Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Robert Macias on April 29, 2009 at 12:51pm

This sounds like a decent idea for the novice, however I am a little worried how much value I would lose with my current followers. I agree with Slouch and the other 90% of responses. Tweeters would instantly block me once they see that I am attempting to mass follow others (especially 1,000.) This is not a numbers game, it is more about value.

However, those who listen to this advice will end up with an initial group of followers. So it will be up to recruiters to add value during this sensitive time to keep them following, but be prepared for an immediate amount of blocks shortly after. Additionally, you will be networking with other recruiters and not so many job seekers; so it is all about what it is you are trying to achieve. Sorry if I have repeated any others' comments:)

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Permalink Reply by Slouch on April 30, 2009 at 12:30am

I didn't set up my dummy account for any other reason than testing the new Vipe twitter product Adam was talking about. I wanted to see what would happen. So I did and he is right. I got to follow about 950 people in the recruiting industry and within about an hour, 100 people or so were following me back. The account is @want1000. Have a look. You can see who I got set up to follow.


Maren Hogan said:

Hmmm, I'm not sure how I feel about this. On the one hand I am pretty lazy so the idea of mass-anything can be appealing. Also, part of my personality (hardwired I'm afraid) is that I love meeting and wooing new people. So it would almost be a challenge to see who would follow me back ( I would also be interested to see how many of these people I ALREADY follow).

On the other hand, I keenly remember the outrage over auto-DMs and how everyone was so torqued off about that. In addition, I am now seeing several recruiters and sourcers I respected using what I have a sinking feeling are mass DMs. The problem with this, is that even though its efficient, it turns people off. When I get excited because an industry icon sends me a DM and then read through it and it looks faked, I feel a little cheated.

I won't rehash all the the other reasons listed in the post and comments about why this is a good idea or not a good idea. For me though, it comes down to how do I want to be treated? Do I want people to think I have followed them because they are a valuable resource and I enjoy their online company or because they made it onto a list?

A better approach might be the one Jason suggested, setting up a dummy or fake account to watch and observe before entering the social media sphere. It's the online equivalent on sitting in your skates by the side of the roller rink before heading in. You know who's going really fast, seen which guy is going backwards in short shorts and by the time Mariah Carey's "Dreamlover" is over, you've figured out which young man you will "accidentally" bump into. It's all about the strategy baby.

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Permalink Reply by Steve Levy on April 30, 2009 at 2:15am

Not that I'm the least bit concerned but out of sheer boredom I checked want1000's followers to see who these 100 recruiter Twitterers were.

Hmmm, I wasn't there.

Guess I have nothing important to say that is worth following - LMAO!

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Permalink Reply by lisa rokusek on April 30, 2009 at 2:24am

Slouch, I am sorry, man, I blocked you without knowing who you were. Mea culpa!

I honestly don't care who follows me on twitter. It has gotten so I get like 40+ new followers a day anyway (most screaming to be blocked) and I don't have the time to weed out the follower spam - except periodically, and especially one named @want1000. Hah!

Twitter is a phenomenal tool, and i have absolutely made $$ directly from it, repeatedly, but using it to broadcast is, in my opinion, not the best use. There is plenty of RT fatigue going on - especially with the #followfriday madness. The power is is using it to mine for information. And by gumb mining we can do, with nary a follower or a fee.

Lord, who needs to attract followers in some herd way, they swarm you no matter what you do.

Of course most are not hard working recruiters, they are SMedia sales people or get rich quick dolts, or life coaches. If i had a dime for every life coach I'd......well you know what comes next.

I am not sure why any hard working recruiter would follow me, I just post more of the same stuff, though my dog pictures are endearing I think. And my garden, its pretty freakin' phenomenal. But if any hardworking recruiter wants to play with me in a businessy way (as in doing splits or some other way of making $$) they should pick up the phone and call my butt. That is what hardworking recruiters usually do, right?

Seems like recruiters following recruiters might lead to some kind of disease, at least hives, unless you are the recruiter selling webinars or some such stuff to other recruiters, and then I say, well why not just take out an ad here?

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Permalink Reply by pam claughton on April 30, 2009 at 8:25am

I clicked on Slouch's account and lo and behold I'm one of the 1000 and have evidently followed him back. I have it automatically set up to follow anyone who follows me, which is a huge time-saver. Still not sure how I feel about this though, not sure I want to be targeted by random recruiters or to follow them. Hmmmm

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Permalink Reply by Todd Kmiec on April 30, 2009 at 1:49pm

I have an interesting take on this. My original Twitter account does not aggregate. So I have a good number of followers and it has been fine. However, with the #splits up and running, I needed to set up a second account that aggregates. So I have one account following a whole bunch of people and another basically following and being followed by nobody. Last night, some of the people I follow were on the #talentnet chat and I saw their tweets. So I set up a column to follow that discussion on Tweetdeck and it was great. Thinking about it overnight, the most success I have had with Twitter is #splits. The most fun I have had is in specific discussions whether it is about recruiting or 24 or the Cubs. So I'm going to spend some time off of the primary account with followers and only using the account that aggregates with columns set up for whatever I want to discuss or be a part of at that time. My thought at this point is that this will be much more efficient and effective for what I want to get done at any given time. I use the #splits column and that works. If #talentnet has a discussion, I want to participate in that based on what I saw last night. If I'm listening to the Cubs game and want to chat with other Cub fans I'll do #Cubs for some entertainment. I would love to see the group of people that are networking around here (not selling stuff) start using #recruiters or something else for relevant info to the industry. I don't always check in on the blogs yet if a blog is posted here I would love to have a hashtag search so I see it and if someone has something to tweet about this business, I think I'd rather have that column than just following everyone and getting their tweets that are not relevant to what I am interested in at that time. So even outside of searching to find what you want to find, I think the hashtag may be the best way to go.

Todd Kmiec

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Permalink Reply by Slouch on April 30, 2009 at 4:25pm

I am going to delete the dummy account now. I got the information I was looking for.

pam claughton said:

I clicked on Slouch's account and lo and behold I'm one of the 1000 and have evidently followed him back. I have it automatically set up to follow anyone who follows me, which is a huge time-saver. Still not sure how I feel about this though, not sure I want to be targeted by random recruiters or to follow them. Hmmmm

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Permalink Reply by Jerry Albright on April 30, 2009 at 4:35pm

Great post Todd. You hit several points head-on. Nice work.


Todd Kmiec said:

I have an interesting take on this. My original Twitter account does not aggregate. So I have a good number of followers and it has been fine. However, with the #splits up and running, I needed to set up a second account that aggregates. So I have one account following a whole bunch of people and another basically following and being followed by nobody. Last night, some of the people I follow were on the #talentnet chat and I saw their tweets. So I set up a column to follow that discussion on Tweetdeck and it was great. Thinking about it overnight, the most success I have had with Twitter is #splits. The most fun I have had is in specific discussions whether it is about recruiting or 24 or the Cubs. So I'm going to spend some time off of the primary account with followers and only using the account that aggregates with columns set up for whatever I want to discuss or be a part of at that time. My thought at this point is that this will be much more efficient and effective for what I want to get done at any given time. I use the #splits column and that works. If #talentnet has a discussion, I want to participate in that based on what I saw last night. If I'm listening to the Cubs game and want to chat with other Cub fans I'll do #Cubs for some entertainment. I would love to see the group of people that are networking around here (not selling stuff) start using #recruiters or something else for relevant info to the industry. I don't always check in on the blogs yet if a blog is posted here I would love to have a hashtag search so I see it and if someone has something to tweet about this business, I think I'd rather have that column than just following everyone and getting their tweets that are not relevant to what I am interested in at that time. So even outside of searching to find what you want to find, I think the hashtag may be the best way to go.

Todd Kmiec

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Permalink Reply by pam claughton on April 30, 2009 at 5:29pm

Slouch,
That wasn't directed at you. I was more thinking of getting tons of new strange followers that might sign up for this....made me wonder if they're going to make a product that autofollows a large group like this if they should consider asking those 1000 people if they want to participate or not?

Slouch said:

I am going to delete the dummy account now. I got the information I was looking for.

pam claughton said:

I clicked on Slouch's account and lo and behold I'm one of the 1000 and have evidently followed him back. I have it automatically set up to follow anyone who follows me, which is a huge time-saver. Still not sure how I feel about this though, not sure I want to be targeted by random recruiters or to follow them. Hmmmm

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Permalink Reply by Slouch on April 30, 2009 at 7:24pm

when I deleted the account there were over 190 people who had chosen to follow the account.

pam claughton said:

Slouch,
That wasn't directed at you. I was more thinking of getting tons of new strange followers that might sign up for this....made me wonder if they're going to make a product that autofollows a large group like this if they should consider asking those 1000 people if they want to participate or not?

Slouch said:

I am going to delete the dummy account now. I got the information I was looking for.

pam claughton said:

I clicked on Slouch's account and lo and behold I'm one of the 1000 and have evidently followed him back. I have it automatically set up to follow anyone who follows me, which is a huge time-saver. Still not sure how I feel about this though, not sure I want to be targeted by random recruiters or to follow them. Hmmmm

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Permalink Reply by Adam Peterson on April 30, 2009 at 8:13pm

Sorry for being out of pocket for the last couple days - I have been on business travel. This is turning into a great discussion and I thank you for all your posts. I traded messages with JD today and believe some of my half of the conversation is relevant enough to add as a comment so I'll copy a version of it below:

I believe this is a great conversation and am learning quite a bit about people's perceptions of twitter. I can't say I agree with everyone, but this conversation is flushing out a lot of great thoughts / judgments.

I disagree with many of the negative posts, though I respect them, simply because I don't believe Twitter is an application, I believe it's value is as a platform (Jerry, I agree with your posts that sometimes when logging into Twitter, the information can be worthless). Twitter is a platform to easily gain access to incredible amounts of up to date info, as well as a marketing platform to spread a message. In fact, I believe it has to act as both in order to be valuable.

The caveat here is, and I agree with Jason, many are not willing to take the time to set up filters / know how to sift through the overabundance of information out there. That seems to be a consistent hang up, but it is not something that can't be easily overcome. Those who want to use it as a platform, will likely find value in kickstarting their twitter connectivity. When I imagine the epitome model, if I had 1,000,000 people following me I would imagine that as a powerful way to market my message, develop partnerships, find people, etc. Vipe's 1,000 simply kickstarts that.

Thanks for the good discussion.

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Permalink Reply by Slouch on May 12, 2009 at 11:29am

way better than autofollowing 1000 recruiters. check this out http://tweepsearch.com/search?query=headhunter&commit=Search and you can even change the search term to recruiter.

The thing about this is that you can spend your time investigating people who say they are a recruiter and then decide if you want to follow instead of spending your time confused and then realizing that the way out is to drop twitter all together or start unfollowing.

There are a lot of other reasons as well.

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