How to use blogs and twitter to build a professional presence

Professionals are often slow to pick up new techniques of building a presence. That's probably because they are so busy working at their profession that they don't have time for much else.

But using social media to build a presence doesn't have to be an overwhelming task. You need a blog and posts on twitter. Both are easy to set.

First some mechanics. Setting up a blog is easy -- there are lots of free sites. I use blogspot but wordpress works and there are lots of others. A Google search will quickly list them. You need to ensure that your blog feeds into twitter so your blog posts are automatically sent to twitter -- twitterfeed will do that. Twitter will only get the titles of your blog posts but that can be enough to get people to read your blog.

To get followers on twitter, go to some twitters in your field and follow them and then follow their followers. You will be followed back by about half. Later you can unfollow those who don't follow you.

Now content -- you need to post useful material on your blog that people will want to read. And such needs to be posted daily. The best material to post is stuff you know about and deal with on a daily basis. So, if you are a lawyer and in your daily work make a note about a case post the note to your blog (taking care not to disclose confidential information). Even if it seems highly technical someone will find it useful.

If you consistently post useful materials people will start to read your blog regularly. But remember on your blog the title of the post will become your tweet so your title needs to be pithy and say something independently of the rest of the post.

If you consistently post good materials and follow people in your field on twitter you will rapidly build a presence.