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Permalink Reply by Slouch on April 28, 2009 at 12:57pm

Hey Adam. As discussed on the phone when you asked me what my thoughts were on this, I told you I thought it was not a very good and helpful thing to promote to recruiters who may think this is how they should get involved with twitter. By signing up for this, really what the recruiter is getting is mass confusion and not much value at all.

Your point about Twitter as a search engine is right. You don't need to follow a 1000 recruiters in order to tap into the search engine. You don't need to follow anyone on Twitter to get the benefit you explain. It's also not good to tell recruiters that the benefit of instantly following 1000 recruiters on twitter is that it kick starts your chatter. It's too much chatter. Most people will agree I think.

Your statement that says:

More recruiting twits = more recruiting relevant search results = more opportunities

is only true if what you are promoting is that recruiters should use twitter because the more information put into it, the more information is available through searching twitter. These results will not be delivered based on following 1000 recruiters. It will have to be searched for which is real easy to do.

Reespect

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Permalink Reply by Jerry Albright on April 28, 2009 at 1:05pm

Sorry bro - but this is a hugely misdirected approach to Twitter. In fact - if you really want to get something done I recommend staying behind the scenes and running searches for people to introduce yourself to. As JD has done such a good job of getting the word out with #splits and his splits.org that is also a fine way to go.

Following 1000 people will only leave you wondering why in the hell you signed up for this crap.

Your friend from the Loose Moose!
Jerry

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Permalink Reply by pam claughton on April 28, 2009 at 1:34pm

Agree with Slouch and Jerry. If you are recruiter, honestly, you'd be better off not following that many other recruiters....you want to be following people in the space you recruit in. I follow a few recruiters, but that's not where I focus at all, and not where I see the value in Twitter.

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Permalink Reply by Adam Peterson on April 28, 2009 at 2:42pm

Slouch, Jerry and Pam,

Good to hear from you and I appreciate your candid thoughts - nothing like a good convo on RBC with some old friends! That said, I respectively disagree with your opinions and hope I can properly explain my thoughts.

I believe we can all agree that the most immediate value to Twitter is the search engine. I will also agree that you do not need to be connected to to 1,000 people, or even 1 person, in order to gain that value. That being said, I put together this program on the premise of a more broadly based strategy. The following are my strategic thoughts:

1. Providing a way to follow many people in your similar industry allows for those who are not using Twitter to quickly and easily gain an understanding of how people are tweeting, what people are tweeting, and what the decorum / slang is. Having this information effectively coming to them (rather than having to go out and search it) not only eliminates one step of the learning process, it allows a recruiter to quickly determine, based on others' uses, how twitter can be valuable to them. Hence, the Kickstart Program.

1a. If it is too much information or "chatter" it is incredibly easy to set up an archive folder in your email system or turn off the updates directly at Twitter. I personally archive everything I get from Twitter and, similar to my blog/newsletter subscriptions, will review the subject headings and first line of text once a day or so on the chance that something catches my eye. I believe that having information come to you that is easily filtered is easier than having to go out and find it.

2. In this day and age there are many benefits to being more connected than less - for any sales person in general (of which I believe recruiters are some of the most purebred salespeople on the planet). Yes, when I type something into Twitter, anybody can find it. But believing that search is the only value to twitter, limits any tweet to "passive marketing." If you tweet, and are connected to as many people as possible, you have just taken your same tweet, and provided an upside - "active marketing." On the chance that somebody is viewing their Twitter profile within a few minutes of a tweet - they will see that tweet without having to search for it. On the chance they came across a Direct Message you sent them, they will see what else you write about.

So how possible is that chance, and is it worth it to spend the time following a bunch of people? Well the more people that are following you, the higher the chance. And the more people you follow, the more people who will in turn follow you. I have seen recruiters post jobs through ping.fm on their facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter accounts. Twitter is simply another channel to the market.

Is it worth it to spend the time to follow a bunch of people? Well you could have been following over 1,000 in less time than it took to read this post. How much is a placement worth to you? Personally, my company has generated leads through growing an online presence. I don't believe purposefully limiting your online connectivity makes strategic sense in the long run.

Does that clarify my plan at all? Would you agree?

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Permalink Reply by Jerry Albright on April 28, 2009 at 2:58pm

I think we'll have to just see this a little differently Adam. I guess it just comes from a clearer understanding of what actually takes place in the day-to-day framework of a 'placement desk" so to speak.

Following a thousand recruiters is nothing more than a glorified waste of time in it's simplest terms - unless you have a service to sell them.

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Permalink Reply by pam claughton on April 28, 2009 at 3:50pm

Yes, we'll have to agree to disagree on this. Twitter is not like LinkedIn where you are also connected to everyone you follow and everyone they follow. I don't see search as the key w/Twitter either. I see it as a way for you to brand yourself within the space you recruit. Also, a key to success on Twitter is when people retweet what you post, that's when you tap into layers that expand your reach.

Twitter isn't a quick fix type of thing, it's a slow building of your brand. Frankly, unless you recruit other recruiters, it makes little sense to connect to 1000 of them.

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Permalink Reply by Adam Peterson on April 28, 2009 at 8:36pm

Fair comments. This might very well have to end as a draw - agree to disagree :)

This Kickstart Program is available for those who want it, if you don't see value, don't use it.

We'll see how powerful Twitter proves to be over the next several years, but I truly believe the value lies beneath the first level here. As Pam said, "a key to success on Twitter is when people retweet what you post, that's when you tap into layers that expand your reach."

The natural next step on Twitter after following 1,000 recruiters, is that they follow you. Having more recruiters follow you increases the possibilities that one of them will retweet your post, which allows you another channel of advertising for splits, partnerships, help finding candidates, etc. This can be valuable even if you are not selling a service or placing recruiters, but rather a recruiter marketing partnership opportunities to other recruiters.

Creating a channel of opportunity, at the cost of 30 seconds to sign up and 1 min to create email filters, seems like a minimal cost with nothing but upside.

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Permalink Reply by Steve Levy on April 29, 2009 at 8:46am

The first step in recruiterizing a tool is the first step in the demise of that tool. It's the herd mentality...

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Permalink Reply by Jerry Albright on April 29, 2009 at 8:52am

I might get behind this if he switched the name to Twickstart. That has a twendier feel to it.

P.S. If anyone wants to follow 1000 people - just sign up to Twitter and do it. You'll spend the next month unfollowing 800 people.

Also - as far as lingo goes - you won't learn much lingo. You'll learn how to post links to irrelevent BS, the latest Twitter stats, the dates and places of every upcoming SM Recruiting Seminar and - IF you're lucky - you'll learn what I am having for lunch or dinner.

Jerry: Finishing a pop tart as I type this.

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Permalink Reply by pam claughton on April 29, 2009 at 11:09am

You know, another thing that makes this incredibly unappealing is having 1000 recruiters follow you back. That is not a good thing. Now you have to deal with all the noise streaming through from that volume of recruiters. I don't see a lot of split opportunity either, more opportunity for recruiters who don't know you to possibly go after your clients or candidates. Splits rarely happen between strangers. And as Jerry said, you'd have to unfollow 800 or so of these people to get the level back down to something that's not beyond annoying.

When you create your Twitter following slowly and deliberately, it evolves into something that's far more interesting and valuable.

That said, maybe someone will find value in this, particularly if they focus on placing recruiters. :)

Jerry Albright said:

I might get behind this if he switched the name to Twickstart. That has a twendier feel to it.

P.S. If anyone wants to follow 1000 people - just sign up to Twitter and do it. You'll spend the next month unfollowing 800 people.

Also - as far as lingo goes - you won't learn much lingo. You'll learn how to post links to irrelevent BS, the latest Twitter stats, the dates and places of every upcoming SM Recruiting Seminar and - IF you're lucky - you'll learn what I am having for lunch or dinner.

Jerry: Finishing a pop tart as I type this.

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Permalink Reply by Slouch on April 29, 2009 at 11:43am

Adam, The the other thing is that yes you can organize all the information coming through like you say but most won't . It's the same as blogging as a tool to make placements. If it's done right it works. There is a ton of info out there on how to do it right. Thing is, most don't. Not because it's difficult or there is some secret to it. It;s just ti takes time, it takes effort and most people who start a blog, never get to the 2nd post even though they now it's a good idea.

If 1000 people follow you, then the value is far greater because you can get your message on the page of 1000 people so what you are offering really, helps the people who you are going get followed by all the people who sign up to have 1000 followers. The real recipients of value from this is not the recruiters who will instantly have 1000 people who they are following but rather the people that get followed.

I'm going to set up a dummy account and try the service and report back.

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Permalink Reply by Steve Levy on April 29, 2009 at 11:58am

Any IT wonk will tell you that information is only useful if it is accessible; if 1000 folks are following you, you're probably following far more than just a few.

So tell me - how and when do you decide what's useful? How much good stuff are you missing because of the volume of the info? Do you really think these 1000 followers are only following you? Don't you think they too have their own accessibility issues?

Eating a gyro before next meeting.

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