Do you Tweet?

Do you tweet?

Cold weather has finally hit Chicago and it’s feeling a little bit like the holidays. I want to start off by thanking the folks at Outdoor Photo Gear for the super cool Think Tank bag I won via a Twitter contest. Check out the announcement HERE. Now folks I’m going to play it straight up. I originally thought Twitter was stupid. I mean 140 characters? What could you possibly communicate, or more to the point, what could you possible communicate with any meaning in 140 strokes on a keyboard? Well, I’m here to tell you this social networking tool has some teeth. It’s allowed me to have conversations with fellow photographers in real time, sharing ideas, links, work and the occasional joke. As you know, I’m a big believer in Facebook (especially my fan page) but the one thing Twitter does a little better is to allow you to selectively seek out people you want to follow versus having to send a friend request. Believe it or not I’m a slightly private person and I don’t always want to share all my family photos or those photographs from college where, well, let’s just say ,”things were a little blurry”. The advantage of Twitter is it allows some of you to simply sit on the sidelines of the communication stream and follow some of your favorite people. I like to think of it as socially acceptable cyber stalking, but the truth is some people just enjoy listening and that’s cool. And, if you feel like adding your opinion to a stream that’s cool too. It’s a “community” that you can create around your interest. So what are the rules? Ask yourself this: If someone on the street said, “hi” would you say, “hi” back or simply keep on walking? Well, I generally say “hi” so when people add me, I typically will add them back providing they’re not “spammers”. Keep in mind if for some reason you change your mind you can always “unfollow” a person and if you don’t’ want someone following you then you can simply block the user. If you’re super private, you can make all your tweets “private” so that only people you approve of can read your tweets. To manage your twitter account I always recommend using either Tweetdeck or Hootsuite. The reality is if you want to connect with fellow photographers on Twitter you’re going to need to let your guard down a tad. But trust me. The reward is real. The internet has allowed many photographers, including myself, a way to promote their work and connect with people who share a passion for photography. If you’re not on Twitter then give it a try. It may seem frightful… but it can be oh, so delightful Oh, and remember you can find me on twitter by clicking HERE.

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This entry was posted on Friday, December 4th, 2009 at 11:44 am. It is filed under marketing, Social Networking and tagged with hootsuite, thinktank, tweetdeck, twitter. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.