15 Reasons Creative Freelancers Need a Growing Twitter Network

You might have noticed that my sites ‘Ape on the Moon’ and this one have pretty large Twitter followings. This isn’t something that is down to the content of the sites on their own.

It’s taken a fair amount of hard work to attracting and maintaining followers to a growing network, but it’s all for good reasons. Twitter is my number one source of traffic by far, but the benefits don’t stop there.

On top of benefiting any blogs you might have, a large and growing network on Twitter should be in your best interest, as it is for me as a creative professional. I’m surprised when I see so many people miss the value in a large and growing network of people relevant to your industry. Perhaps you don’t know how to grow your Twitter followers effectively, or don’t yet see the huge value that doing so could present.

Twitter is one of the few places where quality as well as quantity count.

Because of the way content is restricted (to 140 characters) and the way people are able to interact with anyone, without the need to be accepted as a friend (as with Facebook), it is the best place to make yourself known to large numbers of people who could be interested in you and your brand.

Here are 15 reasons why you need to get started building and growing a significant and relevant network on Twitter:

1. To have access to a group of people that you can refer to for advice 24/7.

2. To generate targeted traffic to your sites and portfolio. The larger your network, the more people will visit your site (if the site is of interest and of relevance to them).

3. To develop friendships and relations with people you otherwise might never have met.

4. To add credibility to your brand, your business and your website.

5. To expand your pool of potential collaborators.

6. As a means to introduce your work to large numbers of people who are already interested in you, without disturbing those that are not.

7. To build your online presence as an industry leader.

8. To widen the net of potential new clients who pick up on your work.

9. As a means to gather feedback on your projects from around the world almost instantly.

10. As a way for your updates to easily be shared, and even go viral within the Twitter system.

11. To let people who are interested keep up to date with you wherever you are in the world, for free, in real time without the need to write long posts.

12. For people to see your human side beyond your more regimented portfolio updates.

13. To refer or be referred by others easily and efficiently.

14. To help your own creativity and spark new ideas from updates that you see.

15. To boost and grow your social interaction for those who tend to work independently.

Of course all this needs to be done in a legitimate, organic manner that is congruent with the people you are interacting with. It’s not about spamming, aggressive following, being manipulative or being destructive.

Growing your network should be a gradual process, that introduces you and what you stand for to the people who want to know about you in the first place.

For more help on exactly how to do this, read the guide I wrote recently called: ‘5 Steps to a Solid Twitter Network’ that you can get here.

Good luck with it all!

See you on Twitter!

Alex