Ask HN: Is there any benefit to having a professional Twitter account? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Is there any benefit to having a professional Twitter account?

5 pointsmoonfleet3 comments

I am new to the industry and I have yet to join an online development community. I do not have social media accounts because I am a recovering information addict. Lately though, I have been feeling like I am missing out on the latest news, trends and discussions that could have given me useful professional insights. Is it just my fomo or having a twitter can in fact make me a better well-informed developer? Is being a part of the professional twitter community worth the hustle of having to filter out all that distracting twitter noise?

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I think it depends entirely on what you want from it. I utilise social media professionally, and my articles on LinkedIn have certainly opened some doors. Among the most noticeably was when I was awarded the great honour of working on a few of our national strategies for digitalisation. Social media can certainly do that, and beyond influence it can also make you an attractive hire.

I don’t think I’ve ever had a conversation without underlying motives on any social media platform that puts your name one it though. People are always pushing some agenda, and that’s perfectly fine, if that’s what you’re there for. We often get involved, buy products or hire people partly because of networking through social media ourselves. So I think social media can serve a purpose professionally.

I don’t think there is a lot of value in social media when it comes to getting inspired though, and the shorter the format the worse it gets. It’s certainly a great platform for FOMO, have you learned Rust yet? Heh, but in terms of real world value I think it almost always falls short. Take the Rust hype, it’s probably a really great language, but I haven’t seen a single Rust job pop-up on any job-agent for my entire country in 2019. Which means the hype and talk around Rust is relatively useless for most developers. In those cases I think it’s much better to turn your FOMO into JOMO and just work on things that interest you.

Hell, even when you’re successful professionally with Social Media, it is mostly standing at the box in speakers corner. No one really listens unless you say something they can benefit from by retweeting.

> it depends entirely on what you want from it

The biggest appeal of twitter for me is being able to get insights into the technologies of my interest from the very people that develop and maintain them. Many of those developers, however, do not have the time or willingness to run a blog. And twitter, due to its short and straightforward format, is where they can easily engage in discussions and express opinions, from which I, the lurker, can extract applicable knowledge. The down side is that the same twitter format encourages the quantity-over-quality attitude, which results in me, the lurker, having to dig through layers of idle talk, announcements, and retweets.

> the shorter the format the worse it gets

I tried looking into longer-format platforms, namely medium, but much of the content there is either surface-level or does not instill confidence in its credibility.

Anyway, thanks for the great reply, it has certainly helped me build a clearer picture of what to expect, should I decide to join twitter. I guess, I should just stick to HN without needlessly dispersing my focus.

> Is being a part of the professional twitter community worth the hustle of having to filter out all that distracting twitter noise?

Not really. My biggest piece of advice: never tweet.

With Twitter becoming a social commentary behemoth, all it takes is posting the wrong thing to have a mob after you.

I have an account for reading and posting things related to my work. I never make personal posts because, frankly, who cares?

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