When you think of Twitter the first thought that pops into your mind is most likely not community destination but Chad Engle is challenging that concept.  Chad’s created Design Community Twitter Hours a Thursday night - 6:00 pm to 8:00 pm EST - online group that connects via Twitter at @DCTH to discuss graphic design.

I interviewed Chad recently to get his take on Twitter and community.

Audience Machine:  Let’s start from the beginning.  What was your inspiration for creating DCTH - Design Community Twitter Hours?

DCTH:  Sounds good. The inspiration came from a conversation one night with Adelle and Graham about the design community. We had a conversation in a forum type chat room and it was impossible to keep up and it seemed tons of people had questions about everything design related. So I decided that we as a design community needed a forum to talk to each other.

Audience Machine: When did you activate your the DCTH — http://twitter.com/DCTH  — account on Twitter?  And, and many Followers do you have?  What do you know about your Followers?  Who are they?

DCTH:  Believe it or not I did not even think about making a twitter account for DCTH. I ran it from my personal twitter account ( @chadengle ) the first few weeks and then Niki Brown was a co-host of #DCTH for a few weeks (and will be again provided she will help ) mentioned that I should have an account for it so I made one. At first I just let people follow it who were designers/creatives. Then I realized thats not really how I wanted to build my network, I wanted to make go after as many designers and creatives as possible. So I have started to follow them all because I want to build the DCTH community as big as we can make it. Its been great to hear all of the success stories and have the community support that has come from this.

Audience Machine:   It looks like you’re using a desktop client — Twhirl  http://twhirl.org — and, an iPhone Twitter client Tweetie —http://www.atebits.com/software/tweetie/ — for posting to the DCHT community.  Why Twhirl and Tweetie?  Are you pushing posts into any other profiles?  What monitoring tools are you using for tracking #hashtags?

DCTH:  I am using TweetDeck for my personal account and Twhirl for DCTH at this point. I am waiting for multiple account’s on TweetDeck and that will be my sole twitter platform. The columns and search columns you can make are just phenomenal for keeping track. On thursday when DCTH is active we as a community have been using TweetChat.com You can login to a room (#DCTH) and it hashtags it for you and auto updates so the twitter stream can be fast paced. I am using Tweetie for my iPhone as you said and it honestly hands down is the best twitter app for the iPhone. I have used them all, it allows multi account support, is super easy with a clean interface. You could honestly not ask for more. Finally I monitor hashtags through TweetDeck by having a search column.

Audience Machine:  Chad, you’re the first person I’ve seen using an established meeting date — Thursdays from 6 to 8 pm EST — on Twitter as a community organizing and engagement tool?  How long have you been using this technique and how effective has it been?  How are people responding:  Do they RT (reply to) back at you or DM (direct message)?

DCTH:  I have been using it from the get-go on twitter. I work full time as a Graphic Designer so I didn’t want to be answering all kinds of random tweets about DCTH during work that wouldn’t be right. So I set up a time where I was going to be available to correspond with others. The tag their tweet with #DCTH and we pick it up from tweetchat.com or twitter search. It makes it very easy to monitor tons of people without having them tweet straight to me or the @DCTH which gives them freedom to send tweets to others and be on twitter as usually.

Audience Machine: Your DCTH account is really active with nearly 1,000 posts.  I have a few related questions concerning content and publishing strategies.   First, how would you describe your publishing strategy?  And, where are you sourcing content for the community?  Are you using aggregators like PopULRs.com — http://www.populrs.com?  What content seems to resonate with DCHT Followers?

DCTH:  Right now my main source of tweets has been on Thursday during #DCTH for the @DCTH. Recently I have been RT’ing useful information to the design community and trying to reach out and connect more with others. All of the #DCTH tweets have been saved in a PDF by @mikeconaty
(thanks mike) and will be posted on the site http://dcth.info as soon as I get it up and running. (shouldn’t be too much longer) All kinds of content has been generated from these meetings from technology, to business practices to coffee or tea preferences while you design. I think we needed a place like this to connect to other designers/creatives.

Audience Machine:  I believe DCTH is paradigm busting in terms of how we define and identify an online community.   Tell me about how you define community in a Twitter environment.

DCTH:  I think that a community is what you make of it and is made by the involvement of people which has been nothing short of amazing in this case. There has been infinite amounts of positive feedback, support that has just made me be extremely humbled. I think that this will only get better with more and more people and will be something fun and engaging for all.

Audience Machine: How is DCTH community approach different than a regular Twitter user simply having followers? Are you planning to publish rules of road?  What other services are you planning to plug into your Twitter account to facilitate group interaction?  Have you tried Buzzable — http://www.buzzable.com?

DCTH:  I think that people know that the DCTH account is geared more for connection and you will find people to connect with through it. I think some rules of the road have been understood, this is not really a place to advertise your business or blog but to connect. I have a few more ideas for connecting with this group. I would one day like to have a conference where DCTH members could come an connect face to face and have speakers maybe some thing like the many design conferences that are out there now. I have not tried buzzable and I am surfing it as I type this

Audience Machine:  I know you’re in the process of launching the dcth.info site.  Can you talk about the community features you’re planning on incorporating into DCTH.info?  Has the DCHT community participated in the development of the upcoming site?

DCTH:  I am trying to incorporate some sort of interactivity (which I am working on) to keep it like DCTH on Thursday’s. The community has not participated as of yet but the entire site will be community driven so there will be more than adequate time for people to have input and help. I however have had a good chunk of help from Mike Dawson ( @thedayafter ) I have to give a huge thanks to him for helping me moderate some of the chats, jumping on the DCTH account during the week to interact with designers/creatives, and just helping me out when I need it.

Audience Machine: I can imagine feedback on a site requiring more than 140 characters.  Hell, I think some of my questions are well beyond 140 characters.  How often do conversations migrate to other platforms or tools?  How do are you able to facilitate community when the conversations migrate away from Twitter?

DCTH:  Fortunately, there has been a few large conversations that have taken place on Skype. Usually if someone has a large question they will use several tweets to get the question out. I am not quite sure how I would be able to monitor it all over the internet. It would be up to individuals to monitor it themselves.

Audience Machine: Finally, what tips do you have for organizations or individuals that are considering a Twitter-backed community?

DCTH:  Use it! Twitter has been an amazing forum. The beauty is that you can go back and read people’s tweets. So if you miss a DCTH you can go back and read what bob tweeted about during the night. There are an abundant amount of users to broadcast your information to and I think it will only get better as twitter gets more and more common.

TAGS: Design Community Twitter Hours, Chad Engle, Adelle Charles, Graham Smith, Niki Brown, Mike Conaty, Mike Dawson, IM Just Creative, TweetDeck, Tweetie, Twitter, Twhirl, iPhone, hashtags, Buzzable, Audience Machine