Do you feel like you could get more out of Twitter? Or are you a passionate Twitter user who wants to help your colleagues, friends and family use it and love it the way you do?
Work Smarter with Twitter and HootSuite is for everyone who wants to get more out of Twitter, whether as a newcomer or a longtime user who wants to make smarter, more strategic use of this platform. The second in my Work Smarter with Social Media series for Harvard Business Review Press, this short guide focuses on how Twitter can help you build the strong, meaningful relationships that can support your work and your career.
And I’d like to ask for your help spreading the word about this new ebook. Please buy a copy for yourself or as a gift for a colleague or a friend (it’s the perfect way to help that Twitter newbie or skeptic get serious about how to use Twitter). Once you’ve had a chance to take a look at the book yourself, I’d be delighted if you would post a review on Amazon, iTunes or Goodreads.
My community of Twitter pals has been a constant source of inspiration and encouragement in the writing of this book — in fact, in all my writing for the past five years. If we’ve ever exchanged so much as a tweet, believe me when I say that you are part of the extraordinary experience of Twitter that I tried to capture in this title. Thank you for helping make Twitter such a valuable part of my own professional practice, and for any help you can provide in tweeting, blogging or otherwise sharing news about this new ebook.
Where to find it
To jump into the conversation on Twitter and Facebook
- my Twitter handle: @awsamuel
- hashtag: #wswths
- Facebook page for the book
Tweetable links
Click to tweet this: New ebook from @harvardbiz: Work Smarter with #Twitter and @HootSuite, by my friend @awsamuel. http://amzn.to/wswevernote
Click to tweet this: How can #Twitter and @HootSuite build your professional relationships? Find out in @awsamuel’s new ebook. http://amzn.to/wswtwitter
Click to tweet this: I love @HootSuite! This new ebook from @harvardbiz will show you how it can help you tweet smarter, too. http://amzn.to/wswtwitter
More ways to share
If you’d like to talk about the book in more than 140 characters, here are some short descriptions that can help you get started:
You know you could make good use of Twitter — if only you had a roadmap of exactly how to use it. Now you can get that roadmap from Work Smarter with Twitter and HootSuite, the latest ebook in the Harvard Business Review Press series, Work Smarter with Social Media. It’s like looking over the shoulder of a social media pro to find out how to keep up a lively Twitter presence in just a few hours a week. In this case, you’re looking over the shoulder of Alexandra Samuel, VP of Social Media for Vision Critical, as she shows you how to use Twitter and HootSuite to build the professional relationships that can make a big difference to your work and your career.
If you have ever felt overwhelmed by Twitter, a new ebook from Harvard Business Review Press may have the cure. In Work Smarter with Twitter and HootSuite, Alexandra Samuel shows how to use Twitter lists to focus on the relationships that can really make a difference to your work and career. Her methodology relies on a multi-column Twitter client like HootSuite, which makes it possible to focus your attention on your key lists instead of on your home feed, and makes it easy to maintain your own Twitter presence with a combination of scheduled tweets and real-time conversation. Check it out here: http://amzn.to/wswtwitter
Shareable quotes
These short excerpts from the book are ready to share as summaries or sample tips:
Even Twitter enthusiasts are often paralyzed by the sheer volume of tweets and the velocity of Twitter conversations, both of which increase quickly once you follow more than a handful of people. Twitter newcomers are often so overwhelmed by Twitter’s size and pace that they tune out altogether…[T]o make the most of Twitter, you have to focus on individual people, not individual tweets….You’ll stay focused on these relationships and get away from the dilemma of “keeping up” only if you embrace Twitter not as a news site but as a social network, which is, after all, how Twitter bills itself. — from Work Smarter with Twitter and HootSuite by Alexandra Samuel (Harvard Business Review Press, 2013)
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Using Twitter lists means that when you take a five-minute Twitter break, you’ll be able to quickly home in on the updates from the people you really want to hear from, simply by looking at your two or three most crucial lists. When you’re taking the time for a deeper dive into the Twitterverse, you’ll see each tweet in a context that reminds you why you’re tuning in to that particular person. — from Work Smarter with Twitter and HootSuite by Alexandra Samuel (Harvard Business Review Press, 2013)
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Putting your top relationships into lists and streams [in HootSuite] is the key to helping you filter out the folks you don’t want to spend your time on, even if you want to keep following them out of courtesy or so that they can message you privately. If you’re scrupulous about focusing on tweets from folks in your top lists, you may be just fine following all sorts of other random feeds, secure in the knowledge that you won’t be distracted by the detritus. — from Work Smarter with Twitter and HootSuite by Alexandra Samuel (Harvard Business Review Press, 2013)
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If you do want to build a significant following—whether you define “significant” as a hundred thousand followers or a hundred leaders in your immediate field—you need to think about defining a focus for your tweeting that you can lead with a sustainable level of effort. If you’re willing to put in several hours a day to managing your Twitter feed (something I’d recommend for very few people), you could take on a broader topic or one that already has some serious tweeters. If you’re going to keep your Twitter time to a few hours a week, you’ll need to define a fairly narrow focus. A good way to do that is to locate your tweeting at the intersection of two or three lively fields, or a couple of fields plus a geographic location. While you may not be the top tweeter in the field of human resources, you could be the top tweeter on recruiting young people in retail (which lets you tweet a mix of content about retail, Gen Y, and recruitment) or retail recruitment in Dallas. — from Work Smarter with Twitter and HootSuite by Alexandra Samuel (Harvard Business Review Press, 2013)
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To sustain a consistent pace on Twitter, while leaving yourself room to engage with people in real time, make tweeting easy and schedule a certain number of tweets in advance. By setting up an efficient process for consistent tweeting at roughly predictable intervals, you ensure that the people you want to connect with know not only what you’re about but how often they can count on a little nugget of wisdom or news. Better still, you free up your spontaneous tweeting windows for replying to the people who want to engage with you, engaging with the people who you want to know better, and thus building important relationships. The next few sections show you how. — from Work Smarter with Twitter and HootSuite by Alexandra Samuel (Harvard Business Review Press, 2013)
Thank you
This page was inspired not only the brilliant example of Lee LeFever, but by the amazing generosity of the friends, colleagues and readers who spread the word (and shared their reviews) on Work Smarter with Evernote. Your enthusiasm has been the key to its success, and your constructive feedback has helped to shape Work Smarter with Twitter and HootSuite.
Thank you in advance for anything you do to support this new book and series, whether it’s with a Like on the Facebook page, a review on Amazon or sharing your feedback with me directly. Most of all, thank you for reading.
I bought it from HBR but the download link is not working. 🙁
OK, now it’s working.