I just read Cindy King’s article “7 Steps to Successful Twitter Interviews” on Social Media Examiner.
Though Cindy’s article is tailored to those doing the interviewing, her suggestions work for those being interviewed as well:
#1: Determine Reasons for the Twitter Interview
#2: Make Pre-Interview Contact
#3: Decide on a Hashtag
#4: TweetChat
#5: Decide Direction of the Interview
#6: Come Up With Interview Questions
#7: Advertise Your Twitter Interview
#8: Keep the Conversation Going
Here’s one add-on for people being interviewed: Prepare your links.
Twitter Chats move at a fast pace. Read through the transcript for the Twitter interview that author Steven Pressfield did with #LitChat. It is a good example of all the tweets “in play” as you are trying to answer questions. People joining the chat are all tweeting, as you are trying to read them, and answer as many questions as possible—in 140-characters or less.
If you have to stop to find a link, you are going to get behind.
AND—because Twitter has a character limit, you’ll also need to spend time shortening the link, using a service such as TinyURL, so that your links don’t eat up all of your characters.
While you won’t have the questions in advance, you can anticipate them, which will help you figure out which links you might need.
As Cindy suggested, make pre-interview contact and discuss the direction and format of the interview with the host. Will the host ask all of the questions, or will the host introduce you, and then open the interview to those joining the chat, so they can ask questions? Once you know the direction, you’ll be able to think about which links you might use in your answers.
Make a list of all the links, and then shorten all of them.
Categorize the shortened links so you can cut and paste with ease when you need them.
You’ll save yourself time, which means you’ll be able to answer more questions, and provide additional resources within your answers.
A win-win for everyone!
