A new monthly blog series has entered the #sqlfamily. The brainchild of Jason Strate (b|t), “#Meme15” focuses around the ways social networks can further our professional development.  This month’s assignment is one dear to my own heart (and brain. And fingers): Twitter. I’ve written before about what Twitter can do for your company—how it can give high-tech B2Bs personality, credibility and new leads. What I haven’t covered as much is what it can do for you, the employee. There are two questions in the assignment:

• Why should average Jane or Joe professional consider using twitter?
• What benefit have you seen in your career because of twitter?

As a person whose primary job responsibilities involve social media, I’m going to go with the first option—for an excellent answer to the second, check out Stacia Misner’s response.

So, why should you, the non Social Media Marketer/Specialist/Strategist etc use Twitter? In short, there are three main reasons: build relationships, gain knowledge and enhance your public image.

In slightly longer, Twitter is a public conversation, a place to learn, share and connect. Someone posts a link to a blog post about Power View; you read it and learn something new about Power View (animated data points, oh my!). Someone asks a question about stored procedures, aka your pride and joy, and you answer them. Bonds form between the teachers and the taught, the @er and @ed, tweeter and retweeter—but they can also form, albeit more loosely, between all of the above and their networks of listeners. When you perform any activity on Twitter, from favoriting a Tweet to organizing a Tweetup, it deepens your digital profile to anyone who thinks to look or happens to listen at the right time.

Twitter allows you to join  (or start!) non-geographically-restricted communities grouped around any interest or combination of interests. It lets you play pin the avatar on the body at conferences. It’s a virtual kickstarter for eventual IRL relationships. For all the banality of some of its content, Twitter’s function as a connector is far from trivial.

 [#Meme15 logo by Matt Velic]