What do you think of when you hear the word “networking?” If you’re even slightly inclined towards introversion, you might experience an involuntary twitch. If you’re a card-carrying hard core introvert, you might find yourself wanting to curl into a fetal position.

I fall somewhere in the middle. In a straight up business situation, I’m fine. If you invite me to a swanky social event, don’t be surprised if you find me in the kitchen, talking about Bugs Bunny cartoons or car repairs with one of the catering guys. Working the room? Not likely. I’m the type who likes to have big conversations and big laughs with very small groups of people. I can talk business. I can’t do social networking.

At least I thought I couldn’t.

Enter Twitter. There are highly respected bloggers who have written posts about being late to the game. They say they didn’t get Twitter at first, but figured it out fast. What they say about how great Twitter is makes sense, but social media—still intimidating for an introvert.

I asked a friend if she had a Twitter account. She quipped, “You mean it’s not only about Ashton and Demi?”

Not if you do it right.

My first tweet was October 28, 2009. “Editing is easier than starting from scratch. Not so much writer’s block as the intimidation of the big blank canvas.”

I note with a small amount of pride that I didn’t talk about what I was having for dinner.

The real surprise, 442 tweets later, is it was nearly effortless. Twitter is a giant candy store filled to overflowing with ideas. For many creatives, ideas are like oxygen. It’s hard to resist.

I can’t recall where the connection was made, but Josh Frankel has become my dealer—for design, typography and illustration ideas. Fellow NSCAD alum Terri Robin Vernon gives me a fine art fix. I’ll likely never interact with him (360,000+ followers), but I follow Tim Siedell, a.k.a. Bad Banana, for brilliant one-liners and a master class in sarcasm. His website is pretty great, too.

Some Twitter users track key words in your tweets and auto-follow you. That can be irritating, but sometimes it pays off. You can block the spammy followers, and watch the ones that seem promising.

One of those individuals posted a link to a video at the Museum of the History of Science in Oxford. The video is a five-minute intro to a Steampunk exhibition. Go watch it, it’s fascinating.

I emailed the link to a former university roommate who is working on a PhD in Art History. He forwarded it to a colleague, who is writing about Steampunk in her thesis. She hadn’t heard about the exhibition. She was glad to get the information, he enjoyed looking smart, and I was happy someone found it useful.

Over the past two days I helped someone who was having trouble formatting an e-newsletter, and someone gave me a hand with some copy I’m working on. Favours freely offered in both cases.

Welcome to social networking.

If you’re not a social type, it might take you a minute to realize you’re actually doing it. It’s not that it’s happening, it’s the scale. You can interact with a surprising number of people in a very short time.

You don’t need a complicated plan to make the most of Twitter. You don’t need an account to see what people are saying. Visit websites and look for a link to Twitter. You can try a few galleries, museums or arts organizations, people who write blogs you read, or who are on forums or membership sites you belong to. You’ll only see one side of the conversation, but you can read announcements and follow links to websites.

Once you have an account, follow the people and organizations you like, and grow organically from there. Finding people who are doing cool work is not an agonizing process. Go to Listorious and put in a key word (you don’t need a Twitter account for that).

Let people know when you have a new blog post, or new work, or a show, but don’t make it all about you. Tweet and retweet (as in, tell your followers what someone else is up to) what’s interesting or relevant, and sometimes the person who posted the original tweet will check out what you’re doing and follow you—or you’ll follow them. Or you can follow each other.

The speed of the information flow can be astonishing.

Twitter might not be the best place for you to connect with people. Everybody’s a little different. You’ll likely not see me on Facebook anytime soon. But if you think Twitter is just a place for senseless babbling, you might be missing out on something good.

What’s your favourite way to connect? What’s your favourite social networking venue? Is social networking valuable to you?

Related posts:

1. The ins and outs of your first impression (part 2 – look outward)
2. The ins and outs of your first impression (part 1 – work in)
3. Social media and the Myth of Everybody