OpenShift Commons Paris - Choose Your Own Observability Adventure
Social Networking for The Technical Writer
1. Social Networking
for the
Technical Writer
using
and
together for networking, professional
development and employment.
By Mitch Willis
www.twitter.com/mitch_willis
www.linkedin.com/in/mitchwillis
2. Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................................................ 3
Who should read this?.................................................................................................................................. 3
What is Twitter? ........................................................................................................................................... 4
Benefits of Using Twitter ............................................................................................................................. 4
USING TWITTER ....................................................................................................................................... 5
How to create a Twitter account: ................................................................................................................ 5
How to personalize your Twitter account .................................................................................................. 7
Access your Twitter account while away from your computer .............................................................. 10
Start acquiring followers ........................................................................................................................... 11
How to send a tweet.................................................................................................................................... 15
How to “Retweet” ....................................................................................................................................... 16
Benefits of retweeting:................................................................................................................................ 16
How do I retweet something? .................................................................................................................... 16
What is LinkedIn?...................................................................................................................................... 17
History of LinkedIn:................................................................................................................................... 17
Benefits ........................................................................................................................................................ 18
USING LINKEDIN:................................................................................................................................... 19
Contacts....................................................................................................................................................... 23
Recommendations ...................................................................................................................................... 24
Groups ......................................................................................................................................................... 24
CONCLUSION........................................................................................................................................... 26
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3. Introduction
“Communication--the human connection--is the key to personal and career
success.”
Paul J. Meyer - American Businessman
In the last three years, social networking1 has become integrated into virtually all
aspects of personal and professional communication. Each day, millions of
people around the world use social networking tools like Twitter and LinkedIn to
help them learn, network, grow professionally, make money and find employment
by exchanging information and opportunities.
The purpose of this document is to introduce technical writers with no social
media experience to the benefits of using Twitter and LinkedIn together in a
professional context.
Who should read this?
Technical Writing Students: You’re graduating in the spring. You want to get a
job and get on with life. I’ll show you how you can use a Twitter account and
LinkedIn account together to begin building an online presence for yourself.
Freelance Technical Writers: You’re a hired gun, working alone from your
home office. Before this current contract is done, you’re already accessing your
network for any leads that will hopefully generate more work. I’ll show you how to
use these applications to link up with new or existing clients that may already be
online.
Employed Technical Writers: You want to make sure you’re not the first to walk
the plank when layoffs happen. So your interest is in using social media from a
networking and professional development perspective.
1
http://jobsearch.about.com/od/networking/g/socialmedia.htm
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4. What is Twitter?
Twitter is a free, web-based, social networking and microblogging2 application.
Twitter allows users to send text-based messages of up to 140 characters. Each
message a person sends is called a “tweet.”
Twitter Facts
93.6% of users have less than 100 followers, while
92.4% follow less than 100 people.
There are more women on Twitter (53%) than men (47%)
More than 50% of all updates are published using tools,
mobile and Web-based, other than Twitter.com.
TweetDeck is the most popular non-Twitter.com tool with
19.7% market share.
-Source: http://cloudcomputing.sys-
con.com/node/1026329
Benefits of Using Twitter
You can use Twitter to:
Direct traffic to your LinkedIn profile.
Follow established players in the technical writing profession like Alan
Pringle and Sarah O’Keefe of http://www.scriptorium.com/.
Companies like Adobe and MadCap that make software many technical
writers use each day, like Framemaker and Flare.
Grow their professional knowledge by reading blogs3 and newsletters from
organizations like The Society for Technical Communication.
Research a particular topic.
Pose questions and get rapid feedback.
Establish, reinforce and expand your personal brand.
Collaborate with another technical writer on a project.
2
Microblog: A mini blog. See Blog.
3
Blog: A web based journal.
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5. Using Twitter
How to create a Twitter account:
1. From your browser, go to www.twitter.com
2. If you’re signing up for the first time, left-click on the Sign up now option.
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6. 3. You will be required to enter your full name, a username, a password and
your email address.
4. Next, you’ll be prompted to enter two distorted words. This helps avoid
allowing people to computer programs to automatically sign up for large
numbers of Twitter accounts.
5. Click on Create my account.
Now you have a Twitter account! The next step is to personalize it.
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7. How to personalize your Twitter account
While still logged in, left-click on Settings:
This will take you to the Settings page, where you can personalize your Twitter
account.
While here, you may wish to set the following:
1. Time Zone – If you’re in Alberta, select Mountain Time.
2. More Info URL - Add the url4 of your blog or LinkedIn page. I recommend
LinkedIn. If you haven’t created a LinkedIn profile yet, then leave this field
blank for now and return to it after we’ve created your LinkedIn profile below.
3. One Line Bio - Try something along the lines of “Recent graduate seeking
first technical writing job.”
4. Location - Add your city and province.
4
URL: Uniform Resource Locator. Your website address.
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8. 5. Language - To reach the greatest number of people, I’d recommend
leaving it on English.
7. Left-click on the Save button.
TIP: Don’t protect your tweets if you want others to see them in the public
time line. If you chose to protect your tweets, people might be less inclined to
follow you and that defeats the purpose of using Twitter.
The next step is to upload a professional photo of yourself. It adds a genuine
element to your account and allows people to see that your tweets are coming
from a real human being. Don’t worry much about the background. When you
upload your photo, the picture will be tightly cropped.
1. Left-click on Browse.
2. Navigate to the location of the picture on your computer.
3. Select the photo and then left-click on Open.
4. Left-click on Save, wait a moment as your picture is uploaded.
5. If you don’t like the photo you’ve uploaded, you can left-click on the Delete
current button and that will delete your photo from Twitter.
Next, select a background. Twitter comes with a choice of customizable
backgrounds. Avoid pre-fabricated backgrounds. Remember you’re trying to
separate yourself from the hundreds of thousands of people on Twitter and build
a personal brand. For those reasons, use a customized background.
Here are some examples of people who “get it” and have created their own
backgrounds:
http://bit.ly/G3pBz
Check out some of these sites for instructions / guidelines on how to create an
image:
http://bit.ly/Rj3M
http://bit.ly/8JwlHc
http://bit.ly/cZQa
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9. Once you’ve created a background, the next step is to upload it.
Assuming you are still logged into Twitter:
1. Left-click on Settings
2. Left-click on Design
3. Left-click on Change Background Image
4. Left-click on Browse and then navigate to the image
5. Left-click on open
6. Left-click on save changes
7. You’ll receive a message that says your profile customization has been
saved.
Now you should notice that you’re background has been changed.
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10. Now you have a personalized Twitter account.
Access your Twitter account while away from your computer
If you have a smart phone, you can use it to access your Twitter account, send
tweets or review other’s tweets you’re away from your computer.
Follow the instructions below to use Twitter from your smart phone:
Should you experience problems, check out the following link for more
information:
http://bit.ly/37Bh
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11. Start acquiring followers
Now that your account has been set up, you can start acquiring followers.
1. Left-click on Find People, you’ll see the following screen:
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12. 2. Search for STCEdmonton
Now that you’ve found it, you need to follow it.
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13. 3. To do so, left-click on the grey button on the left that has the little silhouette
on it.
You’ll know you’ve done it correctly when you see the following:
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14. Now, check who STCEdmonton is following, so you can start following those
contacts.
1. Left-click on STCEdmonton. You will see the following:
2. Left-click on followers:
You’ll be presented with a list of STCEdmonton’s followers.
3. Your next step is to left-click on the grey button with the little silhouette as
you did previously and select all the people you want to follow.
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15. Once this is done, you will have a list of people you’re following, but no followers.
You will need to be patient here. The person you’re following will receive an
email stating that you have decided to follow them. They then have the option to
follow you or not. Some will follow and some won’t.
Factors influencing this decision are:
A picture of yourself
Whether there is a bio of you
How many followers you have
How many tweets you have posted
In most cases, if you chose to follow someone on Twitter, they will follow you
soon after. Once you start to build some followers, I recommend being picky. You
want this Twitter account to be a professional tool to open doors to valuable
contacts and information.
How to send a tweet
You have everything set up and ready to go. Now for your first tweet!
Short tweets are easy to post. Type in something you want others to know. This
could be a link that you found on how to index or your thoughts on a particular
technical writing subject and then left-click on update.
Once the tweet is posted, you have the option of deleting it.
If you are trying to post a link with a very large url, you’re going to want to shorten
the url. Otherwise you run the risk of exceeding the 140 character limit. To
shorten the url, follow these steps:
1. Go to http://bit.ly
2. Paste in the url you want to shorten.
3. Left-click on shorten and you will have a much shorter, but fully functional
url to add to your tweets.
4. Left-click on copy and paste it into the tweet that you were composing.
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16. How to “Retweet”
Retweeting is the act of tweeting content posted by another user.
“The format is RT @username where username is the Twitter name of the
person you are retweeting.”5
Retweeting can occur in two ways:
1. You retweet something that a follower has posted.
2. A follower retweets something you’ve posted.
Benefits of retweeting:
Retweeting is a way to provide value to your followers, which in turn helps to
build the number of legitimate followers you have. It’s also a way to endear you
to others as retweets are viewed favourably by most people.
How do I retweet something?
Once you’ve found something you want to retweet:
1. Hold the mouse over the tweet, the entry will be highlighted in grey. Then
you will see two options, reply and retweet.
2. To retweet, left-click on retweet. You’re presented with a message asking
you if you want to post this to all of your followers.
3. Left-click on yes and then their tweet is retweeted on your profile for your
followers to see. They will also see a message on their Twitter profile that
you retweeted a particular post.
TIP: If you want to get something retweeted:
Don’t max out the 140 character limit when you’re typing something that you
hope to have retweeted. You need to have at least two characters left so you can
type in RT for retweet.
5
http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/R/Retweet.html
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17. What is LinkedIn?
LinkedIn is a web-based networking site for experienced professionals from
around the world, representing 170 industries and 200 countries. It enables you
“to find, be introduced to, and collaborate with qualified professionals that you
need to work with to accomplish your goals.”6
Latest LinkedIn Facts
LinkedIn has over 55 million members in over 200
countries and territories around the world.
A new member joins LinkedIn approximately every
second, and about half of our members are outside
the U.S.
Executives from all Fortune 500 companies are
LinkedIn members.
-Source : http://press.linkedin.com/about
History of LinkedIn:
Founded on May 5th 2003 in Mountain View California, by Reid Hoffman
and five others.
After one month in operation, LinkedIn had a total of 4,500 members in the
network.7
Some people will maintain that there’s no need to use LinkedIn, when they are
already on facebook. I see facebook and LinkedIn as two separate entities, one
dedicated to the “social” side of social networking and the other dedicated to the
professional side. Another objection is that it takes too long to create a LinkedIn
profile. While it’s true that it takes longer to create your LinkedIn profile than
facebook or Twitter, it is well worth the effort.
6
http://press.linkedin.com/about
7
http://press.linkedin.com/history
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18. Benefits: By using LinkedIn, you can:
Have access to potentially millions of professionals across the world:
Increase your visibility.
Generate leads.
Connect with new customers.
Keep your self up-to-date with the latest developments in the technical.
writing field, like DITA8 and Topic-Based Authoring9.
Give and receive online references.
Discover local events and post information about your own events.
View company profiles.
Integrate into a new job.
Research your competition.
Gauge the health of a company or industry.
8
http://dita.xml.org/node/1178
9
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topic-based_authoring
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19. Using LinkedIn:
1. From your browser, type in www.linkedin.com. You will arrive at this
page:
2. Fill out the requested information. Then left-click on the Join Now button.
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20. 3. Once you’ve logged in, you’ll need to begin work on your profile.
3. Once that’s done, left-click on the Continue button.
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21. 4. Next, begin searching for contacts via email. Select your email provider
and then follow the instructions. For this example, we’ll choose Windows
Live Hotmail. The next step would be to log in and select from all of the
available email contacts. They would then receive a notice asking them to
connect with you via LinkedIn. You also have the option of skipping this
step and returning to it later.
5. Once this is done, you’ll have to go to your email and confirm your
address by left-clicking on a confirmation link that LinkedIn will provide
you.
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22. 6. After confirming your email address, you’ll also have the option of
manually adding the email addresses of people you want to connect with.
You also have the option of skipping this section and adding contacts at a
later date.
7. Your 25% complete at this point. Next you will need to start fleshing out
your profile. It’s important that you complete your profile. According to
LinkedIn, people with completed profiles are 40 times more likely to
receive opportunities through LinkedIn.
Even though you’re offered the choice of importing your resume, I find that when
you import a resume from your word processor into a web-based application like
this, the formatting on your resume gets messed up and you spend more time
fixing the problems than if you had added the entries manually.
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23. When adding a picture, make sure it’s the same picture you used for your Twitter
profile. In the website section, you have room for links to three websites. These
are just suggestions:
1. Your online portfolio.
2. The STC website
3. A definition of technical writing.
LinkedIn offers you the ability to link your Twitter account. Take advantage of
this. Add your Twitter user name which links the two applications. When you add
a tweet in Twitter, your LinkedIn status will be updated, saving you from having to
log into multiple applications.
Underneath the Twitter heading is Public Profile. You want to customize the url
for your LinkedIn profile, ex www.linkedin.com/in/mitchwillis. It takes less
space on a business card, or in an email signature. This is more user friendly
than http://ca.linkedin.com/pub/mitchwillis/19/69a/83a
Don’t worry about recommendations for now. Those will come once you’ve
added some contacts.
Make sure to fill the Honors and Awards section. If you’re an honor roll student,
mention it here. If you’re a member of the STC and receive an award be certain
to add it.
Now that the basics are covered, we can concentrate on the most important
aspects of LinkedIn:
Contacts
Recommendations
Groups.
Contacts:
Contacts are vital. A healthy, established network adds immeasurable value to
your personal and professional life, helping you advance in your career and
acting as a safety net when needed. Building a professional network takes time,
so start today.
1. Begin with people you already know, the people you email and text each
day. Use the import function in LinkedIn to import your desktop email
contacts. If they’re eager about networking and professional development,
they’re probably already on LinkedIn. If they are then invite them to
connect with you.
2. Once you’re connected to them, you can view their profiles and see their
contacts. Chances are that while reviewing their contacts, you’ll come
across someone you both know and then you can add them as well,
further increasing the size of your network.
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24. Recommendations:
Recommendations are online references. You can get them from previous or
current employers you’re connected with on LinkedIn. LinkedIn advocates that
you write a recommendation for someone and then they will reciprocate by
writing one for you. Once you get that recommendation, you will have a chance
to preview it, and then you have the option of allowing it to be posted.
Student Technical Writers – Make use of teachers and classmates to get
started with LinkedIn recommendations. If you did an internship as part of your
education, ask your supervisor to provide one, provided they’re on LinkedIn.
Freelance Technical Writers – Chances are good one of your previous
employers is on LinkedIn. Look them up. Write them a recommendation.
Employed Technical Writers – This is similar to the freelancers. Find people
you’ve worked with, or currently work with and ask for recommendations. Follow
up by writing recommendations of their work.
Groups:
Groups are another way you can get real value out of LinkedIn. There are
hundreds of LinkedIn groups dedicated to every profession and topic. LinkedIn
allows you to subscribe to a maximum of 50 groups. Some of them are hot beds
of discussion and some are completely dead. So you’ll have to do some
searching and experimenting to see what groups work for you.
Groups are also an excellent method of cultivating more professional contacts. If
you follow someone in a group and then end up corresponding with them, they
are usually quite open to you adding them. But since this is a professional site,
always ask them first via email. The majority of users are usually quite flattered
that you’d want to follow them.
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25. Join the following LinkedIn groups to start:
Society for Technical Communications: Mainly focused on the US, but a great
source of news, trends and discussion about the technical writing field. The job
postings are almost entirely US in focus. This is a great place to familiarize
yourself with the major issues and big names in the profession.
***Recommended
Your Alumni Association: Whether it was Grant MacEwan or the University of
Alberta, or another institution, be certain to join it.
Technical Writer of Writers: A weird title, but they have some interesting
articles and discussions.
Twitter Strategies: Information on how to get the most out of your Twitter
experience. ***Recommended
Writing Mafia: A group devoted to all aspects of writing.
Linked Strategies: Information on how to fully leverage LinkedIn.
***Recommended
Users of MadCap Flare: Tips, tricks and general usage information on how to
get the most out of MadCap Flare.
Friends of Framemaker: Tips, tricks and general usage information on how to
get the most out of Adobe Framemaker.
Once you’ve filled out the LinkedIn profile, have someone you trust proofread
your profile. Make sure it’s free of spelling mistakes and an accurate
representation of who you are.
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26. Conclusion
Let’s review the strategy:
1. Get a Twitter account. Use it only for professional purposes. Add your
photo and a customized background. Tweet something of value at least
once a day. Follow leaders in the technical writing field. Put your Twitter
address on a business card and in your email signature ex.
www.twitter.com/mitch_willis. Follow local people of interest. Answer
questions, provide a link or a referral - anything you feel will be helpful to
someone. Build a reputation as someone who is knowledgeable and
provides value with each post.
2. Get a LinkedIn account: Complete the profile. Add applications that reflect
your personality, i.e. Books you’ve read, WordPress blog, etc. Import
contacts from your desktop email. Search for people you know, currently
work with or have worked with in the past. Add them. Write
recommendations for people you feel deserve it. Join groups relevant to
your profession. Link Twitter to your LinkedIn account. Add your LinkedIn
url to your Twitter account.
Using these applications together better positions you to market yourself and to
take advantage of opportunities to educate, to network, to grow professionally
and to hopefully find and maintain employment as a technical writer.
Feel free to follow me on Twitter, or add me as a contact on LinkedIn
www.twitter.com/mitch_willis
www.linkedin.com/in/mitchwillis
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