Five Reasons to Join Twitter and Tweet with WCI

About two months (and 336 updates ago) I jumped into the world of Twitter and began to tweet for West Coast Imaging. This was a big change for us and, to be honest, I was a little more than leery. I remember having a chat with my friend Adam McLane (@mclanea) and when he began to explain Twitter to a friend of ours I jumped in with "It's the lowest form of communication. After this it's grunts and clicks." Clearly, I was not Twitter's biggest cheerleader.

As time went on, the world seemed to be, well, a twitter with Twitter. I kept stumbling upon articles that mentioned Twitter and how people are using it (like the recent Time cover story). It's really pretty fascinating…you can find loads of people on Twitter—from Oprah (@Oprah) to the White House (@WhiteHouse), from Ashton Kutcher (@aplusk) to the CDC (@CDCemergency). Tweets range from the narcissistic and mundane to the truly thoughtful and informative (the latter being my preference). You could really just sit there bug eyed and watch the world unfold in tiny bits and pieces. Like I said, it's fascinating.

But it's more than fascinating, really. Pretty quickly I had a clear idea of what I loved, and what I had been missing out on. So, here they are—five reasons why I love Twitter:

1. Quick access to WCI - Need something? I'm right here! If you're on Twitter, you can grab me any time you want. I watch the stream of tweets roll by throughout the day and if you put an "@MelanieWCI" in your tweet I'll see it right away. And since you can tweet from your desk or your phone you can have WCI access wherever you're at. Pretty nice.

2. Inspiration for your photography - I can't tell you how much fantastic work I've seen just by being on Twitter. It's completely inspiring! Really, truly, if there were no other benefits that one would be worth it. But there ARE other benefits—we're only on #2!

3. Pick a topic...Twitter has it covered. Twitter has a great search function that allows you to keep an eye on things you're interested in. I regularly search for "photography" and "Photoshop" and that opens a whole world of thoughts, ideas and experiences. It's like opening your own store full of ideas that you already love. Just peruse the aisles! And this leads me to number four…

4. The Photographic Community - There is a GREAT photographic community on Twitter. In 20 seconds or less you can find at least 20 photographers that are talking, sharing and learning on Twitter. Seriously? Yes, seriously. Try it yourself. Use that search function I mentioned in #3 and search for "#togsfollow" and see what you come up with. Click on any of the "@name" links and you'll be able to see what each photographer is up to. (If you're new to twitter you can learn about hash tags like "#togsfollow" here).

5. Updates and Specials from WCI - If you're following me on Twitter, you're going to get a LOT more information about me, the WCI staff and WCI sales and events. We're busy people, and we have a lot of clients. We can't possibly call and email everyone every day, but I pipe up on Twitter at least once a day. And I follow a lot of my followers back, too, so we've got a two-way open pipe of communication. We even launch Twitter only sales from time to time, just for fun.

And that's it, folks. If you're not on Twitter give it a try! What do you have to lose? And if you are, follow me (@MelanieWCI) so we can keep in touch. Tweet you later!