While Jerry Albright was making plans to leave Twitter forever, I was chalking up a plan to get a dozen other people on, active and excited about Twitter.

The last roundtable meeting on social media that inspired the Top Three Concerns of Recruiters Using Twitter (Resolved) evoked valuable responses and comments. That discussion inspired me to have another meeting with those very same recruiters. The session would address their concerns with a focus on the logistics of utilizing Twitter.

Highlight #1: I emphasized the value of Twitter. Unlike LinkedIn and Facebook, in which you typically have a personal and/or professional relationship preceding the connection or friend request, Twitter enables you to establish connections with a wider range of users. For example, one German-speaking candidate sent a link to his Xing profile as an introduction. I forwarded his message on to one of our European recruiters for follow up and then tweeted “Cool. A candidate just sent us a link to his Xing profile. Good first impression.”

A recruiter responded: I just have to say, that is really cool.

Highlight #2: I shared Andy Headworth’s points from one of his most popular blog posts about Twitter, Recruiter: Who will follow me on Twitter? I’m not that interesting. Now, I’m not sure if I initially over exaggerated just how uninteresting those recruiters thought they were or if Andy's valid points finally convinced them that their Tweets are worthwhile but….

A recruiter responded: Hey, speak for yourself. I am interesting.

Highlight #3: I took the group on a virtual tour of the user dashboard and totally failed to cover the most basic components of Twitter and tweeting. To compensate, I’ll review a few of the basics now….
• You can only use 140 characters in your tweet.
• The at-sign (@) indicates that you are mentioning another Twitter user.
• You can share anything another user tweets by simply clicking “retweet.”
• Lists are a newer feature that allows you to follow a categorized group of people created by you or another user.
• You are not required to read every tweet.

A recruiter responded: Okay, it’s not so scary anymore.

Highlight #4: I had one courageous recruiter, who had never been on Twitter, do a live demo of setting up account. We reviewed the process before the presentation, and she entered her Twitter handle and bio and uploaded a picture in front of our live audience.

Another recruiter responded: Ali, I just wanted to let you know that I set up an account while we were on the phone. Pretty easy.

Highlight #5: I showed them exactly who to start following. The list of examples included personal connections, industry experts, other recruiters, relevant companies, advocates of social media and #socialrecruiting. I was so excited to see these new users following our company account that I forgot to mention something else: It’s important to maintain about a 1:1 ratio of following to followers, so you don’t look like a lurker or spammer.

A recruiter tweeted: Welcome to Twitter @TheOtherRecruiterWeJustCreatedtheProfileFor.

I struggled to cover the logistics and navigation of Twitter within an hour’s time. For fear of confusing or overwhelming this new audience, I did not mention gory details, strategic plans or even hashtags. I only wanted to give them a glimpse into this strange world and the inspiration to do a little exploring on their own.

Shortly after the training, I received a bunch of notifications that @thisrecruiter and @thatrecruiter are now following you on Twitter. I saw that their profiles were more complete and they were following each other too. I sang alleluia from my cubicle. They listened! They understood! They didn’t tweet yet (but they will)!

Originally posted on Recruitalicious.