This is probably the most important question about Twitter. Can you actually improve your networking using it? Yes you can! Don’t forget to check out the rest of the Twitter guide for creative people.
Here are 5 simple steps to start networking with twitter when you are a brand new twitter user:

1. Start building a presence outside of twitter

2. Browse websites in your niche and look for the twitter accounts of the people running those sites.

3. Check out the twitter accounts of those people, now it’s time to decide which people to add. As a rule of thumb, don’t add people who have more than 500 followers if you want to start interacting with them.

4. After adding them write an “@theirnickname I really dig your work and look forward following your updates, hopefully we can have some great conversations.” or something similar. Make sure your profile has a nice look and that your offline projects, in other means your website, speaks for itself. Edit: Kikolani made a great comment concerning this: “Be sure to not write the same message 50 times in a row, as you will look like a spammer using some kind of tool.” So be sure to use twitter naturally instead of making it an applied science.

5. Start interacting with those people on a regular basis, write replies to some of their messages that you have a genuine opinion on, retweet their stuff or promote their works. If you do everything right and share interests they will probably add you as a friend.

You can always go out and randomly add everyone you find, or use some tools to do this for you, but your networking powers will be pretty worthless. Twitter is a great tool to find like-minded people with whom you can chitchat every once in a while. Promoting yourself in twitter is a retarded way to approach twitter, as you will get far more quality followers in case you offer something unique and worthwhile out of twitter. Otherwise you are just one of those snake oil sellers who can talk to the other autofollow jerks who are polluting the twitterverse.

Parties are great, but you don’t want to be part of a party, you want to be the party. The place where everybody wants to be tonight. How would you treat your website if it was a party and you were the host? Friends or foes, whoever was not on that party can’t tell the story. Make sure you have special events every once in a while that will attract a lot of additional guests.

Have a place to party

No matter if you want to through a motto party, a high society get together, an underground rave or a block-party everybody wants to meet people, flirt with each other, dance and have a great time. If the location can’t provide those features the party is going to suck. You might have a nice get together, but it won’t be shaking the walls. Make sure your website looks good, has the possibility to let people interact and delivers a good show.

photo by Wbs 70

Be a good host – Introduce others

On a good party the host knows most of his guests, it’s important to introduce your guests and hook them up. A party is great to build relationships and find people for later interactions. Don’t let this potential go by wasted and share links to people who are important, lead the way and you might profit from this on the long run. Guests should always refer to you as someone who is a great host and tell others about your parties!

Offer drinks and beverage

Throwing a bottle party is cheap and great, but a nice all inclusive fest is far better. Make sure your guest find everything they need! If you can’t provide everything yourself get others to provide it for you, there are catering services you know? Always make sure that the people don’t have to leave your website for things that you could have provided, otherwise you might lose those guys for good.

Organize a Band or DJ

Ain’t no party like the one I got. You need entertainment! You need music! People have to dance, a party without dancing and fun simply sucks and is a get drunk and hit each other get together. Offer activities that will make your visitors happy! Information is necessary, everything else is a bonus that will build a bigger connection to your site.

Invite the neighbours instead of annoying them

Don’t be afraid of the people around you. Your competitors are your direct neighbours, don’t leave them out, get them to join your party. There are great ways to do this through interviews, contests or reviews of their sites. Don’t limit yourself by being afraid of your competition.

Have strong friends in case trouble arrives at your party

Make sure your party is a save and fun place to hang out. No matter if you think about people trolling your comments and insulting others or people trying to hack your website. Your comment policy & moderation is your bouncer. Exclude people who want to spoil your party. Make enough backups and ensure that you have a backup plan once the living room is on fire
part of this collage is a picture by jaqian

Get a public party place in case your home is too small

In case you home is to small, start the party somewhere else! Write guest posts on big blogs and leave with a few of those people to have an after-show party at your home. You want your party to slowly grow and have a base of people you know at first.

Get a party photographer

Document your party, it’s important for people to give them another reason to come back to your site. Build a connection with those people and offer them ways to share their experiences with others. Share your fame, especially when you start out.

Every party has to end

No party is made to last forever! If it was a success people will talk about the party afterwards and come to visit your place. There will be new friendships made and people want to hang out with you at a later time

It’s Sunday again, TEXTURE TIME! Today you can download 6 high resolution [4288*2856 px] shutter textures. Some of them with a grungy feel attached. Enjoy

(more…)

This part of “the Creatives Guide to Twitter” goes out to all the nay sayers. What on earth do you need twitter for? After all it’s just a little blue bird… You don’t have to use twitter, but it can help you promoting whatever you are doing. Here are a few Pro’s and Con’s to the use of twitter.

The Pros

• easy to connect with others
• great way to leverage your works
• increase your fanbase
• promote your products
• share what you are doing/finding

The Cons

• Can turn into a time waster
• loads of your first followers will be bots and snake oil salesmen
• You need something besides twitter to leverage your presence
• High noise ratio if you choose to follow a lot people
• your output has to be unique

The Conclusion

Don’t think too much about why you are using twitter. It’s simply a tool to connect with other people, think of it either like a mini blog or a public instant messenger. It serves no bigger purpose than sharing ideas and having conversations with other people. Sure you can promote products, information and whatever, but you have to offer value outside of twitter to benefit from it. It’s pretty useless to add hundreds of people in the hopes of marketing your product. You will have no influence through that at all.

Sometimes things are not meant to be, which rings true with the 31€ Project. Actually I am pretty sure(90%) I would manage to eat for 1€ each day, there is only one problem, I can’t do it if I am moving around as germany tends to be an expensive country. This whole diet resolves around eating and cooking at home, and if I leave for a few days I can’t keep it up. Even though I will not pay for food and liquids the next days, it’s still a break of the rules as someone else paid for them and I have to declare this bet lost. I won’t give up this easy though and will postpone the whole project to a later date. This time it might be lost, but it’s not really my fault. I hate losing due to outer influences and won’t give up this easy. I will give it another run in 2-3 months when I am not traveling for more than a week.