Neil Creek at Tweetupmellers (photo by Jade Craven)

Twitter has increasingly become a key part of how I promote myself as a photographer (Find me @neilcreek). I engage with fellow photographers, I promote my blog posts, but most importantly, I am able to forge connections to people in the real world. This became especially obvious to me several days ago when I attended a “tweetup” – twitter meet up.

As always, I take my camera to such events, but I knew I wanted to do something a little more to promote myself as a professional photographer. Eventually I came up with the idea for “MeetHeads” – meet up head shots ( http://neilcreek.com/meetheads). I set up a tiny “studio” at the venue and offer to take anyone’s head shots for free. They are then allowed to use this photo online for any non-commercial purpose, such as a twitter avatar, facebook profile or whatever. In exchange they must credit me as the photographer wherever the image is used, and if possible link back to my site.

Throughout the night I had many people complement me on the idea and the name, which everyone seemed to love. Over the next several days, after I had uploaded and linked to the photos, several people started using my photos of themselves as their avatars on Twitter. Best of all, in the last two weeks, I have attracted three new bookings for my services through connections made via Twitter!

Terri Coad, photo by: Neil Creek - http://neilcreek.com/

By Terri Coad (@tezzitoo)

It’s not often I venture out on my own at night to a bar on the other side of town to meet a group of, essentially, strangers. Really, the very notion of it all sounds just a little… odd. I purposely avoided telling my mother about the whole thing because I was well aware of the grief I’d cause her over such an expedition. You’ve got to understand, though, that last night those strangers weren’t entirely strangers. I mean, I’d never actually met any of them, perse. But we’d connected.

And so I jumped off the train at Winsdor Station and made my way toward The Social – our gracious host for the evening. I’ll admit I felt rather anxious as I arrived. I could see a few people milling about inside. Who was I supposed to talk to first? I apprehensively wandered in, scanning the room for anyone I recognised. Soon enough though, I was greeted by a bubbly blonde – one @AKAvirtualPA, or Anita, who passed on the news that another bubbly blonde – Sam Mutimer herself, was sick at home and wouldn’t be attending! I’ve got to say I was somewhat crushed, but there was little time to lament. The show must go on, they say, and on it did – the tweetup hadn’t even officially begun yet, but I’d already sat down with @kim__wood (one of those people who, as it turns out, made it very convenient to have their actual name in Twitter username!) in the first of the evening’s many chats.

So it went. A whole night, drifting amongst a room of people I’d only ever seen in 48×48 avatars. Making conversation with people I’d normally have to limit communication with to 140 characters. It was fantastic. I can’t imagine another situation I’d ever find myself in where I was surrounded by such a diverse, talented and vibrant crowd – all brought together through one shared love: Twitter! Maybe it’s just the fact that over the past four years in my residential progression through Parkville, Carlton and Brunswick, it’s just overwhelmingly refreshing meeting a bunch of people who aren’t predominantly university students…

I’m not so sure, though. I really don’t think I’m the only one who felt the special buzz going on at The Social last night. Sure, there was a tentative “Um, I’m not sure if I’m following you…” here and there, but this was usually succeeded by that person whipping out their iPhone and following you right there on the spot. Everyone was so willing to learn each other’s stories, to share their own and commit themselves to our savvy community that only thrived as we stepped from online persona to real-life personalities.

I arrived home from the tweetup last night with a big smile on my face. I also had a heck of a lot more followers when I turned my computer on, and had some immediate following to do myself. I’d come home with four crumpled stickers in my bag, each of them displaying my username but having very much failed in the whole sticking-onto-anything part during the night. I had a freakin’ awesome Polaroid business card from @iheartguitar, and another business card from @graemebowman (plus the new knowledge as to what, exactly, a hoax speaker is). I had a slip of paper from @neilcreek detailing where I’d be able to find the professional head-shots he’d taken of us after he got them all uploaded. I had a whole new network of people in my life.

Bring on #4!

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Tweetupmellers number 4 will be held on the 23rd of July 2009 at The Social in Windsor. You can RSVP now!