using twitter

Twitter

Type of social media

Twitter is a network where you are able to tweet (send) out short comments about what you are doing, your opinions/thoughts and photos, therefore it is the type of social media that it quick and instant (as you can see the comment instantly after you post it) making it the perfect network to use for people that do not have allot of time to look at your work but are able to have a quick glance of what you are doing in your day of designer work (with the use of photos and a sentence)

Why I am using it?

I am using this network due to the reason above of people not having time to look at long pieces of your work but do have time to read a quick sentence or look at a photo helping them to build up an instant image of yourself as a designer and an individual, the use of tweeting regularly as well shows people that you are active with your work and active in keeping contact with people and therefore build up a good connection with the public and yourself building trust. I am also using this as it is one of the biggest public networks with the majority of people and businesses promoting themselves on it, what i really like about this program is the way in which by placing a hash tag at the bottom of your post you are able to link to people that have an interest in the subject you have hash tagged and therefore makes you able to really promote yourself to the right area of people/ groups that have similar likes as yourself as a brand, making you able to build a network of people and companies  with similar desires as you that will also help you mould yourself to develop and take influence form people that are going well or that are more experience then you. By using the hash tags it is easy to see what other people in the same subject are working on and doing making you more knowledgeable to the world around you, therefore by using them in my posts I am really showcasing what as a designer is in my world and what I identify with.

Action plan/how I will use it

One of the most impotent elements I feel when using this platform is to use it regularly and also getting the hash tags right to be able to appeal to the right people. In every tweet I will include a number of hash tags with 3 at most so that they are able to link to the relevant groups with the most common one being #fashion as this is the aspect of the market I am aiming for, mixed with more targeted hash tags such as #fashionblogger (so people will be able to see that I have a blog and many others. My action plan so far is to post something upon my twitter feed every couple of days to show that I am active as a designer and therefore suggest a strong online profile to help get people become interested in me, for one of my posts I will tweet a sentence or survey ect (writing) about what I am doing or something that I really like within the fashion industry to show what inspires me as a designer and to look as current and knowledgeable about what is around me (this will tell the audience that as a designer I am aware and generally interested about other things that may affect my style ect...) one of the examples I have of this is my tweet about trends where I have placed two of WGSN trends to see what others think of them and asked then what trends they are into with links to my other platforms for them to be able to leave comments on or see more information about. Another sample of this is where I have created a survey of what I think of Liberties to see if they agree or disagree with me so that they are able to start up a debate and conversation with me building up my communication about the subject with others. The hash tags for this I have used some of the popular once such as #shoppingexperience so people can easily link to my tweet. For another one of my tweets within the week I plan to post a photograph of my work so that the more visual learners can recognise me and my identity as a designer to build up support for me, the mixture of the writing and the photo tweets for me work together really well as not everyone can relate to text or words so allowing me to relate to a broad network of people easily and quickly with the use of this instant network. One of the main tweets I want to include is a tweet with the links to my other social networks especially my Blog so that my followers are able to find out more details about me and view more of my work, by doing this it helps me to create this network of people that do share an interest in what I do and that can leave comments and questions that I can use in my brand development using them as a stepping stone for my career. This could also help with job opportunities as it opens up communication with anyone (normal members of the public or someone within the industry) letting them know about me and gain a type of friendship and approachability so that they feel good about talking to me and suggesting opportunities that can all add up to my future success.

How can I improve my use or profile on the platform?

At the moment due to the way that I have just set up my twitter account my profile has a limited amount of followers so that to improve my profile I need to keep on tweeting and interacting with other twitter users (eg leaving comments and replying to them) for them to build a interest in me and therefore start to follow me to see what I am all about resulting in the connections and followers to build up nicely. At the moment I have used the same images in all my social network channels to create a consistent clear identity so that the people looking at my profile do not get confused about what I am about which is really key, but to develop this further within twitter it would be nice to have several different images to alternate with as this I feel would show off the way that as a designer I am not a “one trick pony” but am developing within this same type of style saying that even though I have a lot of designs as a designer I am consistent with this feminine identity, while also showing off all the work I have done. Therefore I want to be constantly updating my profile background (not my photo so they are able to recognise that I am the same person but with many different designs to my name) at the moment as I have said before I am still developing as a designer but to improve my use of twitter in the future when I am more knowledgeable about what kind of professional I want to be I will aim to use this network more regularly then every other day, this hopefully will help me boost my presence and also followers as more people hopefully will pick up my feed (as not everyone is on it 24 hours a day) helping me build support and contacts.

Conclusion

Overall I have created a basic twitter feed that really needs to be developed more with the comments I have said above. Due to the way that it is so basic at the moment I know I need to really work on it for this form of social media to be effective for my use as a brand identity. Looking over the whole appeal of twitter I feel that this will be one of the key platforms to use as it is so current in today’s industry and in some ways more so then other big once such as facebook as it is something that is more modern (where the others have been around more so can have a more stale quality to them) and trendy to use, the way that it is mainly used by the  more youthful or within the industry is also key as these are the type of client I am focusing on so this platform is the one that they will be using, therefore I really need to concur this network as it is an important one to me.