Posts Tagged ‘Twitter’

Unfortunately, even after listing 10 great topics that any blogger can use last week, I still didn’t feel motivated today (what? I’m not perfect!). So, I decided to ask for some help from my friends and posted the above status update to facebook and twitter. Thank goodness for great friends, because in just 10 minutes I had the following great ideas! And now, I have some awesome ideas for next week

Ideas from Twitter:

@ParagonMoon: Blog topic: I can get over having done something I shouldn’t have. But to pass by opportunities is deeply regrettable and soul-damaging.

@Hagre: do a how-to of something you’re good at, or go explore someplace new and write about it! Just a couple thoughts!

@Sn0wSurF3r gave me two: How about, “you don’t have to blog just for the sake of blogging?” OR I want 2 read about how people should use lawyers at the beginning of contracts so they don’t need them after things go south

@influxx: take a break and come back fresh tomorrow. Dont force it. It will show.

@healthOC: I want to read about how the market has positively or negatively affected your business and/or others in your field

Ideas from Facebook:

What ideas do you have to add to the mix? What would you like to see me write about?

A recent article from Vanity Fair: America’s Tweethearts proves how little they actually understand twitter!

Thanks to @markdavidson, I discovered and read the story. Pretty soon, many of us were in conversation about the missteps and failings of the article.

Mark believes that it capitalizes on female stereotypes and paints these intelligent women as objects.

Joe mentioned that the people they chose were not a representation of real twitter elite.

Jason commented the entire article comes off as patronizing and is bothered that people find it interesting.

EricaJoy added a few others that should have been considered – and the fact that as it stood, it was crap.

While I agree with the points they made, I have a few of my own:

1. I believe that the article paints a poor picture of twitter and really fails to capture the point of the tool. Twitter isn’t about followers, it isn’t about popularity, and apart from @juliaroy, the key women in this article are very poor examples of twitter users. They all have 40k+ followers but follow, on average, less than 10% of them back! That means they are not conversing, not sharing and definitely not participating with their followers. Pathetic, and not the way twitter should be used.
2. The other “twilebrities” it mentions – Obama, Britney, Ashton – are just as bad as examples! None of these people will ever be asked how to use twitter to improve your business, they will never speak at a conference about combining twitter into a social media strategy. The people that do get asked those questions? And do speak at the conferences? THOSE are the “twilebrities”
3. This line from the article “Twitter doesn’t even require real sentences, only a continual patter of excessively declarative and abbreviated palaver” really twisted me…Twitter does require real sentences, real thought and real participation. If what you are doing is declarative and abbreviated palaver (which is really just big words for a short statement of unimportance) then you really are failing at twitter. And, the fact that Vanity Fair thinks that’s what twitter is – proves they have absolutely no idea how it really works.
4. And the last reason I know that Vanity Fair fails at twitter? Their account is run the same way…48k+ followers, only following about 300. How is that participation?

What do you think of the article?

Today, @MiaChambers posted a link to twitter about ghost tweeting, asking for our thought on whether it was right or wrong. Most responders were quick to say that they thought ghost tweeting was wrong in all areas – but I disagree.

I believe that ghost tweeting for an individual would be wrong, but a ghost tweeter for a brand is completely acceptable (and is commonplace).

For example, if @scottmonty had a ghost tweeter and didn’t tell us, that would be misleading. However if @Ford hired their marketing company to manage twitter for them, that would be perfectly acceptable as we don’t expect it’s the ghost of Henry Ford behind that account.

What say you?

Tweetup Tomorrow!

Over the next 25 posts, ending on my birthday, I will be covering an incredibly creative moment or idea from a year of my life AND one creative moment in either the marketing, advertising, technology or media world.

Today, I gave my followers a chance to create their own two-word tuesday. Here are their two-word responses to the tweet “In two words – what are you feeling right now?”

chrispenner super hungery

HennArtOnline Fiery Passion!

TravelCostaMesa Too cold!

caflowergirls it’s raining!

PaulTTran Cock Tail?

tsc0809 slightly demented

parksdesign time delayed

AngryJulie Monster Energy

RicDizon Manage Priorities

OakleyOC Pleasantly surprised

GregoryPerez Distantly focused

HyattIrvine Cautiously Optimistic

Thanks to all my followers for chiming in today!

*And don’t forget to register for the Business Strategy Workshop!!*

It has been an absolutely insane day. Great in every way possible – lunch in Redondo Beach with Simon Salt and Tessa McNabb of IncSlinger, 2 new projects confirmed via email and plans coming together for my workshop in October – but no matter how good it was, there was definitely not enough time in it to get everything done. Twitter, this blog post and most of my phone calls and emails have been ignored until just this moment.

After finally finishing the design for a new site, I decided to take a brief brain break and get writing for my post today. I stopped by tweetdeck first to see if there were any important replies needed, and noticed a tweet from Ed Schipul (the brilliant owner of Schipul Web Marketing that I had the opportunity to meet last year) floating through my stream:

I paused. Re-read it, took a deep breath and couldn’t help but smile. While I know Ed meant it to be a frustrated, need-to-have-a-drink type tweet, I couldn’t help but smile.

Know why I was smiling?

Because no one has it easy, even awesome business owners like Ed, have rough days. But what separates him from the ‘average joe’ is the fact that tomorrow, he will keep going for that finish line. Even if again he doesn’t quite make it, he will keep going.

And that is why this tweet, from this person, makes me smile.

Last night, I attended the biggest tweetup I have been to, over 90 of the top tweeters in Orange County showed up to mix and mingle and finally put faces to the @twitternames. I got there around 6:45 and it was already packed. Hosted by the sisters, @RochelleVeturis, @ChelseaVeturis and @ReporterHaley, it was put together wonderfully. It was great to meet you three, and I was so excited to get to meet so many of the people I have been tweeting with. *Update: Rochelle put together a great video about the event (although I am a little annoyed that my interview got cut…should have been at the 56 second mark.*

@JoshuaStecker – You are way funnier in person sir, and I can’t wait to get coffee! And we are totally holding the Style Watch after party at your place!

@Mobomedia - Thanks for one of the best smiles when I finally got to meet you. I can’t wait to get to work together on Twestival!

@Bigheadedasian – I promise not to hold the cowboys thing against you, but only because of the warm welcome when you met me!

Both of the Portola Coffee ladies (@portolacoffee and @portolacoffeews) – I am looking forward to checking out the coffee and the delivery service! Sorry I didn’t wear the hat Asea!

@designdamage – I am glad that we finally figured out who each other were…without the glasses and with the hat would have been so much easier! Looking forward to discussing some projects soon

@PaulTTran – Great chatting with you. But as for the hubby joining social media? I doubt it very highly!

@KathyKlingaman – I promise to get you connected with more of us creative types on Twitter.

@OakleyOC – It took way too long for us to finally meet, so glad that we did!

@Peacekeeper357 – Good luck on the website! It was great to get to sit and chat about so much!

(If I forgot to mention you, I am sorry, it was such a crazy evening!)

It was also wonderful to see some of the people I have met before, and really get to catch upon what has been going on in their lives with more than 140!

@LorenNason, @MelAclaro, @AngryJulie, @JonLan (the OC Register also has a  great article about the event); So wonderful to see all of you. I am glad to hear that everything is doing well for your businesses!

Of course, with an event that big, I did miss out on meeting a lot of people too, so I am looking forward to the next one!

A big thank you to all the sponsors as well! I was so excited to get my invite to the Rack and Rave Party from Style Week OC, the free dippin’ dots coupon (although my diet didn’t like that one!), the bag of portola coffee (thanks to @portolacoffee and @portolacoffeews) a gift card to both Peppino’s and Boneheads and a cupcake from Meringue Bake Shop!

….and my extra special treat from the amazing guys at MoboMedia (@Bigheadedasian and @MoboMedia)? A fabulous Incipio case for my blackberry in 5 colors (the pink is on it now)!! You guys seriously rock. I can not wait for TwestivalOC this September, put on by the guys. It is a great combination of charity and networking. I will be raffling off one month worth of blog management services, so you’ll definitely want to be there! Follow them to keep up with all the details.

And I promise, regardless what the vote says, next time I will wear the hat!

In January, I talked about creating a social media strategy that works for me – how often I do certain things and the schedule I try to keep. It covered a lot of the details, but there were some gaps. I didn’t talk about all the sites that I used or what they meant for my strategy. So in May, I covered how I use social media successfully and filled in the blanks. But there are still blanks – not in the idea of my strategy but my execution.

In the May post, I explained that I use:

But today, I realize that what I said and what I do is actually very different.

Reality is, I struggle with social networks.

I do use twitter, facebook and linkedin fairly consistently. Twitter is easy to manage, tweetdeck is always in one the background , I can jump in for a bit, participate and jump out. Facebook is just so connected – there is so much to do and see and read, that I can get sucked in there pretty quick. LinkedIn is important, so I make sure to make time for it, the business atmosphere is something few sites have and I want to capitalize on it. I do tend to have days that I focus on them more, and some days that I forget they even exist. But I do try to stay on top of these 3.

For the last 3, I can’t remember the last time I checked them (stumbleupon, technorati and friendfeed). I think the biggest reason is the connection – I don’t feel as connected to people on those 3, so I don’t use them as much. Stumbleupon and Technorati are very individual – yes you can connect with people, but I use them more for finding interesting articles and blogs. Which I need to start doing again, since those are great for blog fodder when I am having a tough writing day. As for friendfeed, this one I am thinking about dropping. Not removing myself from, but giving myself permission not to use it as anything other than an aggregate for all my tweets and blog posts. I prefer twitter and feel like it is too much the same to do both (although, I would love to hear some arguments for friendfeed…got one?).

But, whether I use the network often or not, the main struggle with social media I have is the lack of completion. There is no final tweet, stumble, wall post or thought. They are continually growing, changing and adding content. While this isn’t a bad thing, I find it to be the most difficult part for me. I love the feeling of completing something. Typing the final word, coding the last line or adding the last color. I especially love the feeling of turning the finished product over to the client and hearing their reaction. Reveling in a job well done.

You can’t do that with social networks. Technically, you can be happy about a tweet that gets retweeted a ton, or a link that gets stumbled like crazy. But, someone else is always going to top it. Even “social celebs” get their content topped. There can always be another tweet added to your thoughts, and the river continues to flow. When it is your own project, that you give to a client, no one is competing to top it. If it is your best work, then you can feel accomplished. Not with social networks – you just participate, you don’t complete them.

Let’s talk…. What struggles do you face with social media?

Remember Rebus Puzzles from elementary school? They were a great way to get your brain going and your mind creative…and still are!

Below are 10 rebus puzzles.

Put your answers to all 10 in the comments. Everyone who gets all them right will be entered for a chance to win a free Twitter Background designed by me (or service credit with Wright Creativity of equal value)!

I will choose the winner on Thursday, July 30th at noon, so make sure to get your answers in before then.

Good Luck!