Last week I spoke with the Communications Technology Association about how to use social media to promote your personal brand – or get a job. I’ve posted the slides on the Byte blog.

We talked about how social media can be great for making connections. Facebook, LinkedIn and other social networks can help you capitalize on the folks you know and it makes it easier for them to introduce you to more folks. But tools such as blogs and Twitter are places where you can make your own connections.

Many people have Google Alerts http://www.google.com/alerts set up so that they receive an email each time Google tracks new material that includes their name or company name. So if you blog about someone, there’s a decent chance they’ll see it. With Twitter you can use the hastag (#) and ReTweets (RT) and callouts (@) to help the folks you want to find, find you.