Old School, Part 2: Would You Take Twitter Advice From Someone Who's Never Tweeted?

I wouldn't. Let's get more specific.

How about taking advice on social media best practices -- for something serious with high stakes, like looking for a job, becoming visible to recruiters, re-entering the job market after a hiatus or otherwise attempting a career change  -- from an advisor whose Twitter account is empty?

Existent in name only.

How about if it's April 2013?

How about if it's the same month that the Wall Street Journal declared The New Resume: It's 140 Characters and @WSJCareers held a Twitter chat about using social media to get a job, concluding it's all about LinkedIn & Twitter & a digital footprint that shows your best stuff.

(I participated in this blisteringly-paced and totally on-target chat that featured The Daily Muse's Kate Minshew. Some of the tweets are Storified here. Search for more with the hashtag #WSJchat.)

No?

How about expecting to get guidance on the latest advances in online career development at an event conducted by someone who thinks LinkedIn is exclusively for connecting with people you already know well rather than people you are loosely associated with professionally and want to grow closer to? Someone whose policy lets connection requests go unanswered while, creepily, LinkedIn alerts us she's reviewed our info-rich profile and decided that's a no.

Again, I wouldn't. Yet these are things I have witnessed and experienced recently.

Do you see where I'm going? This is not helpful. This is place holding.

Old-school is occupying the space where actionable help is supposed to go.

And, if you find yourself thinking you don't need up-to-the-minute Twitter advice from a career advisor -- you're wrong.

Talking 21st Century Tools For Legal Careers

In April I'll be speaking to female law students and young lawyers about taking control of their career with the help of an intentional online presence. The event is a new 21st century legal skills conference launched by Alison Monahan of The Girl’s Guide to Law School and Law School Toolbox and Lee Burgess of Amicus Tutoring. Along with Adrian Lurssen of JD Supra and Titilayo Tinubu of  JD Job Coach, I'll be a member of a Catapult 2013 workshop about using social media and online publishing to develop your career, build your personal brand, and expand your networks.

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Read my follow up of the conference, "Lawyers Online: The Merits of Taking Calculated Risks" and the handout I made for my social media workshop.

Istanbul As Epicenter Of Pro Expat Women & Social Media Tribe?

I just spent an hour on the phone with a member of Professional American Women of Istanbul (PAWI) asking for guidance on using the internet to grow her business. She’s 51, hearing all about social media networking and willing to try whatever it takes. I was sorry to learn she’s spent a lot of time joining professional “e-marketing associations”, as if she’s shifting her business to marketing when in fact what she wants to do is add an online component to her existing business.

“Which automation tools should I use?” she asked, “they’re all talking about automation tools like Seismic and Tweetdeck.”

To automate what, I asked. Content you haven’t created, to put into distribution channels you haven’t forged, leading to niche customer bases you haven’t identified beyond their age and where they live in Istanbul? Cart, horse.

“I went to the Twitter site and couldn’t figure out what to do.”

I agree Twitter has a high barrier to entry, but once she’s got it she’ll be accessing all the information she needs to grow her business, and she’ll be learning it from the very individuals who are pioneering this field. That’s the beauty of Twitter.

I'll be leading a panel this fall on social media for professional use for International Professional Women of Istanbul Network. After today's call, now I'll be inviting members of PAWI.

Perhaps this can be the start of a connected, digitally-savvy tribe of international professional women in Istanbul and expat women everywhere.

I’m envisioning people in the community self-identifying themselves as “Social Media enthusiasts” or “SM-interested” parties after this panel, and then we can create an actual Istanbul Social Media subgroup for mutual support, skill training and sharing, and more.

I'll suggest the entire panel be proponents and active users able to demonstrate their individual professional development through Social Media.

1. What is social media? Definition, main platforms/tools, overview of its rise to prominence and communication paradigm shift it represents 2. Personal/professional uses of social media including expertise and platform building, professional development, job hunting, collaboration 3. Best and worst practices

BTW TRUST AGENTS by Chris Brogan and Julien Smith is the hot book coming out of Social Media at moment and encapsulates the most progressive thinking on the issues.