Ok, so I’ve been slacking, my bad. I’m still new to this blogging thing, have some patience and give me a break!

Now then:

Here’s an interesting blog post by Wayne Porter called “Twitter Tips And Cycles” where he discusses the power of Twitter and how to use it correctly (without dying in the process)…

In the post Wayne shares these relevant Tactical Twitter Tips:

• 1. Try to avoid over-use of the @symbol, although it is o.k. for “micro-conversations” to break out- they will happen. You can also use brackets like [@wporter] or send a direct message.

Also note that the #symbol in the middle of a Twit is very different than the @symbol at the beginning.

• 2. Don’t tweet every single blog post or photo upload, etc. unless you know your audience really well.

Try not to break Twitter, it can do that all on it’s own (except in the case of major Apple news days), save the ‘every little thing I do is magic’ for FriendFeed. On that note: Use Twiddict For Those Inevitable Twitter Downtimes

• 3. Avidly look for interesting people outside of your normal network so you are exposed to new ideas.

On the other hand, don’t turn into a Twitter ho

• 4. It is o.k. to emit some “noise”, after all part of the medium is to be fun, but avoid sending so much noise that people stop following you. You will develop your own “style” as you go along. Be human.

Unless you’re not human, in which case, don’t you have something better to do? Like take over the world?

• 5. Look at your blog posts and tweets and see if you can correlate jumps in your “follower” growth or a trend in the “types” of followers to other activity in media.

This is an interesting point, give them what they want and they’ll keep coming back.

• 6. You do not have to follow every single person on your list. You should frequently review new followers and see if you can find interesting people, and even if you don’t follow them, you can certainly stop by their blog or page.

This is just common courtesy, again see #3.

• 7. Ensure your Twitter URL points to a site or page where potential people evaluating whether to follow or reciprocate with you. This way they can get more information about you and make a better decision. They are about to make an investment in their time so help them make it.

Just make sure the page you point to is useful to them, don’t waste this valuable opportunity on a sales page.

• 8. Occasionally reach out and spend some social capital by helping or simply a “thank you”. For example, thank someone who inspires you with their writing, or someone who helps you out, that you admire, or you find contributing to the commons. Sometimes they will respond in surprising ways.

Keyword here: Occasionally. Don’t be a beggar.

• 9. Find technically advanced users or resources that will teach you how to effectively handle all of these emerging technologies like a pro.

Ok, here it is, you knew it was coming right? PLUG: www.thirtydaychallenge.com and @Ed_Dale

• 10. Be genuine, be polite and have fun.

Really? This is tip worthy? Like making everyone silly enough to follow me hear every thing I feel like saying isn’t fun! I might get a God complex from this.

]]> http://gracemidyette.wordpress.com/2008/06/13/tweeter-tips/feed/ 1 gracemidyette http://gracemidyette.wordpress.com/2008/06/09/ice-cream-is-good-for-your-business/ http://gracemidyette.wordpress.com/2008/06/09/ice-cream-is-good-for-your-business/#comments Tue, 10 Jun 2008 00:19:00 +0000 Grace Midyette http://gracemidyette.wordpress.com/?p=24 ]]>

Think social networking is just for teens? Take a look at this video that explains the concept, what it means to people and it’s impact on business and industry. It just might change your mind.

Social Media in Plain English – An interesting video from Lee Lefever

Social networking at its worst:

A few of you know that my husband, in his infinite wisdom, was none too supportive of my venture into making money online, and honestly I can’t really blame him. I was getting into some rather dubious endeavors, some downright scams, and a whole lot of ‘penny gathering’ as I will call it. We talked about it more yesterday, the difference between Thirty Day Challenge and the other things I was working on for a bit (which I am slightly ashamed about, but we live and learn), and I am proud to announce:

He’s not as opposed to it!

Ok, so it’s not a resounding show of support, but he is rather pessimistic and I’ve gotten used to it. For him, this is about as good as I’m going to get until I can honestly tell him “I told you so”.

I can’t wait.

Well I was in a posting frenzy on the forums the other day, I actually had things to say that added to the discussions, well I thought so at least (except for one post about a mankini, but I had to). As I look at the forum now I have the strange feeling of accomplishment when I see this:

Since I’m not going to edit this: above is a screen clipping of the forum at ThirtyDayChallenge.com with some check marks next to them, apparently when you reply to a post you are automatically subscribed to it, which shows up as a green check.

Checks on lists = Good job, right?

Well, maybe not, but for a moment I can think so.

As for the testing: this was clipped with OneNote and blogged from Word, just to see if I can.

Lesson 2 in Thirty Day Challenge Preseason. Configuring the browser. Ho Hum.

I appreciate that he teaches every step along the way, I really do. But I still can’t help being impatient. I mean, I think this video would’ve been just as effective if he just posed a picture pointing to where to find the preferences window. Well, ok the RSS feature was included, I guess that made it worth it.

On another note, I saw a few visitors here were looking for massive tools, I can only wonder what that means but I am almost certain they were disappointed. I guess that just proves the power of top Google listing. Can’t wait to put it to use!

That’s the response to this comment about inactivity I made on the forums at ThirtyDayChallenge.com:

“Chomping at the bit doesn’t quite cover it! After the mad rush of information and searching I went thought before this (and probably some other people too) I almost feel like I’m wasting my time now. Before I might have been running in all the wrong directions but it still *FELT* like I was getting somewhere, now I just sit, and wait, (none to patiently I might add) but I think I will get farther in the long run so I am trying to relax. I still can’t help but feeling that there’s something more I should be doing, so I’m filling the time with making a list of everything I come into contact with that sounds like something I could relate to or is interesting. Now I don’t know if any of these are niches, markets, niche markets or just junk, but it almost satisfies my need to do something.”

So, I have nothing to report on my progress, I don’t really have anything to work on. I continue surfing with Flock, been jumping around other people’s social sites, particularly enjoy tonyblakelive on Twitter, he just makes me laugh, like “@Ed_Dale What the Flock? No Flocking Aussie is gonna Flocking talk to me that way! Flock you and the Flocking horse you preseasoned in on!” in reply to Ed_Dale who is promoting the Flock browser or Aussies are weirder than I thought.

I’ve been practicing with the different ways of communicating on the social sites, only problem is I don’t really have anyone to talk to. I don’t want to just jump in and start bugging people who have better things to do than chat with me (Ed and Dan) and I don’t know anyone else on these sites worth talking to. So, here I am, reaching out to the community: Help me practice networking! To be honest, I will probably have more than enough practice when Ed gets to that part of the preseason, but more practice never hurts.

Oh! Another service I signed up for: FriendFeed.

So, kicked my RoboForm into hyper drive today. Since we will be using Flock and its add ons for the Thirty Day Challenge, I went ahead and downloaded it, and looking through the features, several of these I don’t have accounts for, so I guess it wont hurt to start signing up now.

So, places I’ve heard about in the videos, other people: Digg, Stumbleupon, Flickr, Picasa. I re-found a Facebook account I used back in my Realm days. Signed up for Twitter, imported my contacts, it said “it might take longer if you’re popular”, funny, didn’t take very long. Del.icio.us setup, took me a few minutes to figure out what “bookmarklets” were and what I was supposed to do and where to put them.

Other stuff:

Accounts: YouTube, Squidoo, Bloglines

Plug-ins: ScribeFire, SEO for Firefox, Google Notebook

I subscribed to the Thirty Day Challenge feed and Ed and Dan’s Twitter feeds.

Probably shouldn’t have, but subscribed to Fark’s feed too, I have to get a break sometime right?

I found a team for the 30 day challenge, “Shining Seas” and there’s a small problem…

I’m the only lady. I guess it’s not really a problem, but I wonder how many women vs. men are in the challenge this year. I wonder how many women are in this business altogether? As far as I can tell, it seems to be dominated by men! Is there some reason for this? Women have better things to do? Men have better technical skills? I would think, with this being a social networking heavy, that there would be at least as many women if not more. Just seems like women are more social and therefore would do better with this kind of marketing. Quite possibly I have it all confused, maybe I don’t really understand what I signed up for, perhaps I know nothing about men and women. Bring on the comments, someone out there should be able to educate me on this. I look forward to it.

The official start of Thirty Day Challenge 2008 Preseason!

Well, that certainly was interesting. Not to be rude or anything, but I guess I was expecting something more. I kept fighting the urge to fast forward, hoping to get to the good part, really makes me wish he’d just write it so I can skim it and see that I really didn’t need to watch this. I’m just impatient, I suppose. Oh! That intro, nice and all, but I can’t help but wonder about the gun and booze… that right there almost makes me run, but having no other good candidates for my internet time, I’ll stick around.

The Star Wars text scroll is nice, I have a real hard time reading it, all I can make out for sure is something about “Key-tapped the 900″ whatever that is. He does have an incredibly sexy accent, I’ve always had a thing for Aussies!

Now I’m going to look for a group to join, better give myself the best chance at this.

Tags: ThirtyDayChallenge, Preseason, Video