Designers & Architects Put Their Ears to the Computer Screen on Twitter

In a busy little world called Twitterville, there's a growing community of architects, designers, manufacturers and industry professional chatting with consumers and peers about everything from Fall trends to client relationships in 140 characters or less.

If you're regular on Twitter, then you may already know what Twitter Chats are. If not, the quick definition is: a conversation between Tweeters on a given topic held on Twitter at a scheduled time, which is identified by a hashtag (#nameofchat) that makes it easy to follow.

There are a lot of different Twitter Chats happening on Twitter on all sorts of topics, but over the course of the past year a few new chats  have emerged in the design and architecture industry and they're gaining a healthy following of active participants.

The American Institute of Architects (@aianational) hosts an #AIAChat the first Wednesday of every month for architects to discuss common issues and challenges. Their last chat caught 73 participants discussing the topic of client relationships. Two other design chats #IntDesignerChat and #IDzineChat were launched earlier this year and have claimed over 150 participants.  The first is geared for discussion among interior designers, while the latter is a live question and answer chat  between consumers and interior designers.

While studies are being released to show what Twitter fails to do for brands, they miss the whole point of what it does do very well; Connect people and provide  real-time market intelligence to businesses.  These Twitter Chats are helping design brands stay inspired and strategic through challenging and changing times by simply listening to what consumers and other businesses care about. Maybe you should check it out. 

Do you participate in any Twitter Chats? What have they done for you?