Twitip

Are you a Freelancer? Today Jenny Cromie, editor of The Golden Pencil, (follow her at @JennyCromie) talks about how Twitter can help grow a Freelance Business.

When I first read about Twitter in a Wired magazine article a little more than a year ago, I thought: What a waste of cyberspace! Why on earth would anyone waste their time trading banal “news” items like: Wearing pink slippers and eating a PBJ. Or, Cleaned toilet. Now for the sink.

Even productivity guru Tim Ferriss called Twitter “pointless e-mail on steroids.” At the time, I couldn’t have agreed more.

But what a difference a year makes! Like me, Tim Ferriss has now joined Twitterville. Of course, he follows no one and has about 10,720 followers. But that’s beside the point.

What I’m trying to say is that if you’re not orbiting in the Twitterverse, you might as well be living on Mars.

Everyone is all atwitter about Twitter now. It’s the THING. It’s the new pet rock of the worldwide cyber village. But I also don’t think it’s a fad. Twitter and other social networking tools are changing the way companies and individuals do business, get information, and communicate.

And the Twitterverse is getting more crowded by the day because late-adopter dolts like me finally get it. We’re all doing the “I-coulda-had-a-V8” head thump: Duh! Twitter is great for growing your business.

If you own a business of any size and you’re still not Twittering, you’re missing out on what amounts to a worldwide virtual chamber of commerce networking event that’s at your fingertips 24/7. Only on Twitter, you don’t press flesh or swap business cards—you exchange links to your Web site, blog, e-books, and online résumé. And you build relationships 140 characters at a time.

Still not convinced that Twitter can help your freelance business? Maybe my list will change your mind. As a business tool, Twitter can help you:

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Twitter and Journalism might not be two words you’d normally put in the same sentence – but today Jason Preston from Eat Sleep Publish (follow him at @jasonp107) asks if Twitter can be a real news platform? We’d love to hear your opinion in comments.

Image by Shaver

For centuries, “journalist,” “reporter,” and “newsman,” have been reasonably interchangeable. After all, a reporter often works for a newspaper or TV station, where they are employed to do journalism.

But recent trends in publishing and digital tools have required that we look at new definitions for these words. Being a journalist has started to mean being someone who ties stories together into a narrative, whatever the medium.

How do these differences apply to Twitter?
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