Twitter is one of those social media sites that might surprise you. On the surface, it seems frivolous—do you really need to read all those Tweets about the smallest daily details of life? But if you dig a little deeper, you’ll realize just how powerful Twitter can be for your career, if you learn to use it.

Twitter can be great for tweeting about what you’re doing, but even better for following what others are doing—if you’re following the right people. Following the ones who can be the most useful and relevant to your career success right now is a tremendous opportunity you should not let slip by. Ultimately, Twitter is about communicating and connecting. The more you do, the more you'll learn things that will be useful to you in your career.

If you’re in marketing, you must use Twitter—it’s cutting edge. Both for your own tweets and for seeing what’s up with your competition.

If you’re in sales, it becomes a little less “must do,” but still pretty good. Are your customers out there? How about your competitors? Better keep up.

If you’re in the job search, you’re back to making Twitter participation a top priority on your to-do list. You can follow recruiters, hiring managers, career coaches, and others who can lead you to job prospects and give you the edge over other candidates. You can also follow companies to keep up with the latest. Twitter is a great job search tool.

So how do you find the people you need to follow? Twitter can be difficult to use for searches, but you can find ancillary software/models like Twellow and Twitter Search, and learn how to search. Here’s a place to start: a list of the top 25 Recruiters on Twitter.

As always, be a good participant and interact with professionalism. Tweet about things that are useful to others, help other people find jobs if you can, and take care to avoid negativity that can haunt you later.

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