Career Development Social Media

HOW TO: Use Twitter to Build a PLN

The Importance of Twitter as a Tool for Learning

In a previous post, I discussed the importance of developing a PLN.  Twitter is still a misunderstood tool for many who don’t know how to leverage it as a learning resource so I decided to publish this blog article.  Think of Twitter like a magazine subscription.  When you subscribe to a magazine, you do so because you get valuable content from the material published in the magazine and you want to read it and stay current with the latest published content by having it sent to your door step.  When you follow someone on Twitter, think of it like a subscription only what you are getting is content published on the web delivered to your Twitter stream.  Thus, your Twitter account is only as useful as you make it.

If you are not on Twitter, you are missing a huge opportunity to learn from experts and to network with other people in your industry.  Do you want to start enhancing your learning using Twitter?  Here’s how:

  1. What do you want to Learn?
  2. Find Thought Leaders and Experts on Twitter
  3. Follow Them on Twitter
  4. Create Lists to categorize experts into groups based on subject matter (Ex. Design, Jobs, Social Media, etc.)
  5. Read Your Twitter News Streams (Experts share their advice, articles, tips, and tricks)
  6. Engage and Share

HOW TO FIND THOUGHT LEADERS ON TWITTER

You can certainly use Google, search people you already know to be experts, find influential blogs and then follow their Twitter feeds, or simply ask for recommendations but there are tools to help you identify influencers as well including Twitter directories such as these three:

  1. Twellow.com
  2. Wefollow.com
  3. Justtweetit.com

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