Entries Tagged 'Social Media' ↓

It’s less amazing if you know the effort behind it.  This picture started with a simple idea, me and the three penguins playing poker.

Seems simple enough right? It was until the idea of the big penguin showing Aces came to me. The trick then was how to stage it.

First thought on putting up the cards was a paper clip. Would you believe after 20 minutes of looking around the house, not one paper clip was handy. (Of course now I know where some are.) Sharon came to my rescue with a bobby pin.

Bobby pins are about the right size and do a fair job of holding things, sadly not much beyond the cards. Visions of attaching the five cards to the penguin’s hand were out.

Figure out what I should have thought of at first; photography is as much what I plan for you to see as what’s really there. Cards in the picture above appear to be in the penguin’s hand. Actually they are resting on the right foot.

The bobby pin holds the cards together, while the hand is gently attached to the leg by clothespin. Outside penguins I copped out on and just leaned the cards against them. It worked out well from the angle of the photo.

Things I consider missing:

• the kitty
• chips at each player
• the dealer’s deck

Photoshop was not used nor any other photo magic. All I did with this post capture was to crop it and auto-adjust in iPhoto.

How does this post tie into social networking? It was created with the intent of sharing on my social networks. This is not a ‘photo album’ picture. It’s not for immediate family and friends, not for coworkers, it’s for you, my readers, my followers, my connections.

Why? Because you deserve a bit of effort and a laugh. You’re worth the effort.

Recommendations? Comments? Creative suggestions? Feedback on social networking?

Give it up in the comments!

Find Todd Jordan.

Listen to the 2 minute audio above. It’s great advice.

Most folks joining Twitter or Facebook today, they’re advised to follow a bunch of folks. Likely these aren’t folks they are not only direct contacts with in the physical world, but not even a friend of a friend.

This sounds like fun until that newbie drowns in the messages, messages with no meaning. Sure, they might make one or two friends out of that mess, but likely they’ll initially just be frustrated.

In the end, the recommendation to follow a bunch of strangers is just bad advice. There’s no relationship building going on. It’s like trying to make instant bake success.

So what works? Organic one relationship at a time growth of contacts. Instead of focusing on stratospheric numbers, focus on one new contact at a time.

How to do this?  Best advice I’ve received is to watch who your friends engage with. Listen in on those conversations. See what those folks who do interact have to say and how they say it.  If you see something you enjoy, friend that person.

New contacts you add, be sure to let them know how you found them. Be sure to mention the shared connection, and considering adding a note about one of the new friends messages. It lets them know you’ve been listening.

In summary, build your network one valued connection at a time. Give them your best. Your network will grow fast enough.

Chris aka @RizzoTees on Twitter by Tojosan, on Flickr

Chris Reimer introduces us to his new blog, The Basement Entrepreneur, with this statement:

My name is Chris Reimer, and in a mad fit of personal branding hubris, I dubbed myself “The Basement Entrepreneur.”

So what is a basement entrepreneur? In Chris’ words:

• We’re the guys and gals starting Internet-based businesses in our basements.
• We saved and borrowed almost enough money to actually start the business of our dreams.
• We run our businesses off Macbook Pros in coffee shops. (or a PC if you’re a big baby about Apples.)
• As David Siteman Garland once told me, we “MacGyver” everything in our businesses just to get by.
• We “get” Social Media, and how it’s disrupting everything you think you knew about finding new customers and taking care of the ones you have.
• We band together to help each other, instead of building insular walls around our businesses.
• We work our f**king face off, as @garyvee would say, because we love what we do, not because someone tells us to.

Chris isn’t some guy you’ve read about in Millionaire or on the cover of Cigar Aficionado, there’s no GQ cover yet either. Chris is a real guy, a husband, father, working class guy and he works his tail off.

Rizzo Tees is a his personal business and has become synonymous with Chris himself. It’s a bit edgy and yet a hit with real people. I’ve purchased a few tees there already. Let me say he’s quick and friendly on customer service, getting the goods out, and engaging with those that show some interest.

Engagement. Big word but Chris isn’t that type of guy. He’s the type that swaps stories with you, asks about your kids, and buzzes your news out to the world. Along the way he might recruit you to model one of his tee designs.  Heck, he’s followed the Threadless model and begun outsourcing his new tee ideas to the world. A bold move for a small businesses man.

Social networking doesn’t scare Chris. He’s not afraid to make conversation on and off the net, attending and participating in social media and networking events around St. Louis. He’s a strong contributor to the St. Louis Social Media Club.  His take on things, coming not from a marketing and PR background, brings fresh insight to social networking and business.

I tip my hat to Chris aka RizzoTees. Bring it on bud!

Visit The Basement Entrepreneur today and see what an up and coming success looks like.

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Keith shares his perspective on focus in social networking and media.  Are you just spinning your wheels? Is your company?

If it looks like a party, it was.  Fun folks, great conversation and cold beer made this a wonderful Tweetup.  Jeffrey Strauss hosted this Twitter get together at the International Tap House in Chesterfield valley. It’s sort of the West County area of St. Louis Metro.

Yeah, that guy with the big grin is me. It was that much fun.

Jeffrey tossed the idea out just days before and it came to pass like clockwork. It was a good turn out with @VersaDave, @SandyShores, @MrShores, @StLConceirgeGuy, @SgtHotPants, @Rebecca_Rene, @donhead, @Nanna_J, and @Dizzy727.  Folks came ready to chat, kick back and share.

The great thing about this tweetup is that Jeffrey isn’t some ’social media expert’, in fact he’s more a Belgium beer expert; you should ask him. People still have the misguided idea that only the heavy hitters in social networking can put events together, or if not that, then a group has to sponsor. That’s rubbish.

There were get togethers long before there were formal groups or formal leaders. Leaders emerge because they do things like plan events. Anyone can step up and lead.

St. Louis has a burgeoning social networking and media scene. There are lots of great folks doing fun, interesting, and educational events. Big or small, well attended or barely noticed, they still count as events.

Tired of waiting for one of these events to come to your neighborhood? Your peeps aren’t attending those for some reason?

Plan your own. Today. Now.

You’ll be surprised that when you step out, people will come alongside.

(This post inspired by Jeff and those that came before.)

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SPACE Architectural Design Studio is bringing a whole new side to architecture.  An innovative website, a focus on people, and engaging the community. The last they are doing via Twitter and more.

The title, Watching Concrete, doesn’t do the video below justice.  SPACE has been sharing videos and photos of their works in progress, as well as doing interviews about their design philosophy and their people.  Please enjoy the video and then I encourage you to visit the SPACE site.

Courtesy of Vidly and SPACE.

Addicted to check your blog stats? I am. Stats on Wordpress don’t just tell you how many hits you’ve gotten but where they come from. Recently there have been some hits from a source I didn’t recognize, Outside.in.

Tracking back to the Outside.in site, it was plain that The Broad Brush blog was being aggregated there, along with others from St. Louis. Checking the FAQ revealed that bloggers opt in. I’d never opted in The Broad Brush blog.

The site did provide an easy to locate link for contacting them. I requested to have the blog removed. Outside.in representative, Esther, has already gotten back to me. Let’s see what she says.

Hi Todd,

We automatically scan RSS feeds of great local bloggers and show only the headline and first 200 words of the story – with the intent of driving traffic to the blogger. We’ve sent you 27
visits since the beginning of November from the Outside.in core site and our Neighborhood News page on STLToday:

http://www.stltoday.com/neighborhoodnews

We’re working on removing your feed from our system now, and once it’s removed, we and STLToday will no longer be sending you traffic. I’ll let you know when your stories and links are down.

If you change your mind and decide you’d like to continue receiving traffic from us and STLToday, please let me know.

All the best,
Esther

The tone, to me, is very off-putting. It sounds like they were doing the blog a favor by including it in the automatic aggregation. There is something more irksome to me though, the part about STLToday.

STLToday is the St. Louis Post Dispatch online version. In recent years the Post has tried several channels to aggregate St. Louis blogs into the STLToday site as content.  This is an effort to steal the search engine juice from the blog posts and avoid spending time and money creating content. Several St. Louis bloggers argued against this practice, including me. It seems they’ve found another way to do it.

Interestingly, Outside.in, makes no mention on their site about affiliation with STLToday.

Rant off for now. Cheers and heads up out there.

The White House The President is in Lorain County, OH today taling to foks about what the economy is like on the ground during these tough economic times. The video team sent us a first look clip of town hall tickets released — check it out.

The above was shared on Facebook. Beyond the fact that the last sentence makes little sense, what’s with the gross spelling errors, ‘taling’ and ‘foks’.

Picking on folks is fun, but the video they link to is worth the click through, First Look: Lorain County. President Obama came to Lorain County and the video shows the ticketing process and some of the people waiting to see him.

Follow the Whitehouse on Facebook.

Do you want to start a blog, but you’re not sure where to begin?

Do you have a blog, but you want to know how to take it to the next level?

If so, the New Blogger Boot Camp may be for you!

Presented by blogger, copywriter, and consultant Kristen King, the New Blogger Boot Camp 8-week webinar takes beginning bloggers through the process of creating a strong foundation for a strategic, sustainable blog.

From figuring out whether blogging is right for you and making technical decisions to planning your content and growing your readership, New Blogger Boot Camp is a high-energy, step-by-step guide to carving out your place online.

You can still get in at the beginning. Kristen is offering those that register now the previous lessons as well.

New Blogger Boot Camp gives you direct access to Kristen King on a weekly basis. This will give you a kick start with someone that’s already done it and wants to share.

Some of the upcoming topics:

• SEO
• Best Practices
• Monetization

A little bit about Kristen:

Kristen King, MPS, is a prolific blogger and social media user who’s been writing for the Web since the late 1990s. Her freelance writing blog, Inkthinker, was named one of the Top 10 Blogs for Writers in 2006, and she won several recognitions as a women’s health and women’s business blogger at global media network b5media from January 2007 through October 2008.

Disclosure: Kristen is part of my ongoing SOB team leading not only herself to success but the four other members of our group.

SuperPoke! Pets Haiti Support, originally uploaded by Tojosan.

Slide, the folks behind Superpoke! Pets, has rolled out some Haiti support items. Most are gold items requiring real dollars to end up purchasing. 100% of all Haiti item purchases will be donated to the American Red Cross relief efforts in Haiti.

From their site:

Hi everyone,

As we’re sure you all know by now, earlier this week the country of Haiti was devastated by a magnitude 7.0 earthquake. Our hearts go out to all those affected, and in the wake of this tragic event, Slide and its employees have started a donation pool to aid in the global Haiti relief efforts.

In addition to the contributions we are making, we want to invite the SPP Community to show your support. We just released Haiti-themed coin and gold items in the Pet Shop. 100% of the proceeds from the sale of the Gold items will be donated to the American Red Cross’ relief efforts in Haiti.

Donating to this cause is only part of what we can do here, though. We can show our support for the people of Haiti the SPP way by using these items to decorate your habitat and send a message of love and goodwill. Share your habitats in this thread, and let’s show how many of our hearts are with Haiti here in the SPP Community!

Thanks everyone. Let’s do our best to help the people of Haiti when they need it most.

-keane