweet you will see. It shows that the tweeter is live at the event, and publishing quotes from the speaker as they happen.

This happens often at conferences as well. If you cannot attend an event, it makes a great substitute for live reporting from an event where you can follow along as events unfold.

Now that your profile and setting are optimized for the best experience for you and your followers, it’s time to join the game.

Find People to Follow

Twitter provides a simple tool that scans your email address book to find people you know who are already on Twitter. It then suggests them as people to follow.

This feature works with the online email services from Yahoo, Gmail, and AOL.

Click on the email service you use, and provide your username and password. Twitter only scans your email for email addresses that match those of users already registered for the service. Your privacy is protected and your email is secure. You can re-run this service periodically as you communicate with new people via email, too.

Once you provide your log in information, Twitter will quickly scan your email and return a list of people to follow. Review the list and pick which ones you want to follow by clicking the “Follow” button below their info.

Each person will get an email from Twitter alerting them that you are now following their tweets. It’s common courtesy in the land of Twitter to follow people in return when they follow you. That’s why you will find many of you follows will become your followers in return. Be sure to respect this convention as you use Twitter more and more.

I inspect each new follow as they happen. Yes, you will be followed by “get rich quick” schemes people, by people selling useless products, and other valueless content. Use your judgment to decide who you want to follow in return since you will see the tweets of all your follows in your stream. And if a person is blatantly spam, report them so Twitter can revoke the profile. A little shared policing action is good for the community.

Not enough for you?

The Twitter scan will also return a list of users in your email address book who are not on Twitter. You can send invitations inviting them to sign up and follow you.

If they ask you what the service is about, or why they should be using it, feel free to share this post with them.

Twitter also provides a list of Suggested Users. There are many people and companies who have tens of thousands of followers. For example, if you are shopping for computers and equipment, follow the Dell Outlet account @DellOutlet. They offer numerous Twitter-only deals throughout the day.

Prefer to shop local? Many independent businesses use Twitter to promote sales and events in their stores. By following their tweets, you can find excellent bargains from $1 coffee to big discount coupons. When you visit a local shop, look for a sign promoting their Twitter handle – and start following. Others are beginning to experiment with running contests as a combined way to attract followers, and people who engage with their brand while passively spreading the brand across their own networks.

Many bloggers, authors, actors, and other high profile people have Twitter accounts now. Simply search for their name to find their handle and to begin following them.

Twitter provides a simple double-O graphic as the default image for users. You are going to replace that with a photo of you.

Select a headshot of yourself that clearly shows your face, and is not a full body shot.

Avoid grainy images or taking the photo yourself. The perspective of a camera aimed down the arm toward the face is not a good choice. Pointing a camera into the mirror to take a photo is not a good choice either.

Have another person take your photo against a neutral background, and focus on your face. Give a nice smile and that’s it.

You want your followers to connect your tweets with your face.

Don’t skip this step by substituting a photo of your pet or kids, or your favorite sports team’s logo. Build a brand that is about YOU.

Background Design

Twitter offers a handful of background designs for your Twitter page. You can select from their default options, or tweak the color schemes to suit your tastes.

You can also build your own. Try Mashable’s how to for specific instructions. For now, choose one of the options that Twitter provides since this option is one of taste, and not one that impacts your activity.

Mobile

Twitter was built on the premise of being used mostly on cell phones.

Click the Mobile tab to set up your cell phone to access the service. Check with your cell phone provider to find out if or how they charge you for text messages and tweets before proceeding. If you have a high volume or unlimited text messaging plan, this should not be an issue.

Notifications

After you complete the set up process on your phone, Twitter will send a code via text message. Send that code to 40404 in the US, 21212 in Canada or +44 7624801423 in all other parts of the world.

This sets up your phone to send and receive tweets. Remember, though, that once you start following a lot of people, you will not want your phone going off every few minutes with updates. To prevent that, send the word “stop” or “quit” to the Twitter number for your part of the world (as noted in the paragraph above).

Twitter also provides a variety of notifications to you via email or cell phone when certain actions happen.

Among the choices available, opt in for when you receive a direct message from any follower. If you are not checking Twitter on your computer or phone regularly, this alerts you immediately to tweets that probably need your attention. You can reply from your phone or computer.

You can choose to allow selected users’ tweets to update your phone as they’re posted if you prefer. Simply send the message “on [username]” to the Twitter number. All tweets by that user will now appear on your phone as they are posted.

I recommend experimenting with this approach. You may have certain follows that you want to tweet with throughout the day when your phone is your only means of access. Having this feature on full-time will become tedious and time-consuming if you have too many updates coming through. Turn it on and off at will, based on your preference. The users you select for this feature will not know you are changing your settings.

Before you begin to tweet or follow other people, let’s work on your profile so that others will know who you are and what you are about.

When you follow a person, he receives an email from Twitter saying, “Jane Doe is now following you on Twitter” with a link to your profile. Most likely, he will click through to see who you are, especially if he doesn’t know you. Let’s make sure he gets the right impression when he clicks through.

Click the Settings link in the menu along the top of the screen.

Let’s start with the Name tab.

1. Enter your full name.
2. Enter your user name. Twitter will confirm if it is available or not.
3. Enter your password.
4. Enter your email address (more on this below). Choose if you want Twitter to send you updates about their service.
5. Enter the words the reCAPTCHA box to prove you are not a computer or spammer.

Twitter asks for your email address so it can send certain notifications to you. It is not shown publicly or accessible by others. Choose one that you use often to monitor when other people follow you or send you a direct message (more on this later).

See If Your Friends Are On Twitter

Click “Skip this step” for now. We want to fully prepare your profile before you begin tweeting, following others, and attracting followers. Why? When people start following you, you want them to find a fully developed profile when they click on your name to learn more about you.

Twitter will present you with a suggested list of people to follow. Click “Skip this step” again for the same reason.

Finish Up Your Profile Basics

Twitter will send an email to confirm that you are who you say you are. Be sure to click on the link in the mail to verify your identity, then continue with the steps below.

Your name and user name will be pre-filled on the screen. If you need to change your email address, you can do it from here.

Time Zone

Select your time zone. Note that all your tweets will be time-stamped with your local time as you post tweets. The same applies to all other Twitterers and tweets.

More Info Link

This link is an ideal spot to use your LinkedIn profile link. If you have a blog or personal web site, you can use it here instead. Keep in mind that you only get to post one link so choose wisely where you want people to learn more about you.

One Line Bio

So, tell me about you. In 160 characters or less.

As I said, Twitter is a master of brevity.

Refer to your LinkedIn Summary to select 3-4 words that define you. List them, then add one more that paints who you are as a person. Some examples are below:

“Financial advisor, sharp networker, MBA, and avid gardener to prune the weeds from your retirement.”

“Business writer, traveler (not tourist), operations manager, and frenetic dad of 4.”

Experiment with writing these one-liners about yourself, and add a little zing at the end to better stand out among a sea of weak efforts.

Location

Including your location can make you easier to find online, particularly if your local or target market is an important part of how you want to be known.

Twitter also offers to geotag your posts. This is a small bit of code that provides your geographical coordinates on the globe. By geotagging your tweets, Twitter makes tweets become hyperlocal. That is, you can search for what is going on among Twitterers in your immediate vicinity by radius. This is helpful for following people who are tweeting at conferences or events, or just surfing the collective conscience of those around you at any given moment. Try it from your favorite coffee shop sometime.

Language

Select your preferred language. Twitter has a handful of choices for now.

Privacy

The point of tweeting is to participate in conversations. You can choose to limit who sees your tweets to only people who follow you.

This narrow-casting approach has its merits for some.

Since you are focused on building your online presence, leave it blank for now.

As said before, your LinkedIn profile is how you make a first impression on others. Whether you know it or not, you are being regularly researched online. For the job seeker then, it’s exceedingly important you make that recruiter pick up the phone and call you.

Optimizing Your LinkedIn Profile

Just as it’s important to be descriptive for the person reading your profile to understand who and what you’re about, it’s equally important that search engines understand you, too. Why does Google, Bing, and Yahoo matter? When people research you, they typically don’t go to specific sites to find you. They enter your name and probably your location into a search engine, then start sifting through the results.

Associating your name with relevant keywords is why optimizing your profile for people and machines matters.

For example, let’s say you are an independent accountant. You focus on providing accounting and tax preparation services to small businesses in your city. You have no staff, no marketing budget, and a rudimentary network. How do you promote yourself?

One way to help you get found is to write your profile to include keywords that people searching for you will use.

Make a list of the types of businesses you want to attract. Let’s say you want to focus for now on lawn keepers because it’s summer:

• Lawn maintenance services
• Lawn mowers
• Gardening services
• 98122
• Small business accounting
• Small business tax preparation

This simple example lists search terms that you can incorporate into your profile. The search engines look at relevancy and proximity of terms to one another to determine context. That is, if your profile says the following, then a search engine is likely to score you a high match to the searcher’s query:

David Thompson is a small business accountant with 10+ years experience providing small business accounting and small business tax preparation for lawn maintenance, gardening services, and lawn mower small businesses in the Seattle area.

Make LinkedIn Profiles Work For You

As you write entries about your work experience and history, use specific terms. Avoid generic statements like, “Successfully achieved first quarter results for my division.” Instead, you can say, “Generated 24% rate of return on physical inventories in the first quarter of 2008 using CPERP inventory management system.”

Put Some Flair Into Your LinkedIn Profile

The impulse with LinkedIn profiles is to write dry, conventional resume-like statements. I encourage you to show more color in your profile. Certainly profanity is out of the question for most people but I have seen profiles that use mild instances to good effect. You know what is acceptable in your industry, so use good judgment.

By injecting some color into your profile, you reveal yourself as a well-rounded person – not another resume. And everyone wants to connect with a real person, not a piece of paper.

Honor the Facts

Tempting as it may be to stretch the truth here and there, you can better compensate for any shortcomings by using gentle humor or short-and-sweet sentences to fill in the gaps.

New to the work world and fresh from an internship this summer? Show what you learned but also show how you grew and enjoyed it.

“Advertising Account Specialist freshly minted from Northern University wants to surprise and delight your clients like I learned from Watson Advertising the summer of 2008. I listen to what they want, craft a brief so the creatives get it right, and know to fetch coffee if you need it.”

When In Doubt, Imitate

Look at several profiles in your profession on LinkedIn. When you find one that impresses you, study what makes it work. Pick apart the formula, then swap out the keywords that person used with the ones you need. You are better off imitating than being boring.

Looking for Some Mutual Optimization?

Want to review a statement before going public? We can’t give you lawyerly advice but we are great with a thumbs up or thumbs down and reasons why. Post your optimized profile in the Comments.

If your LinkedIn profile is your professional side, then Facebook is your personal side. Regularly using your profile on Facebook through status updates, friending other people, becoming Fans of Pages and joining Groups are ways to round out your social media profile.

Facebook is the dominant social networking web site for connecting with friends and family online. With over 350 million members as of January, 2010, its audience continues to grow and demonstrate high levels of activity.

With LinkedIn, you are optimizing your profile to be found by people searching for you online. In contrast, Facebook offers more customizable security and privacy functions to tailor your degree of visibility to the world.

This post is longer than normal because we have a lot to cover, and it’s best to do it all at one time. This unit will focus on how to create a great profile and keep it fresh with Status Updates.

1. Profile Basics

Signing Up
Start by signing up at www.facebook.com with your first and last name, your email address and a password. Facebook also requires your gender, and birth date. Don’t worry about showing your age – this can be hidden later in the process but it’s used to reveal age-appropriate content only.

Even though there may be other people on Facebook with your name, your email address, birth date and location will keep you unique among the listings.

Facebook will then present two oddly shaped words (called CAPTCHA) that you must type into the box below them. These are a deterrent to email spammers trying to create bogus accounts on the site.

2. Add Friends

Adding friends to increase your network is at the heart of Facebook.

After you successfully enter the CAPTCHA words, Facebook walks you through four steps in setting up your profile.

The first two steps include adding and finding friends already on Facebook.

In Step 1, Facebook will suggest people you may already know. Part of the sign up process includes providing access to your email address book. This is so that Facebook can scan it (and find who you know on the site).

At this stage, it also scans for your email address among the users who have already submitted their address book. Think of it as a reverse-lookup.

If you see a person you know, and want to connect with that person, click the link “Add as a friend” below their name. A request will be sent to the person to approve or ignore your request. You will receive many of these requests as you begin to be found, and people want to connect with you.

These users will not know that they were suggested to you so it is OK if you choose to forgo adding them to your network for now. You can click “Skip” next to the “Continue” button if you prefer to bypass this step.

In Step 2, Facebook will ask to access your email address book to scan for email addresses of members already on the site. This is a quick way to find people you know.

If you are using an online email service such as Google’s Gmail or Yahoo’s mail, this is a quick and easy scan.

If you are using email that is stored on your computer, such as Outlook, then this tool will not work since Facebook is trying to access your email history on a service’s computer system – not your personal machine.

Click “Skip this Step” if your email provider is not an online service.

3. Completing Your Profile

In Step 3, you may add your high school and college information as a way to find classmates from schools you attended.

You may also enter the name of a company where you work now or in the past to find colleagues.

Facebook will then use these pieces of information to suggest yet more people you may know. Review the suggestions and add the ones you know and want as connections. There is no rule of thumb on how many friends you should or should not have. Having too few means you are either new or not very active, and having too many could mean you’re spending too much time online.

Likewise, avoid friending people you have only met once and briefly. While that is acceptable on LinkedIn, reflecting how business and professional relationships are more cut and dry, in personal life this action assumes a stronger degree of connection than the other person may feel. Unless you explicitly ask to friend the person on Facebook, it is not a smart tactic.
The same goes for friends of friends. If you look through your friends’ list of friends and see someone you want to meet, ask for an introduction. Do not friend the person on the assumption that it is welcome. This can be viewed as “stalkerish” behavior.

4. Adding Your Photo

Using your photo online helps other people find you. It also is an opportunity to reveal yourself in a very human way.

Facebook lets you upload your photo from your computer or you can use your computer’s camera to take a quick snapshot.

Make sure your photo is clear and your face is visible. You can post group photos and artistic shots in your Photo section later. For now, focus on being identifiable.

You can reuse your LinkedIn profile photo if you like.

Don’t forget to smile!

5. Rounding Out Your Profile

Now that you have the basics, it’s time to build a full profile.

Facebook presents a page where you can add friends, update your profile, and modify your privacy settings.

Let’s start by clicking on “View and edit your profile.”

Basic Information
We will focus on your Basic Information window in the middle to start.

You can choose to reveal your gender in your profile, and your birth date. Whether you do this or not is a personal choice. There is no benefit or loss with either choice.

For “Current City” list where you now live. This greatly improves your chances of being found by others. Do the same for “Hometown” for the same reason.

Most people add their family to their Facebook network. If you are worried about some family members seeing what you may post, don’t be. There are ways to carefully reveal who can see what in your profile. We’ll get to those in the next stage.

For “Relationship Status” select the right one for you. For “Interested In” select the right one for you as well. And “Looking For” is the same.

Why are these three included? While you don’t have to answer these if you prefer not to, your answers create opportunities to connect with similar people. Also, advertisers use this demographic data to target relevant ads in Facebook to you.

For “Political Views” and “Religious Views” you may want to opt out of answering. I suggest this because nothing elicits more high-strung emotions and arguments than politics and religion. If your network is pretty homogenous and like-thinking, or you are adamant in your positions, then answering these makes sense.

I caution against it because you never know who believes what, and friendships are lost over divisive issues. At the least, give this some thought before answering since you can update your profile at any time.

Click “Save Changes” when done.

Personal Information
Click the triangle pointing to “Personal Information” to open the window.

In each of the categories, you are given a free-form text box to enter as much as you wish. Separate items by commas. As in other parts of your profile, these entries are used to target information to you that matches your interests.

Enter as much or as little as you wish.

Click “Save Changes” when done.

Contact Information
Due to concerns over identity theft and general privacy, I recommend you enter only the information you feel is necessary.

If you like to use instant messenger programs like Yahoo Instant Messenger or Google’s GTalk, you can add your handle for the different systems.

Facebook has an integrated chat feature so you may prefer using it than your regular instant messenger program.

Adding your City/Town and ZIP codes are safe ones – these make it easier for people to find you to add to their networks.

Adding a link to your own web site is a smart entry, so be sure to include it if you have one.

Contact Information: Privacy Settings
Notice those little padlock icons to the right of each entry?

Click the downward pointing triangle for options of who can see each piece of information.

Facebook’s privacy settings recognize you will have different degrees of connection to people. Depending on the information, you may want only those people you add as friends to have access to it. You may be comfortable with that information being accessible to friends of friends (second degree connections). If you want, you can open the information up to “everyone” which makes it viewable in search engine results.

How private versus open you want to be is a decision for each individual. I recommend considering the piece of information you are sharing, and how readily available you want it to be. As mentioned above, you can change these settings at any time. Regardless of your decision, be sure to review the settings for each item and select the one appropriate for you.

Education and Work
Last you may add the schools you attended to find classmates and employers to find present or former colleagues.

Not everyone is comfortable with friending a coworker on Facebook because we retain a distinct sense of difference between our work lives and our personal lives. Do not be offended if a coworker seemingly never accepts a friend request – and do not pester people to accept them. This is rude and unnecessary. We are not seeking to see who can have the most people sign our yearbooks before the semester ends and we all leave for summer.

This is also an example of why revealing your political leanings or religious views can be a source of friction, and worth consideration before publication.

Sometimes the people we have fond memories of are also people who have moved on to different phases of life. That means not everyone wants to keep in touch with those they used to know. This reflects how we grow and change over time.

While it is nice to catch up and say hello once in a while, keeping up to date on a regular basis through Facebook status updates is probably too much contact with these individuals.

We have to take this into consideration when reconnecting with people from our past. Not everyone wants to reconnect – respect that boundary and do not take it personally.

All of our relationships and friendships have varying degrees of intimacy. What you share with your best friend now is not what you shared with your best friend in high school, probably. Unless your best friend from then is still your best friend today!

Finalize Your Privacy Settings
While the default privacy settings are probably a safe bet for a majority of people, I recommend you visit these periodically.

As social media becomes more and more prominent in our lives and a key way for people to learn about us, we have to practice more control over what is shared about our lives. Celebrities and politicians have had publicists and public relations experts to manage these flows of information. Now, you need to exercise some of the same judgments in your life.

Let’s review what Facebook’s Privacy settings do.

Click on the Account tab in the upper right, and go down to Privacy Settings.

Each part of your profile has an independent privacy setting. You can choose the level of privacy by category by clicking on the button on the right. You can choose from:
• Everyone
• Friends of Friends
• Only Friends
• Customize

The first three are self-explanatory. Let’s look at Customize further.

By creating a Customized privacy setting, you can strategically filter out who can and cannot see that category’s contents.

The first section allows you to choose who can see the content:
• Friends of Friends
• Only Friends
• Specify People
• Only Me

By choosing the first option, your second-degree connections can see information about you. This is typically suitable for your hometown or where you live now, and other basics.

Choosing “Only Friends” constrains the information further to only people you have a one-to-one connection with. Selecting “Specify People” reduces the content to be viewable ONLY by those you approve to see it. The last option of “Only Me” is for the most private information. What’s the point of posting information on a social network that nobody can see? The content may be information you want to share with others one by one or on an as-needed basis, with the ability to withdraw permission at will.
Using these options wisely lets you share information selectively with your network and avoid potential conflict, too.

For example, if you support one view on a controversial view but you are unsure if your neighbors or certain friends think the same way, it is safer to limit your postings on that topic (whether “for” or “against”) to a list of only those who agree with you.

Though we hold our First Amendment right to free speech dearly, we do not always exercise the best restraint when dealing with others who oppose our views.

Consider these settings as tools to use wisely to keep in the peace. Your option is to avoid making controversial statements online.

Remember, too, that potential employers research you online. If they see your postings, and feel concerned by them, you may have forfeited an opportunity without ever knowing why you didn’t that get that interview.

Face Face Face / Give Me Face

Paint that profile with the best palette in shades of You. Some blue for in the cloud moments, a little red when you feel randy, and some white to show your purity, too. What’s in your Profile? Who has the best Profile you know? Spread the love in the Comments section for a response.