Can Twitter benefit us as artists?

ebagg

I'm contemplating getting a twitter account, and a few artists friends said they like it for keeping up to date with art and self promotion, so what's you're opinion on twitter? Recommendations on who to follow? How has it helped you?

Obviously I'm trying to avoid the feeds that just post mundane bullshit, and the vapid celebrities, I'm trying to get into it strictly to keep up to date on artists and some other things of interest to me.

adam

You can follow Polycount on Twitter, so it can definitely benefit artists. In fact, when our site goes down for a few days it'll be the only dose of PC you'll be able to find!

www.twitter.com/polycount

/shill

carlo_c

I use it sort of like an rss feed reader. I follow some game studios, a few tech news sites, and some artists.

If I see something of interest on there, such as a new story on a website like gamesindustry.biz I'll just click the link to see it through.

I use a Google Chrome plugin called Metrist so usually I don't even go on the twitter website.

glynnsmith

Twitter is a great waste of time, in a good way. It's also as vapid, entertaining or informative as you make it, by "following" people that that are either vapid, entertaining or informative.

There are many twitter clients, so you don't have to use the twitter site at all. I use Tweetdeck on my PC and iPod, but I'm sure there are better clients out there.

JacqueChoi

I contemplated using it, but I realised how many internet timesinks I currently have, and how quickly I'm accumulating them.



But if it's REALLY helpful, I'd probably join too.

sampson

i spose its only advertisement if decent people follow you. i just follow people all i get are spam bots following me and people i've never heard of

boyluya

hey guys don't we have a facebook page?

Yozora

boyluya wrote: »

hey guys don't we have a facebook page?

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2910145596&ref=ts

Frump

I love twitter. It is what you make of it, as glynnsmith said.

I use it for a lot, from communicating with friends to getting news. It can benefit you as an artist or as a person or whatever. The instant nature of it is awesome. As soon as someone tweets, you can see it right away.

You've got nothing to lose by creating an account. If you don't like it then you just don't use it. Keep in mind that the best way to use twitter is through a browser extension or external software. Actually going to the website all the time is a pain.

Master_v12

Yeah it makes for a really great personalized news feed, especially if you have a phone app or sms alerts. There is a couple local profiles I follow that posts all kinds of stuff happening in my city that I would have no idea otherwise.

Autocon

didnt know there was a PC facebook, just joined

Kwramm

I just bookmarked pages of a few people I care about but I didn't join twitter proper. Here and there I find links to interesting stuff. Still, it's just a glorified shoutbox.
I guess some people on twitter could just as well put their info on a blog. But maybe twitter is just more convenient for those who really feel the need to blog..err twitter wherever they are...

Still I'm curious, does anyone use twitter to help their professional work? If so, how do you use it and how does it help you to get things done faster in your job? Or got any interesting tweets to share that may be worth keeping an eye on if you're in the games industry?

(mind you twitter is usually blocked here in China, yet I'm curious )

00Zero

no

konstruct

WAT- what does being an artist have to do with self promotion :P

SHEPEIRO

if your freelance sure if your studiobased, let the marketing freaks deal and get some workdone

xvampire

i use it for announce my next stream in ustream

acc

The thing about Twitter that most people don't understand is that the reason it's a big deal is precisely because it's not a big deal.

Setting up a blog, posting articles, managing facebook pages, moderating forums, promoting sites... these are all intensive processes. Facebook is actually pretty freaking complicated nowadays. I wouldn't claim to understand how to use it well and I can do everything from C++ programming to 3D modeling.

But twitter? Sign up, 140 characters. Done.
Want to follow someone? Click the follow button. Done.
It enforces speed and simplicity.

So it probably doesn't matter much to an artist unless you make money taking commisions for paintings or run an art portal.

As a developer I use it as a fast and lightweight tool to communicate with my community, blog without feeling obligated to write a lot (<-- way more valuable than it sounds), and hear news about the market I'm in I wouldn't normally get from the sites I visit.