This month, we had a bunch of wonderful people interview for new jobs at BuzzFarmers. Most recently, I asked our top candidates to submit three writing samples (paid, thankyouverymuch), one of which focusing on Twitter. As you might know, I run the Twitter.About.com site, and thought this would be a good chance to test their content on a real live platform while learning more about the writer.
Some of the articles are published (ghostwritten with permission, in the spirit of privacy) on About.com. For example, a newsworthy post about what’s going on with Twitter including these fun articles:
- Twitter Hints That At-Replies and Hashtags Are About to Be Streamlined
- Twitter’s Latest Addition? Photo Collages
- Why Do Governments Keep Banning Social Media When It Never Works Out for Them?
- Medium Launches iPhone App for Reading Stories on the Go
- Lovely Wedding, But Did It Trend on Twitter?
Honestly, that last one is kind of genius. According to CNN, “For a mere $3,000, couples getting hitched at any of the four W hotels in New York can hire their very own ‘social media wedding concierge’ to make sure every moment of their special day is properly immortalized in tweets, Instagrams, and Facebook posts.” Heck, I can do that!
Another about which stories broke first on Twitter, which I also found particularly interesting.
“In 2010, Japanese journalist Kosuke Tsuneoka was kidnapped by Muslim radicals in northern Afghanistan for five months. Fascinated by his new phone, Tsuneoka’s captors asked for his help on how to work it. He cleverly used his device to send tweets to his friends and family to let them know he was unharmed. Shortly thereafter, he was released.”
Moving on to the how-to section of this program, I enjoyed this post about bringing Twitter to your next conference, especially since Twitter is one of my favorite parts of attending conferences. An unofficial Tweet Wall back in 2007 is what got me started on Twitter, although I could not for the life of me figure out how to end up on the wall at the time.
And, finally, a tongue-in-cheek post about how to Tweet during a revolution that had me giggling all the way though.
This live review part of the interview process has been invaluable, much more than simply reviewing all of the samples blindly from the get-go (which we also did). This told the true story of what it would be like to edit each person, and how much additional rewriting might be required. I recommend it.
