Programming Blog

Twitter is a form of social networking, communication, promotion and news site all under one banner. As long as what you have to say is under 140 characters you can pretty much say what you want. There is no censorship, and increasing the number of followers only goes to expand the number of people your message is going to reach.

Making New Friends

Twitter has allowed me to connect and network with other design creatives from all over the world, people who in a normal situation I would have never crossed paths with. I always love to share new ideas with creatives, and gather advice from people who are more successful and knowledgeable in their field of expertise. As I have matured using Twitter over the past few months, I have grown to love some very special people.

Lauren Thompson: @nymphont

Lauren is someone I have found a great joy to communicate with, she is often looking for a designer’s feedback on web templates and other works. So I have the privilege of having a peak at the work she is soon to release and discuss the finer nuances of her brilliant web design work and font design.

Mia Zoe: @Vegagirl5

Mia is someone I have only truly begun to converse recently with on a daily basis, she is always offering me positive feedback and lines of communication relating towards my article writing over at Design Something. She has a brilliantly diverse portfolio and I have found it a rewarding experience when talking to her about all things design related. She has been a massive help in my ideas and thoughts of my own personal website design and future thinking, offering me useful links and information on a range of topics I would otherwise be lost in.

Christy Latz: @OuttheOtherSide

Christy is probably the first designer I have had the chance to speak with on a regular basis when first setting up my blog and design portfolio online, Twitter allowed me to reach her either privately through direct messages, or simply hitting her with a quick message. She provides me with positive thoughts and always makes me smile when I’ve had a rough day with work, I attempt to do the same when we both come to discuss our workload and experiences from each week.

Chris Trude: @trudesign

Ask and he shall deliver, I wanted someone to collaborate with on a professional level and work with me on a guest posting. Chris straightaway delivered and I get a real good vibe whenever I have the chance to speak further with him, he works hard on his personal blog ‘Ruminations of designer.’ This blog holds great articles on design and everyday life.

Amanda: @GritFX

Forever working hard with her own community and website I know that if I send a message she will endeavor to take a moment out of her time to get back to me on Twitter. She is on the other side of the world in Australia and of course in different time zones but this doesn’t stop her from taking time out to communicate with me.

Special mentions must also go towards

• Andrew Houle @myinkblog
• Karen McDade @KarenMcDade
• Roberto Blake @robertoblake
• Franz Jeitz @fudgegraphics

Keeping in touch with Old friends

Facebook is often cited as the main place with which social events are seemingly organized through Facebook events, groups and wall posts. But if I want to write a quick message to friends I would normally contact by phone and text; then I am able just to address a quick point or question towards their inbox. Posting this information on Twitter means that it can be accessed by others but it does also offer the flip-side of hearing their opinions. I have left questions for friends only for another person to have seen it and offered me help in return.

Networking

Twitter is a fast acting and non-stop feed of information, you can reach so many people with a tweet and instantly receive feedback and information on an idea or problem you have undertaken. I have often found a quick precise tweet which can be responded to within a few lines, that very often sees some great useful feedback received from people. This back and forth is a quick form of communication and can often build relationships and bring to you new followers and friends.

Promotion

Twitter has helped massively in spreading the word on all sorts of activities I undertake in my online experience, the creation of my twitter page directly stemmed from me blogging about design more seriously. I wanted an outlet where I could direct people to the articles I was creating and network with other bloggers, designers, and creatives to gauge feedback, understandings and any questions helping me to improve my way of working.

Promoting My Blog

Twitter helps me to tweet about all my articles and get other people to quickly pass or RT the articles to another set of followers, which only goes to improve the possibility of the article reaching as many page views as possible. Constant re-tweeting of a personal article is counter-productive though, and I would definitely recommend to only tweet it a few times. Although the flip side to this argument is the more you tweet about one thing the bigger expanse of people you are going to reach by them clicking the link and exploring your site.

Other things which I find are helpful in promoting through twitter are Flickr groups in showing off people’s work and this promotion can also bring to it new articles. Having your own Facebook page for your blog is invaluable by increasing the page views on your site and then can be further promoted on Twitter. I have been fortunate enough to connect with some great creative personalities through my Twitter feed, this has further lead to articles being written with some people as guest authors and performing informative interviews on the blog. It is always refreshing to work with new people, and working alongside someone on an article is something which really ignites creativity and a willingness to work as hard and productive as possible.

Promotion of my personal portfolio and the work that I have created online can further be spread to large numbers of followers that will hopefully equal to more opportunities for people to be interested in my work, and can later lead towards an increase in job opportunities. Connecting with more experienced Twitter creatives and designers is often invaluable, if they become interested in your work it can lead to more exposure of your work, articles, and thoughts; if the right people tweet your links to their large numbers of followers. Increasing the amount of people you can reach can mean increased opinions, job opportunities and constructive feedback on work.

What do I Update twitter with?

Echofon was my first twitter tool I used over an extended period of time. This is a small Firefox plug-in resides on your toolbar and updates periodically alerting you of messages, tweets and direct messages. I found the user interface easy and simple to deal with, and its settings could be easy adjusted to the amount of times that the icon popped up notifying you of new messages. It also offers you the opportunity of turning the add-on off when you don’t want to be interrupted with notifications.

I have only begun to see the massive advantages of using Tweetdeck, it’s a program which is widely spoken of in twitter circles as being a great program to keep up-to-date with all things relating to your twitter account. It works as a fully functioning program and offers a lot of customization in its layout, and the settings are so minutely adjustable you will have a program which can either bother you every minute or just once an hour on your coffee break. The program also offers the advantage of working with Facebook and other social network sites so you can monitor several social network sites at once.

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