I finally convinced my husband to create a twitter account. He typically rebells against social media because he doesn't like to have his personal life out there for the world to see. But when I explained the professional benefits, he finally caved in.
His professional interest is real estate. So he subscribed to all real estate blogs, media, and industry professionals on Twitter. He found that using his Twitter feed is WAY more efficient for gathering industry news compared to checking CNN and WSJ among many other sites a few times a day. Now he is obsessed with his instant updates about the market and was actually complaining that no one was tweeting on Sunday afternoon.
The best thing is when starting out on twitter is you don't even have to tweet if you don't want to, just follow others.
Twitter is definitely more valuable on a professional level versus personal. No, I don't care if you just drank a eggnog latte at Starbucks, but I do want your industry tips, trends, best of practices, and news.
He is also learning the importance of a digital footprint in his own career. Establishing yourself as an industry professional is easily done through blogging and social networking. If you are able to create valuable content, others will value your knowledge on a certain topic. He is even thinking of blogging about a niche of real estate now.
Where in the past, companies published whitepapers and contributed to news articles, their executives are now tweeting, blogging, and e-publishing about what they know best.
