Work At Home Lead Generation via Twitter
Danielle

Grinding the work at home job search grindstone can be wearying, stressful and downright disheartening. We have to deal with scams, unanswered e-mails and any number of other factors that can make it difficult to continue to send resumes and contact info out into the ether day after day.

In talking with friends and reading this blog and others that focus on WAH job-finding, I see that many people restrict themselves to traditional forms of job searching: career websites, job posting boards, shot-in-the-dark searches in industries of interest. These are methods with results and totally worth executing. It is, however, important to break out of the mold every now and again and use the tools that define our modern society to our advantage. Searching job boards is an arduous and sometimes successful process, but have you tried first person outreach via Twitter?


The social network encompasses nearly all of us, and is used mercilessly by businesses and corporations to generate contacts, sales and revenue. As such, it provides the perfect ground for WAH job searchers to broaden their contacts, cultivate relationships, and find leads to jobs that may not have gone through some company’s HR department and been posted to a site. If you already have a Twitter account, you’re ahead of the game. If you don’t, start one and follow these guidelines that will help you build a reputable, engaging Twitter persona, avoid spammers and scammers and eventually find openings you wouldn’t have had access to with traditional job search tactics.

Be Yourself

As long as you aren’t a basket case. Ha ha ha, but seriously, the key to cultivating your Twitter feed is to be genuine. Check out this helpful list of tips for making your Twitter more accessible and versatile. They will help you build your contact base, meet new people and create more opportunities for you.

Applications

While some contend that Twitter is largely a popularity contest, there is a great deal of opportunity for networking, generating contacts and turning those contacts into work. There are a number of applications available that are specialized for finding jobs via Twitter. TwitJobSearch is among one the best for those combing for general jobs. Thanks to a recent explosion in iPhone app development, there are a number of mobile applications available as well.

Build Relationships

It’s pretty easy to determine who is important in the field you are trying to enter. Twitter does a good job of recommending relevant contacts, but if you are trying to find work as a copywriter, there are a number of copywriters you can ‘follow’ and ask for advice. You can go further and follow the companies that they work for, demonstrating your skills and eventually seeking a position working from home.

Watch For the Liar, Watch for the Cheat

Never before in the history of the world has an innovation like the Internet made widespread anonymity so easy. If I had to guess, I would say that 30% of the tens of millions of people on Twitter are fake bots, or people masquerading as someone they’re not; in order words, fake scammers. They may try to court you with job prospects or conversation but have no intention of following through. Take extra steps in verifying that the person is the real deal before engaging them in any business conversation.

Balance Personal and Business

Leveraging your Twitter account for business means that you’ll have to post a fair amount of information relevant to the work you are trying to obtain. People who visit your Twitter will no doubt be charmed by your hilarious, thoughtful personal tweets, but you must indicate that you also mean business. This could be as simple as posting salient articles about your field published in news outlets (the bigger the better: NY Times, CNN, Telegraph, etc.). Once you start making friends on Twitter, posting blogs they write will help you ingratiate yourself towards them, which is an invaluable part of the relationship building process. If you write your own blogs or publish on other blogs about business, link to that also. Turn Twitter into your running resume.

Following general rules of Twitter etiquette and parlaying that into meaningful relationships over Twitter will yield surprising results and also offer an avenue through which you can diversify your work at home job search.

Article Written By: Danielle

Danielle (who blogs on behalf of Sears and other prestigious brands) is a full-time blogger and part-time hobbyist who fixes washers and other household appliances in her spare time. Read her work at eatbreatheblog.com.