Finding it difficult to suss out the right candidates for your specialized reporting endeavor? Consider turning to Twitter.
We’ve got some challenging hires to make, and simply posting our job ads in the typical spots might not get us far enough. In Cape Cod, for example, we’re trying to find a social-media-savvy reporter with a robust ocean science background. How might we use Twitter in this instance to identify promising recruiting territory for candidates?
First, I’d search the site for a relevant key phrase.
To keep it simple, let’s try “ocean science.” There are two ways to search Twitter – (1) use the site’s internal search engine at search.twitter.com; and (2) use another search engine, such as Google. The former search returns tweets, ordered chronologically. The latter search returns Twitter accounts and Twitter lists, using information from descriptions and account names as well as from recent tweets. That’s probably what we want.
Right off the bat, the Google search gives us a number of relevant accounts and lists. The top result is @ricksearle’s ocean-science-education list, which follows 57 people. The Scripps Institution of Oceanography and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute Media Relations accounts both show up pretty high. And whaddya know? WHOI just happened to tweet recently about its Ocean Science Journalism Fellowship. Perhaps there are some graduates of that program who’d be good leads for the position.
Then, I’d look for the most active or authoritative accounts around the topic.
I’d continue to poke around the various Twitter accounts I come across with several questions in mind. Are they consistently tweeting interesting information and links related to our subject? Do they seem to be following other relevant Twitterers? How many followers do they have, and how many users are they following? (A high follower-to-following ratio is a quick indication that the account has a high signal. In other words, people follow it because it provides valuable and relevant information, not just because it follows them.) Have they created any relevant lists around different aspects of the topic?
I’d definitely keep a list of the names we come across. The folks we encounter might be good contacts to ask about candidates for the job, or they might be good candidates themselves. But as an added bonus, this information will be really useful as our Argo-blogger begins covering her beat.
Last step: follow up!
At a minimum, several of the Twitterers we come across will probably be more than happy to spread the word about the position. To contact folks on Twitter, you can catch their attention with an @message, or look for contact information in their Twitter profile – bio or linked website.