Then this useful tool might just help sway your thoughts to what you should and shouldn’t be participating in.  I thought it very interesting to watch and it will probably open a few minds and eyes.

When hearing about Twitter, Facebook, and others do your eyes glaze over or do you get excited about the prospect of learning how to network more with others? Whatever way it is, you need to know about the Social Media Success Summit 2009.  Well known names are involved with this event and already over 500 people booked to attend!  In Chris G’s own words:

Win Tickets to Social Media Success Summit 2009!

All around the world people are very excited about Social Media Success Summit 2009 — the first major online event dedicated to helping you successfully market your business with sites like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. More than 500 people have already registered.

Now you have the exclusive chance to win two valuable seats to the event for no cost!

Why not click here to find out all about it?

I would love to attend this event and get to learn from the experts and apply even more to what I’m doing.  I think attending an event like this will probably short-cut the process of reading and reading and reading some more to keep up with what’s happening and in a relatively short space of time I will have learnt a great deal from those in the know.

By the way – if I win their contest I get two tickets for the summit.  If you’d like to join me with my ‘spare’ ticket then please leave a comment below saying why you should win with me.

All this social media stuff can certainly get you tied in a knot or going round and round in circles. Especially once you start adopting other methods for posting or linking various tools.

I had my blogfeeds set up to update at my Facebook profile regularly.

Then I joined Twitter and found I could use Twitterfeed to feed my Twitter account from my blogs.  So I linked those and then discovered Facebook had a Twitter application which I added.  Which is both good and bad.  My Facebook profile was now getting duplicates of my blog feeds – direct from the blogs and direct from Twitter.  So I disabled the blog feeds at Facebook as it only needs the information once.  But Twitter wasn’t updating my LinkedIn account so I needed to look at that.

Enter ping.fm – easy enough to set up but wouldn’t allow multiple custom URLs (my blogs) but that turned out to be a blessing in disguise.  Ping.fm will feed all these places but doesn’t pick up the feeds.  Which meant I had to physically enter posts at ping.fm and I didn’t want to have to log into yet another place – defeats the purpose if you’re spending all day just posting and nothing else.

So, what did I do to untangle this mess I’d gotten myself back into?

I revisited Twitterfeed and discovered it would feed ping.fm. I’d not noticed that before but perhaps that was because I wasn’t looking at the time – or perhaps it wasn’t available.  Whatever, it is now and I have noticed it. So, to me it made sense to set things up like this:

All blogfeeds > Twitterfeed which in turn fed Ping.fm.  That then fed Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin which kept my status updated at each place without duplicating information.  Mind you, I will keep revisiting and updating as there is always new tools being developed!

A recent conversation with a client set me thinking.  They wanted accounts set up at various social networking tools such as LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, etc and have everything automated (rss feed from blogs, automatic responses, etc) so that they could literally ‘set and forget’ the tools. This isn’t the first client who has requested this – I’ve had others ask for it too, thinking that engaging a Virtual Assistant to set things up for them and do occasional maintenance was all that is needed.  I don’t agree.

It made me realise that they didn’t understand the reason why these tools exist.  They’re not for automatic promotion of business services and products to generate quick sales, but rather to facilitate networking, relationship building and over time, may generate business. In fact I know they do because I’ve seen it happen for me and know others personally who have had that experience too.

In this day and age of instant gratification and quick responses, people tend to forget that some things need to have a seed planted, nurtured, watered and carefully grown over time.  And networking is one of those things, irrespective of what vehicle or tool is used. What do you think?

Seems a lot of new words being created these days, all thanks to Twitter.  If you still don’t know or understand what it is about, perhaps this Twittervideo will help explain about Twitterverse, or was that the Twittersphere?  All tongue in cheek of course!  Thanks to Alex who brought this to my attention. Enjoy!

There is so much information about Twitter out there these days and once you get into it, you’ll find that the number of followers will increase quite quickly (definitely daily) and that the more you are following, the more you’ll have to tweet about.  It’s definitely a great marketing tool. Just today someone who follows me responded to someone I don’t know who wanted to learn about the Virtual Assistant industry. They replied to the tweet and added my username @kathiemt which alerted me immediately to the conversation.

I contacted the other lady to find that she has a granddaughter looking to work from home before she has her baby and the VA industry would be perfect for her.

Now, if I wasn’t on Twitter and the first lady I mentioned wasn’t following me, then she wouldn’t have been able to refer someone else to my VA network.  Works really well and is just another example of a referral based network in action.

Now Twitter isn’t all about referrals but it is about building relationships and getting to know what others do. And it’s great for viral marketing.

I thought this article by Naomi Trower about Viral Marketing with Twitter a good one to share with you.

Regular readers will know I’ve been doing posts about various social networks. There’s a lot of good things about them but there are some things you need to be careful about too.

I was reading SpeakerNet News recently and saw a quote about the use of Facebook and Twitter and how you conduct yourself there. Now, may I say, that I think it is always important to conduct yourself professionally, or in the manner you would always want to be perceived.  No use in behaving one way in one place and different in another and not think anyone will notice.  They will.

Anyway, let me share with you what Rita Makana Risser has to say:

Peter Shankman reports on a speaker who twittered on his way to speak to FedEx in Memphis about how he would die if he had to live there. He showed up to a hostile audience! Be aware that what might seem cute or funny to your pals can be an insult to your audience or meeting planners. It might be a good idea to limit posts on politics to groups that share your political views. A political posting on Facebook by one of my friends for all her friends to see caused quite a bit of discussion ­ and not the good kind. Whether or not you want to use Facebook for business purposes, meeting planners and corporate types are looking at us wherever we show up, and making decisions based on what we post. You can have a business page on Facebook as well as a personal page, and that’s what I have done. Your personal page is for real friends and family; the business one is for everyone else.

I think what Rita says makes a lot of sense, don’t you?

Twitter, Facebook, behaviour, social networking

I’ve had a Twitter account for sometime now and it really took me sometime to understand what it is about.  But now I’m hooked!

I’ve signed up for some autoresponders on how to use Twitter and have been applying some of those things. In just 24 hours I’ve had an increase in 100 followers with several actually corresponding with me, which is great.  And I have a potential new project on the horizon simply from a chance (and flippant) comment to someone after they saw a tweet I’d made.  Amazing but that project has possibilities.

I also see our PM, Kevin Rudd, twittering about his activities and feel it’s great that he and his staff keep abreast of social networking tools to remain visible and up-to-date.

I’ve also learnt about Twitwall which allows you to add to your meagre bio at Twitter.  And it is free and connects to your existing Twitter account so picks up on your chosen background.

I see a lot of Virtual Assistants on there and many I know are finding new clients as a result. Just goest o show you can’t dismiss a new tool or fad too quickly on the web – people keep finding new things they can create to add to an idea and build new businesses just from that alone!

Have you begun twittering yet?

twitter, twitwall, tweet

A month ago I was thinking social networking is going crazy.  What do you think?

At that time I had received a number of invitations to attend new networks that have been established.  I must be on everyone’s invitation list – it’s getting out of hand!  And perhaps it is.

However, just recently I relented and decided to join a couple more networks, actually about 3 or was it 4?  Ning.com really seems to have lent itself nicely to brand new networks on an almost daily basis and it’s so easy to set up and use.  And you can create your own templates or use one of theirs.  Many applications to add or build onto the network makes it easy for those who just don’t have an IT person in the background to install and set up software for them.

So I’ve joined 3 author’s networks (as learning from my peers is a great way to improve myself as an author as well as promote my books) and another business group called Sta.rtUp.biz.  Over 20,000 members at that one and if you consider joining, be prepared to be bombarded with lots of comments on your page within a short time of joining – they encourage people to welcome all the newbies.  To me it amounts to spam but you can delete the comments on your own page and leave what you want there.  And there are some excellent forums there for people in all types of businesses.  I’ve already made some worthwhile connections and only been a member a very short time.  And somehow I’ve gained a lot of points although I haven’t yet fully worked out what they’re for. Some kind of ranking system for active networkers I think.

Anyway, if you check the menu to the right you’ll see a list of my social network pages under the “Connect With Me” blogroll category.  Feel free to pop in and pay a visit if you desire!

social networks, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Ning, Authors, Christian women, business groups

My Virtual Assistant forum was having a discussion about the benefits of using Facebook for networking.  Some were of the opinion it was just for family and friends and couldn’t see the benefit and others were using it for business or both family & friends and business.  I joined in the conversation as I recently found it very useful for a family matter and don’t know what I would have done had I not had Facebook to assist in this matter.  This is what I posted and I’d love to hear how Facebook may have assisted you in a time of need.

I didn’t want to bother with it earlier this year as I thought it was just a young person’s networking tool and many still see it that way.  However, when the Pastor (in his 50s) at my church started encouraging members of the congregation to join and connect with him I did so out of curiosity.  I began connecting with others in our church and developing friendships because I could see their daily comments on what was happening in their lives and could join in the commenting.  And I’ve been able to have direct contact with my Pastor rather than going through his secretary which means I can have personal email discussions with him via Facebook.

I connected with my daughters and although at first I was concerned they might think I was ‘spying’ on them, I’m so glad I did.  One of them was Miriam, our beloved daughter who recently passed away. If I had not been connected to her in Facebook I would have had no idea how to contact her friends to tell them of her death or her funeral.  She never kept an address list – Facebook was it. It gave me an opportunity to let them know daily what was happening by posting messages on her wall and it made my husband and I aware of friends we didn’t know she had. Some were overseas and only found out about what happened because of their Facebook connection with Miriam.  I will not underestimate the value of a tool like this any more.

I am more connected with other family members of mine and Graham’s – our brother-in-law, nephews and cousins in other states.  And some friends I’d lost track of I’m now reconnected with. It is a very powerful friends tool and I don’t use for acquaintances at all – but close family and friends.

So, just on a personal level Facebook has had an effect on my family in a very important way and now I’m exploring it for business I’m also finding that it’s been useful for connecting with others and staying in touch with what they’re up to.  What about you?  Has Facebook helped you?