To Tweet or Not to Tweet, that is the Question
As I meet with various small business professionals I am always in awe at their reasons and hesitancy of jumping on the social media bandwagon. While many are utilizing Linked in, businesses are missing out on the opportunities that Twitter and Facebook pages hold. Many people say they don’t have time for social media, are not on Facebook, can’t follow the flow of Twitter, don’t keep up with LinkedIn, don’t bother with blogs. Some of the most common concerns I hear are…
- It’s a “time waster”, how will I find the time?
- How do you build relationships online without face-to-face interactions?
- I don’t know how to build my page or manage it.
- What would I post about on Twitter? I have “nothing to say”
- I just don’t get how Twitter works. I’m on LinkedIn, isn’t that enough?
This is a great video on the Social Media Revolution!
Managing it all
Managing all your social media sites can be a headache. A great tool I’ve been using is Hootsuite which is a free website that allows users to update, post, monitor, and track a range of popular social media services.
Tips for getting the most out of Hootsuite
Getting the Most out of Twitter
By CLAIRE CAIN MILLER Published: March 3, 2010
A CUSTOM NEWS FEED By the time Bridget Baker, who works in public relations in Seattle, checks Google Reader while eating lunch at her desk, she has already read most of the articles in her feed because she saw them on Twitter.
In the year since she joined, she has written only 17 posts. “I tend to be a pretty private person. and I don’t feel I have anything that needs to be said,” she said. Yet she opens Twitter first thing each morning and follows friends, bloggers and thought leaders who post about politics, religion, fashion and food.
People with shared interests become your editor and Twitter becomes an alternative RSS feed. Find those people by searching Twitter directories, like WeFollow or Just Tweet It, and by following people whom others repeat or mention.
One-fifth of posts and 57 percent of repeat messages contain a link, proving that this is an increasingly popular way to spread news, said Dan Zarrella, a social media scientist who works at a software company called HubSpot. A quick scan reveals the news of the moment as the most important stories of the day bubble up and are reposted.
For instance, when Audi showed an ad for a green car during the Super Bowl, Chip Giller, the founder of Grist, an environmental news site, immediately noticed a debate about the car’s environmental merits on Twitter. Sure enough, the next day it was a big story.
Why Blogs are so Important
- Bloggers use blogs as a media to communicate with their readers.
- Allows others to relate to you and your experience and knowledge.
- Increases your page rankings on various search engines.
Top Social Media Sites
Don’t get overwhelmed! It’s great to gather knowledge and begin taking “baby steps”. Think of your social media experience as you would going to the gym. If every time you went to the gym or did your workout you targeted the same area such as only doing cardio or only lifting weights, your body would miss out on a full workout. The goal is to target various areas of your business as you would your body at the gym.
List of Top Social Media Sites
Need a one-to-one to help get you going? Let me know! I’m happy to help.
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What’s Your Vision?
Are you familiar with what a Vision Board is? Through a recent Tweet Chat session, I became inspired to create my own vision board and began to wonder if it really works. I started to think of all my hopes, wishes, goals and aspirations and to be honest the list could go on! There are many areas in my life I would like improvement and fulfillment. Some of my goals are big and will require work, dedication and commitment, while other hopes and dreams might be more easily attainable.
Vision Board: A vision board is a collage of images, pictures and affirmations of your dreams and desires. It can also be called a dream board, treasure map or vision map.
Vision boards are a great way to make you feel positive, and are helpful if you are using the law of attraction.
Get Inspired! Here are some samples images of vision boards. As you can see, you can use your own approach and creativity to create a board that will truly inspire you. Once complete, make sure it’s in a visible place in your home or office so that you can look at it daily. It’s a great reminder of who you want to be and what you want to accomplish.
Benefits of Having a Vision Board
For those who don’t know what is a vision board, it is basically a poster board where you collect pictures of what you want and paste it all together. The idea behind this is that if you surround yourself by the images of what you want or what inspires you. Similar to goal setting, you will need to write down your goals to improve your chances of achieving it and creating a vision board works in the same way and help you to add clarity into your desires.
First of all, our mind thinks in pictures and the pictures in our vision board keep our goals fresh in our mind and reinforce our desires to achieve. By placing it at somewhere we can see it daily, we are also constantly reminding ourselves to take action to achieve our goals. The vision board also helps to inspire us daily.
How To Create A Vision Board
HealthMoneySuccess.com (August, 2009)
There are 2 ways where you can create your first own vision board. The first way is to use the traditional method of cutting pictures from magazines and paste it on a board. The second method is to scour for images online and use any software (Paint, Powerpoint etc), fit them all together and print it out.
1st step: Know what you want
This is obvious but yet many do not know what they want. Think about what are the things that inspire you and things that you are happy doing it. Do you want to have a vacation at Hawaii? Do you want to have that new BMW? What is it that makes you happy?
Question yourself and find out what you really want. Don’t fall into the trap of wanting what others want. Some people just don’t care about having that BMW. Don’t desire something because the society think you should desire it.
2nd step: Search
This is the step that I really enjoy doing it. Go out there and search for the images that fits the images of what you want in your head. It can be magazines, the internet or anywhere that you can find pictures. The world is your catalog, just go out there and do your shopping.
3rd step: Review
Review those pictures that you had collected and filter out those pictures that fail to inspire you. If you look at them and have no emotions to it, most likely they are not what you truly want. Throw away those pictures that fail to inspire you and gather all those pictures that inspire you.
4th step: Fix it up
Now is the time to glue everything together. If you are searching online for images, use your preferred software and paste all the pictures together.
5th step: Placement
Do make sure that you place your vision board somewhere you can see it most of the time. I have mine just right in front of my work desk and all I need to do is to tilt my head up to see it. I also use it as my wallpaper and I can see it every time when I turn on my lap top.
Five Steps in Creating Your Vision Board
H-APP-Y Birthday!
H-APP-Y Birthday… I was recently asked to create a custom graphic that would be printed onto shirts for a family reunion celebrating a “tech savy” 70 year old Papa Gerry! This project was fun and a bit of a challenge with custom APPS and lots of customization.
Join the Party!
Social media is a 24/7 party! Many individuals and businesses are feeling the pressure to “join the party”. Yet, they might be hesitant. Why are they? Let’s think about it. Pretend one day, a friend or business acquaintance sends you an invitation to a party. Before you might make the decision to attend, there are some questions you might seek answers to. Where the party located and how will I get there? Who do I know that might be attending? What is the attire? Are they serving dinner, appetizers or just cocktails? Do I need to bring a hostess gift? By the time you’re done getting answers to your questions, you make the decision to attend the party. As you walk into the event and begin circulating around the room, you realize there are many other scenarios that had not crossed your mind in the pre-planning process. Such is true in social media.
If you wait for all the answers, make all the plans, considering all the pros and cons, scenarios, you’ll never make it to the party! Sometimes you need to jump in and just have fun, be yourself and figure it out. However, it’s good to have some start-up information before you get out the door. Therefore I’m happy to give some basic 101 tips and suggestions that might help you personally and/or professionally in regards to social media.
Facebook 101: Ten Things You Need to Know
I’ll leave you with this thought…no one likes someone who attends a party and stands in corner observing. Make sure you are an active participant. Post a status update, share a story, comment on someone else’s post, post a picture, share a video, etc. It’s all about karma. The more good you put out there, the more you receive.
Check out Dan Zarella‘s Science of ReTweets which has interesting stats on Twitter!
How hate turned to love
My mom constantly reminds me how much I dreaded working on my computer in high school. I have faint memories of this too. Frustratingly trying to figure out the programs, typing one finger at a time while still attempting to put together the process of my paper in my head. Too much to do, too much work, too damn annoying! For years, I fought the computer and hand wrote papers. My first Mac was purchased my freshman year in college (student discount!). It was overwhelming at first when putting it together and getting it set-up. However, the internet (DSL) and chat rooms were a new popular find. As I sat down in front of my new purchase, with my four roommates peaking over my shoulder, I chatted away with many new friends I suddenly had online! Needless to say, my computer theory suddenly changed. This wasn’t annoying, nor frustrating. In fact, it was pretty entertaining!
Over the years my love for computers grew (mainly Apple). As I became more comfortable, more open to exploring its possibilities I began to rely on it. This morning my husband got a new laptop and it’s an understatement to say he’s technologically challenged. So here is where I come in. Wow! He actually needed me and depended on me for something other than taking care of the kids lunches, or emptying out the dishwasher or preparing dinner (ha ha). I managed to transfer all his data, sync his billing and calendar, set up his printer and email account (which needs a little tweaking but I’ll figure it out). Not to pat myself on the back too much but given where I started I was pretty impressed I managed it all.
What is the message I want to convey in this blog you might ask? That sometimes what we hate can turn to love and love can turn to possibilities. My freelance marketing business depends almost 100% on my computer and if I had not taken the plunge I wouldn’t be in this position. What do you hate that you now love? How has that changed your life?
Can you teach an old dog new tricks?
I’m starting to think I’m the old dog who is learning new tricks as I jump hoops trying to face today’s challenges both professionally and personally. As I sat in puppy class today with my 4-month-old yellow lab Pacer I was reminded of a simple yet forgotten motto which is “praise the good and ignore the bad”. If only I could do that more! Our adorable fun loving pup who is filled with more energy than I could possibly have even after the 4 cups of coffee I’m now consuming (thanks to the 5 am wake-up calls as she whines in her crate to go outside).
Do you praise yourself for the good and ignore the bad? Businessses are challenged in this economy, jobs are lost and many are faced to make tough decisions. How can you not beat yourself up? Could you have prevented any of this? Believe me, we’ve had more going on this past year than most but we been able to push forward and not allow fear of failure to shove us down.
It’s so funny, but many of the most recent projects I’ve worked on that I’m most proud of I can’t even recall the process of how we got the end result. I know that I tend to trust my gut, listen to my client’s feedback and pull from that all that is positive and good. I suppose in some way, we are ignoring the bad (or what we don’t like) and focusing on aspects feel good about. That is how we get to a point we are truly satisfied…both in what we do and who we are.
By the way, Pacer has finally stopped nipping and leaping onto our 5 year old son Jonah who sadly still has some leg scars to prove the rough few weeks we had in the early stages of puppyhood. We’ve had to replace many of my husband t-shirts as well. But, we are now tackling “go to your place” and “wait/stay”. Simple tasks, lots of rewards (her favorite is the freeze-dried cows tails — yikes!) and Pacer is coming into her own!
I’m starting to think that maybe I need to carry two treat bags around…one filled with the dog treats and maybe the other with candy for the kids? I can now relate as my mom would frequently get confused calling us our dog’s name and vice versa as we were called into the house for dinner.
A Blooming Life 
