I don’t write often about the products and services I offer at my company, Xceptional HR.  But today, that’s different.  I’ve cooked up some Cyber Monday specials and announcements that I’m pretty excited to share.

50% off Bulk Order Purchases

I’m excited to offer a first ever 50% off sale for bulk book orders of Tweet This! Twitter for Business.  Purchase 10 or more books at once and receive them at 50% of the purchase price.  Purchases of 50 or more include free shipping.

Tweet This! is a great to provide your team with insights on how to use Twitter as a lead generation, recruiting, and business tool.  They also make great business gifts for clients, colleagues, and friends.

Please contact me directly at (405) 293-2564 or at jessica@xceptionalhr.com for the bulk purchase orders.  This way I can set up delivery and get you started.

This offer is only available via email or phone orders through Blogging4Jobs & Xceptional HR. 

Early Bird Pricing on My First Twitter Video Training

Wouldn’t it be amazing if you could learn Twitter in just 5 minutes a day?  That’s exactly what I am offering with a new video learning series.  Learn Twitter through a series of 25 individual five minute training videos sent straight to your email inbox.  Upon purchase, you can take advantage my newest social media training tool for the business professional.

Learn how to use Twitter with a series of 25 videos, each 5 minutes in length on how to use and manage the popular social media networking tool.  Receive a daily email video Monday-Friday with instructions and how-to use Twitter on some of the following topics:

• Setting up your Twitter

• Using hash tags to increase exposure, business leads, and PR

• Twitter time management tools

• Driving web traffic with Twitter

• Understanding Twitter lingo

• Using Twitter for SEO optimization

Twitter presents many opportunities for networking.   It has kind of become the Match.com for business relationships.  The ability to search topics and/or keywords defines a new age, a precise opening into a “club” or association.  I have met many of my best friends on Twitter and my greatest business associates have come as a direct result of following, being following tweeting, retweeting, direct messaging and mere mentions.

I have participated in many Twitter Chats.  A Twitter Chat is an organized hour of tweeting about a particular topic or industry using a key word or phrase marked with a hashtag # (outside of Twitter, aka as the number or pound sign).  The marking of the key word allows the conversation to be monitored more easily, thereby allowing followers to actively participate by quickly tweeting specific comments in a very concise format.  When what you have to say must be said in 140 characters or less, you care a bit more about what you say and how you say it.

It is because of this preciseness that organized Twitter Chats rake in the followers, many participating and many more listening or “lurking” as it is fondly referred to in social media.  Some chats are driven by an organizer who throws out questions, others sometimes emerge because a particular topic is often hashtagged.

I recently participated in a recruiting-specific Twitter chat that addressed talent communities and their burgeoning importance.  This particular chat is hashtagged #TChat and occurs every Wednesday afternoon, 7pm EST (4pm PST).  There were extremely relevant and thought-provoking questions asked and many thought-inducing and topical answers provided.  It is difficult to measure the reach of such a conversation, as how to you measure the Twitter-Silent participant?  Many seasoned social media users contributed to the conversation and many newcomers joined in, as well.

Some of the takeaways from that chat regarding Building and Sustaining Online Talent Communities:

• Talent communities are no different than any other community out there – they constantly evolve and change.
• Real communities are personable, relationship building, and multiple conversations. True affinity – build a line, not a dots.
• As I see it, talent communities are lists of “free agents” looking for the right fit and can be comfortable at a certain environment.
• Talent communities will always exist. They may not be as straight forward as other communities.
• Talent Communities are best used for brand building – “Keeping candidates warm for when there’s a job” is a myth.
• There are no best practices for talent communities. Only trial & error. Truth, anyone who tells you differently is a ‘guru’.
• The best practice for a talent community is not to have one. Build talent in to your company community.
• Organizers have a pool to draw from and info share to, maybe even get feedback and help with info distribution.
• Candidates also can become familiar with your corporate culture and environment ~ which can be mutually beneficial.
• Opportunity for candidates to receive postings first, response time decreases.

These are just a few of the tweets that evolved an became mash-ups of multiple tweets during a talent community chat.  Visit here for a full transcript from this particular Twitter Chat at #TChat The World of Work – Building and Sustaining 3-D Talent Communities.

Twitter C hats aren’t for everyone and some are a bit frenzied which only adds to the excitement and rapid distribution of ideas laying the groundwork for an evolution or even better, innovation.  And why not build from one proven technology on to the next?

Rayanne Thorn, @ray_anne is the Marketing Director for the online recruiting software company, Broadbean Technology.  She is also a proud mother of four residing in Laguna Beach, California, and a contributor for Blogging4Jobs.  Connect with her on LinkedIn.

As businesses begin to integrate social media into their long term strategies, they are looking for ways to take collaboration, coordination, and networking to the next level.  And Carlin Wiegner, CEO and co-founder of Cube Tree believes his company has the answer.

Last May, Cube Tree quietly released their new internal social media software just out of beta.   But before that, Wiegner and his business partner Ross Fubini were working for Symantec, a leading internet security company and found a need for a better way for employees housed in multiple locations to communicate and interface with one another on multiple projects.  Both Wiegner and Fubini tried tools like video conferencing, wikis, microblogging, and others for the purposes of knowledge transfer and idea creation but nothing fit quite right.

Cube Tree uses a FaceBook style platform that allows for internal company communication that integrates with systems including Twitter, Google Docs, WebEx, Salesforce and more.  Additional, they provide the ability to edit and update wikis with ease while allowing users an option to test drive the platform offering a Freemium option versus a free trial.  Freemium allows users to test drive all the features without limitations.  Depending on your business need, Cube Tree offers Basic, Professional, and Enterprise editions ranging from no cost to $5 per user per month.

One feature that I was particularly impressed with was their mobile options for users who are on the go.  Cube Tree seamlessly works on your smart phone including Blackberries and iPhones and even allows for instant messaging.  Companies that are seeking to be transparent can benefit from Cube Tree and their use of blogs allowing for thought leaders to generate discussion and influence business strategies or company culture.  The software also allows for manager and peer recommendations or “kudos” feature that is viewable on employees individual profiles.

Internal social media tools like Cube Tree can be used for more than project coordination and as a form of talent management tool.  Recruiters and Human Resource professionals can keyword search allowing for access to internal passive candidate profiles while also posting open positions on threads within the network.  This also allows the recruiting model to become flipped where associates can aggressively search for talent managers allowing them immediate interaction with recruiters and improving the internal candidate experience.

Companies should consider Cube Tree when shopping for internal and collaborative communication tools.  Their seamless integration with most any social media platform and leading business communication tools provide companies a way to develop, attract, and retain a company’s most valuable asset, their people.

Photo Credit Cultivation Posterous