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A lot of people use Twitter these days, and if you’re like me and a photographer then you enjoy finding out about cool photography-related blog posts, news articles, and images, and Twitter is a great place to discover them. Now, everyone has their own purpose for being on Twitter. Some people use it for informing the world about their personal life, or finding out about other people’s personal lives … lots of people use it for keeping up with their hobbies, and others use it for marketing, etc. I don’t really fit entirely into any of those categories (most people don’t) but I do my best to keep my tweets photography-related, with a few dabbles of other randomness in the mix. :)

First of all, you are free to use Twitter however you like and don’t feel like the below tips are a “requirement”. For me Twitter is like my work-place so I have a different perspective on how I manage my tweets, and so if your goal is like mine (to find and connect with other photographers on Twitter … and maybe gain some new followers along the way) then here are some tips that you might useful:

  1. Un-lock your account. If I (or anyone else for that matter) can’t see your tweets  then there’s a really good chance that I won’t follow you.
  2. Turn off auto-tweeting. If you use Facebook, that’s great, but if everytime you post to Facebook it pops up on Twitter and I have to go through 2-3 different clicks to get to what I thought was going to be something interesting, only to find out it was the same status update that was on Twitter, then I get annoyed. This also goes for everytime you advance a level in that oh-so-cool online game you’re playing. I really don’t care. ;)
  3. Self-promotion is great, but don’t overdo it. A huge part of being on Twitter is to share our photography, right? Well, I also do my best to “spread the love” and share other photographer’s tips, images, blog posts, etc. I find things through random web searches, All-Top, and RSS feeds, and also try to re-tweet the stuff that I think is relevant, entertaining and/or useful.
  4. Minimize your personal conversations. If all I see are random conversations between you and another person (or several for that matter) then it’s the same as being in an elevator listening to another person’s conversation when I have no idea what’s going on. Usually the “ignore” flag goes up and I move on. Replying to people is awesome, but when it goes on-and-on then your tweets are viewed as “diluted”. You want to try and maintain at least a 80/20 ratio … for every ten tweets you do try to keep about eight of them relevant to photography.
  5. Link directly to what you want to share. Don’t link to your blog – link to your post. Also, try to only put one link per tweet (unless you are specific about where each link goes). And if you are tweeting on-and-on about something then be sure to link to what you are talking about! I can’t share your content if I don’t have anything to link to. :)
  6. Link to your website in your profile. One of the best ways to learn about other photographers is to look at their blog. If you don’t have a blog, there’s a good chance that you have some sort of photo-sharing website (like Flickr or Smugmug), right? You can do this in your Twitter settings … and while you’re at it add some info to that mini-bio as well.
  7. Use the crowd to your advantage. Are you in a conundrum and can’t Google your way to an answer? Jump on Twitter and do some crowd-sourcing! I’ve solved many problems through the help of some really awesome people online, and I’ve also found that most people are happy to share what they know to help you out. Don’t forget that the mirror looks both ways … do some Twitter-searching on topics you are good at and see if you can help someone else out as well. :)
  8. Be yourself! These days it’s all about branding, and people want to see honest, open people be who they are. Share as much of your photographic life that you feel comfortable sharing, and throw in a TwitPic or two while you’re at it.
  9. And, last but not least … follow me on Twitter! (Hehe, I just had to throw that one in.)

A lot of people use Twitter these days, and if you’re like me and a photographer then you enjoy finding out about cool photography-related blog posts, news articles, and images, and Twitter is a great place to discover them. Now, everyone has their own purpose for being on Twitter. Some people use it for informing the world about their personal life, or finding out about other people’s personal lives … lots of people use it for keeping up with their hobbies, and others use it for marketing, etc. I don’t really fit entirely into any of those categories (most people don’t) but I do my best to keep my tweets photography-related, with a few dabbles of other randomness in the mix. :)

First of all, you are free to use Twitter however you like and don’t feel like the below tips are a “requirement”. For me Twitter is like my work-place so I have a different perspective on how I manage my tweets, and so if your goal is like mine (to find and connect with other photographers on Twitter … and maybe gain some new followers along the way) then here are some tips that you might useful:

  1. Un-lock your account. If I (or anyone else for that matter) can’t see your tweets  then there’s a really good chance that I won’t follow you.
  2. Turn off auto-tweeting. If you use Facebook, that’s great, but if everytime you post to Facebook it pops up on Twitter and I have to go through 2-3 different clicks to get to what I thought was going to be something interesting, only to find out it was the same status update that was on Twitter, then I get annoyed. This also goes for everytime you advance a level in that oh-so-cool online game you’re playing. I really don’t care. ;)
  3. Self-promotion is great, but don’t overdo it. A huge part of being on Twitter is to share our photography, right? Well, I also do my best to “spread the love” and share other photographer’s tips, images, blog posts, etc. I find things through random web searches, All-Top, and RSS feeds, and also try to re-tweet the stuff that I think is relevant, entertaining and/or useful.
  4. Minimize your personal conversations. If all I see are random conversations between you and another person (or several for that matter) then it’s the same as being in an elevator listening to another person’s conversation when I have no idea what’s going on. Usually the “ignore” flag goes up and I move on. Replying to people is awesome, but when it goes on-and-on then your tweets are viewed as “diluted”. You want to try and maintain at least a 80/20 ratio … for every ten tweets you do try to keep about eight of them relevant to photography.
  5. Link directly to what you want to share. Don’t link to your blog – link to your post. Also, try to only put one link per tweet (unless you are specific about where each link goes). And if you are tweeting on-and-on about something then be sure to link to what you are talking about! I can’t share your content if I don’t have anything to link to. :)
  6. Link to your website in your profile. One of the best ways to learn about other photographers is to look at their blog. If you don’t have a blog, there’s a good chance that you have some sort of photo-sharing website (like Flickr or Smugmug), right? You can do this in your Twitter settings … and while you’re at it add some info to that mini-bio as well.
  7. Use the crowd to your advantage. Are you in a conundrum and can’t Google your way to an answer? Jump on Twitter and do some crowd-sourcing! I’ve solved many problems through the help of some really awesome people online, and I’ve also found that most people are happy to share what they know to help you out. Don’t forget that the mirror looks both ways … do some Twitter-searching on topics you are good at and see if you can help someone else out as well. :)
  8. Be yourself! These days it’s all about branding, and people want to see honest, open people be who they are. Share as much of your photographic life that you feel comfortable sharing, and throw in a TwitPic or two while you’re at it.
  9. And, last but not least … follow me on Twitter! (Hehe, I just had to throw that one in.)

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Nicole is a photographer, published author, and educator specializing in Lightroom, Photoshop, and photography. She is best known for her books on food photography but is widely versed in various photographic genres, including landscape, nature, stock, travel, and experimental imagery.

9 Comments

  1. Mick Buston January 18, 2010 at 8:47 am - Reply

    Solid common sense advice. Well done Nicole.

  2. Jeremy Hall January 18, 2010 at 10:59 am - Reply

    Good tips for someone trying to figure out how to make Twitter work for them.

  3. Torsten Bangerter January 18, 2010 at 11:36 am - Reply

    Great post Nicole I just tweeted it.

  4. Tom England January 18, 2010 at 1:47 pm - Reply

    Game updates are one of the most annoying…and I find Twiiter non-users dislike the RTs and the @ if you use Twitter to update your Facebook profile…if they have Twitter they are probably following you anyway.

  5. Trudy February 3, 2010 at 3:40 pm - Reply

    Good tips. I agree about the Facebook Twitter linking. I do that with a post 1-2 times a week, if that. Normally I post to one and post differently to others since my Twitter followers are different than Facebook Fan page fans for the most part. Many of the fan page fans use Facebook only and are not plugged into the Twitter world.

    I disagree about personal conversations. I have many personal conversations on Twitter, even with other photographers. I like to know who people are and though we are passionate about photography, we travel, eat dinner, read books, watch movies and do other things too. I follow people, not information sources, and I do not need every tweet to be a link of some type. I need people who not only inform, but share and are real. Certainly every update won’t be lunch or chatter but for the people I follow, I welcome their conversations and personal tweets.

  6. Nicole February 3, 2010 at 4:16 pm - Reply

    Trudy, I agree with you about personal conversations. I think it’s great to interact with other people on Twitter, but I’ve seen it waaaay overdone (the only thing that someone does, for example, is have one-way conversations with different people and there’s no “real content” on their Twitter stream).

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