For the seventh year in a row, Twitter is the number one tool for learning for L&D professionals, according to Jane Hart's Top 100 tools.

So, how are you using Twitter for professional development?

I wouldn't be here in this forum if it hadn't been for me connecting with Mike Collins aka @Community_Mike on Twitter a few years ago so for me it is all about making connections and following what is being shared by others.

How do you use it?

(If you haven't got an account yet there is a useful guide here)

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Replies

  • It's about connections and knowledge sharing for me. One of the best ways of using Twitter for me was last year when I was running a workshop for people new to the world of training who were on a train the trainer workshop, focusing on design and delivery skills.

    I posed a question on Twitter asking for advice and tips for people new to designing and delivering training. I had the feed from that question available throughout the day. It was great to see the tips coming in throughout the session. This really motivated and spurred on the group as well as giving them a bit of practical experience on how to make the most out of Twitter.

    Here was the result....

    1357659?profile=original

    • Don't people have to be following you though in order to see your tweets? Or how do you know what hashtags to use?

      I definitely need an idiots guide!

  • Came across this post from a little while ago 

    Professional Development got a Twitter Minute

    Great example of using Twitter :)

  • The way I've used Twitter has changed and evolved over the last 3 years - I've pretty much used it in a professional context since the beginning.

    Initially I used it to lurk and watch - didn't want to share anything at first for fear of 'being seen' and just read other people's content, following other people in the L&D space, speakers, bloggers and those I met through networking events.

    I then started to understand how it worked and began sharing things myself and starting to blog a little bit about what I was doing and sharing it via Twitter.

    I started to experiment with lists and filtering people I followed or didn't follow to keep people in groups around 'social', collaboration', 'key notes speakers', live online learning' - this helped me keep track of good stuff as the number of people I followed grew and grew it becomes easier to miss stuff 

    As Andy has mentioned below it's great for crowd sourcing - asking your network for resources or ideas on various topics. The L&D / HR Twitter crowd is a very welcoming and generous bunch. Twitter has enabled me to get a glimpse of what people I hold in high regard are thinking and allowed me to make contact and friends with people who share similar interests and passions - around the globe.

    It's a great tool to follow conferences when you can't attend using the back channel hashtag - here is a how to guide

    I then went through a phase of joining twitter chats using different hashtags hosted by L&D Connector Chat2Learn - this was again great to meet with fellow professionals all sharing stories and ideas in 140 characters.

    I've also used it to support presentations I've done by scheduling tweets to sit alongside what I'm saying - I can then use a tool like Storify  to create stories and curate resources to share afterwards - like I did at ATD this year - take a look at the example here

    I honestly think Twitter has had a BIG impact on my professional development, the way I access information, the way I think and how I communicate and share things. It's been invaluable as a networking tool and connecting with other fellow professionals AND it's also given me some great friends.

    What about you Martin, you use Twitter quite a lot ...how do you use it for your professional development?

  • I joined twitter again - under a professional account earlier this year and have found it to be an invaluable source of information (depending on who you follow of course...)

    I find lots of useful content, articles and even access to valuable white papers and reports which help me to perform my current role and assist with study materials. Great snippets of data available to thise who are proacively interested!

     

    • Hi Joanna, thanks for sharing your experience. Sounds like it works really well for you. Do you have a personal and professional account? I presume having a professional account has made it easier to focus on your role and CPD.

      • I actually only have a professional account now and I only follow other likeminded professionals or companies.

        Previous to working in L&D (and having something I was particulary eager to read about on twitter) I used to have a personal account which was purely for 'fun and social' I don't want to have both now because I want to make sure the content of my account stays professsional as it is also linked in to my LinkedIn. 

        I have FB and Instagram for 'personal' and LinkedIn and Twitter for professional, so yes, it has made it easier to focus on both my role and CPD separating them out.

         

        • Isn't there an overlap though? I inadvertently tweeted some football related activity on my professional account once and it improved the relationship I had with a number of users. If it's 'just' work, does that make it less authentic?

          • I would say I keep it 90-95% L&D based but I do post quotes and comments also which do not relate to work or my role.  I guess it also depends how much you interact with your followers and how many followers you want.  My personal account had over 900 followers but I am not overly bothered how many followers I have on my professional account as I see Twitter as a Learning tool for myself and not so much of somewhere to chit chat.  It's more about who I follow and thier content (for me) then the other way round.

  • Hi Martin, I raised this question last year on my blog and got an interesting range of responses:

    http://lostanddesperate.com/2014/12/07/why-i-use-twitter/

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