If you just joined Twitter or still thinking about it (sign up here), one of the first questions I remember asking myself was “how do I meet friends that share my interest in graphic design, website development and blogging?”

Below are four steps to befriend other graphic artists, developers and bloggers and grow your social community on Twitter. And don’t forget to follow me, I always try to be helpful.

Follow Lists

• JustTweetIt: A Graphic Designers Directory
• One Uber Twitter Follow List for Creatives & Geeks
• Designers to Follow on Twitter
• 50+ Designers to Follow on Twitter
• Top 8 Friendly Designers to Follow on Twitter
• 100 Web Designers to Follow on Twitter
• 10 Designers you Gotta Follow — also from JustTweetIt
• Social Media Directory for Designers

You can also check out 26 Twitter Graphic Designer’s business cards. See if their skills are worthy enough before following them.

Web Apps

• Twubble: searches your friends graph and picks out people who you may like to follow
• Twits Like Me: finds others that share your same interests through your tweets
• TwitDir(ectory): It’s like Google for finding Twitterers with similar interests

Blogging

While recently asking to my fellow Twitterer’s if they would be interested in submitting their business cards for an upcoming post and after publishing the article (with links to mine and their accounts) my followers increased over 100 people overnight. Here’s why:

Through the power of the almighty Retweet making it possible for their followers to find me, submit their business cards and befriend me, and through the popularity the article received once published, I was able to reach out to new great friends and help them discover me.

It also helps to have a Twitter icon somewhere on your blog as well. Don’t miss out on my upcoming Twitter submission post to submit your BEST Printed Design Projects. If interested, please email me at brihoff@mac.com with an image of the project and a few sentences regarding the creative process or inspiration for the piece.

When all else fails… Steal friends

Worse comes to worst you can always steal The Top 10′s friends. Pick through their thousands of followers and start following them — pretty sure they have plenty of great people to follow and hopefully they will follow you back.