Saturday, November 28, 2009

Analyze your Flock for Targeted Tweeting

I've been using Twitter now for the better part of a year but I'll be honest: I have little idea of how successfully I'm using it. By one measure--number of followers--I'm doing pretty well. I have close to 300 followers now. Yet I'm bothered by a simple fact. Many of my peers in the writing community of thousands of followers. What to do?

This has to be a common question for Twitterers. You send your tweets out there (experts suggest you tweet 4 to 20 times a day) but do they really hit the mark? Are your followers glad they're walking in your digital wake?

Aside from noting the sheer number of followers you're amassing, you can also track how often your messages are re-tweeted by others. Obviously, if others are resending your tweets then they've found your messages valuable. Great! (These retweets, are called "mentions" and are easy to track with a free tool called TweetDeck.)

Now, proceeding from there, what can you do to build your base and keep your followers fed?

Try TwitterSheep (and, in case you're wondering it does feel strange to type such words). With TwitterSheep you can get a quick visual fix on your followers' interests. Just enter your Twitter username in the box to view a tag cloud built from the bios of your followers.

When I did that I found out something surprising that I can use to tailor my tweets in the future. As an author of many books about e-commerce I assumed most of my followers were looking for tweets about eBay, Amazon, monetizing web sites, and so on. Not so much. eBay was there in the cloud all right, but so small had it been a non virtual cloud it would have created merely a puddle. A downpour, however, would have resulted from tweets about social media marketing and related topics.

So much for tweeting about eBay.

I'll use this information when I choose my topics for my future tweets. Most of the time, that is. I still like eBay.

Thursday, November 5, 2009

Jobhunters: Quick and Easy Social Media Tips!

* Twitter seems silly at first but you get better at it as you use it as a business tool.

* LinkedIn means you have your suit on. Act the part. But smile once in a while too.

* Facebook is a great research source for you, but for your friends and others also. So for biz purposes (like job hunting) create a business page and make sure there's nothing there you wouldn't want your next boss to see. And keep all politics and anything at all controversial out of it.

* MySpace is sorting things out now so there are better places to spend your time. (Time: that thing you used to have more of.)

* When it comes to searching for a job, be open to anything. Even paper classifieds may work for you. As they (Larry and Woody) say, "Whatever Works."

Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Can You Find Your Next Job on Facebook?

Can Facebook help you land a Job? Can ice cream make you skinny? Could things really work out that way?

Well Ask Annie from Fortune Magazine recently gave some answers to that question. We’re happy she found our book How to Get a Job on LinkedIn and Other Social Networks such a key source of information!

The article also discusses whether Twitter can help you find work. Par for the course, links to the article were all over Twitter. Thanks for all those tweets and re-tweets. It’s an amazing phenomenon.

For more, here’s the link to the Fortune article: Can You Find a Job on Facebook?

Best,

Deb and Brad

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Quick and Easy Tips for Online Book Promotion

A new author recently asked me for some tips on promoting books online, and since I've coauthored books about YouTube (How to Make Money with YouTube) and LinkedIn (How to Get a Job on LinkedIn and Other Social Networks) I had some ideas to share.

But first...There's no sure-fire way to guarantee sales through online promotion. Internet marketing, however, helps a good book get noticed, reviewed, and bought.

Here are some strategies:

--Write articles for online publications such as American Chronicle. Article marketing works...these articles really get read and each one can include your bio.

--Encourage people who like your book to write reviews on Amazon and B+N.com, but don't "push."

--Create an Author's blog on Amazon.

--Tweet about the subject of your book, but don't be overly promotional and be sure you are giving your followers something of value for their time.

--Create a blog, tweet about new entries. Umm, that's what I'm about to do.

--Use your LinkedIn profile to promote your book and yourself as an author, but again don't let it read like a pure commercial.

Other strategies include creating a YouTube video. See the above referenced book. :)

For more strategies, try following other authors on Twitter who are social marketing gurus. You'll need to use tools that let you search Twitter to find such authors. Try Twellow.

Good luck!

Tuesday, September 22, 2009

5 Ways to Jump-Start that Job Search!



Need some fresh ideas to re-ignite a stalled job search? Here are a few that will help.

1) Get in touch with coworkers with whom you worked well in the past, and who respect your work. Perhaps they know of an opening at the company they're working at now, or have heard of openings somewhere else. Don’t call and ask outright for work. That can make people uncomfortable. Just reconnect and update them with your status in an upbeat way. It's also better to start with people you know than to cold call or otherwise approach “strangers.”

2) Don't discount any source of jobs. Lots of people focus on the Internet these days and let it go at that. Sure there are many great resources there, such as SimplyHired http://www.simplyhired.com/, one of our favorite site, which lets you search thousands of different job sites all at once. But lots of other people are using those sources too. Also try to pinpoint sites that are geared to your specific profession (for example, Mediabistro (http://www.mediabistro.com/) has lots of jobs for writers and editors that you won't find elsewhere. Surely your profession has its Mediabistro equivalents.

3) By all means get on and use LinkedIn (http://www.linkedin.com/). We can't write an article about job hunting without including perhaps the best tool for job hunters to come along since the computer itself. Register, create a complete and compelling profile, start answering others’ questions, and become a regular presence on the site. It keeps your name in front of the people who can help you. In the case of LinkedIn, that’s 48 million of the most-connected professionals you will find on the Internet.

4) Get out of the office. There's so much you can do from home these days that some job hunters rarely leave. That's a mistake for your task at hand, but also your mental and physical well being. Push yourself away from your desk and take some "field trips." Check out local book stores, for example, and see what the latest job-hunting books have to offer. Just grab a bunch, pull up a chair and start taking some notes. How to Find a Job on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, and Other Social Networks is one book you may find useful.

5) Take some time to review your past accomplishments. It's disheartening to look for work when it sometimes seems that seems everyone else has a job, so you need to keep that self esteem high. Won awards in the past? Have you amassed letters of recommendations? Review these things them for an ego boost.

I know job-hunting is hard, and certainly there will be days when you feel discouraged. But take heart…there’s blue sky ahead. I once read that a job hunt results in a long series of NOs followed by a YES. You need to get those NOs before you can get that one blessed YES. So keep at it in ways that work for you.

Friday, July 10, 2009

About Archie


Archie the little dog was only in my life about 10 days, and we didn't even take a picture of him, so this is just a generic picture from the web. We think he was a West Highland Terrier. He weighed about 20 pounds and stood 10 inches from the floor to his shoulder.

Archie was a "shelter dog," who the Animal Control people found. We adopted him from the Shelter in Waynesboro, PA.

On the way home we almost named Archie U-turn, because we thought we might need to take him right back. He snarled at our son Ethan for no very good reason.

Over the time we had him we found Archie could snap and snarl for all kinds of reasons. But most of the time he was fun and happy and full of personality. So we excused the snarling and stuff until we couldn't any more.

That's the sad news.

The happy thing about Archie is that he taught me many things.

  • To be more patient
  • To better control angry feelings
  • To focus more outside of myself
  • To see the peace that can come with just taking a walk
  • To make a heart-wrenching decision because it's the best thing you could do for your new friend.

You taught me those things Archie, and I hope you enjoyed your life while we lived together.

Monday, April 27, 2009

Preparing for a Pandemic

(Thanks to the volunteer disaster coordinator of Frederick County, Maryland for this information)

You can prepare for an influenza pandemic now. You should know both the magnitude of what can happen during a pandemic outbreak and what actions you can take to help lessen the impact of an influenza pandemic on you and your family. This checklist will help you gather the information and resources you may need in case of a flu pandemic.

1. To plan for a pandemic:

* Store a two week supply of water and food. During a pandemic, if you cannot get to a store, or if stores are out of supplies, it will be important for you to have extra supplies on hand. This can be useful in other types of emergencies, such as power outages and disasters.

* Periodically check your regular prescription drugs to ensure a continuous supply in your home.

* Have any nonprescription drugs and other health supplies on hand, including pain relievers, stomach remedies, cough and cold medicines, fluids with electrolytes, and vitamins.

* Talk with family members and loved ones about how they would be cared for if they got sick, or what will be needed to care for them in your home.

* Volunteer with local groups to prepare and assist with emergency response.

* Get involved in your community as it works to prepare for an influenza pandemic.

2. To limit the spread of germs and prevent infection:

* Teach your children to wash hands frequently with soap and water, and model the correct behavior.

* Teach your children to cover coughs and sneezes with tissues, and be sure to model that behavior.

* Teach your children to stay away from others as much as possible if they are sick. Stay home from work and school if sick.

3. Items to have on hand for an extended stay at home:


* Ready-to-eat canned meats, fish, fruits, vegetables, beans, and soups

* Prescribed medical supplies such as glucose and blood-pressure monitoring equipment
* Protein or fruit bars

* Soap and water, or alcohol-based (60-95%) hand wash
* Dry cereal or granola

* Medicines for fever, such as acetaminophen or ibuprofen
* Peanut butter or nuts

* Thermometer
* Dried fruit

* Anti-diarrheal medication
* Crackers

* Vitamins
* Canned juices

* Fluids with electrolytes
* Bottled water

* Cleansing agent/soap
* Canned or jarred baby food and formula

* Flashlight
* Pet food

* Batteries
* Other non-perishable items

* Portable radio

* Manual can opener

* Garbage bags

* Tissues, toilet paper, disposable diapers

Friday, March 27, 2009

The 10 Best Jobs to Get through Social Networking Sites

We think you can get just about any kind of contract work or new job with the help of one or more social networking sites. Now you wouldn’t necessarily turn to MySpace to get your next job as an actuary. Then again, LinkedIn may not be as helpful to you if you were a musician looking for new gigs. But by using a combination of these sites we’re convinced you can land that next job faster. If that job happens to be one of the following, your task is even simpler. We present these in no particular order.

1) Public Relations Manager. Whatever you want to call it: Communications Manager, or PR Director, as a professional communicator you should really be able to make your online profile sing. Just about any company has someone in a PR role and may be looking for someone just like you. Even if a company isn’t currently in the market for someone with your skills, you can keep your name in front of the right people by careful and frequent networking through the sites we discuss in this book.

2) Social Media Strategist. Of course you can demonstrate how well you know this new field by skillfully using the tools that comprise it. Executives are just starting to realize how essential it is they have someone on board who can use sites like Twitter to provide customer service, seed the market with news about their companies, dispel rumors, and much more.

3) Musician. MySpace alone justifies including musicians in this list. Thankfully, for this group MySpace came along when it did. CD sales were steadily dropping, making life as a musician more challenging than ever. Thanks to MySpace, musicians (especially smaller independent artists), can find new work and contacts, and promote themselves in ways they never could have even imagined before.

4) Blogger. Everyone’s attention span is shrinking to that of a fly’s, and sites like Twitter don’t help. But we make time to read the words of someone who can help us do our jobs better, or maybe just better understand the world we inhabit. Whether your goal is to be an independent blogger, or blog for a website or corporation, social networking sites can help you promote your work to millions of people.

5) Copywriter. With so many sites offering you the chance to let everyone know your current status, or to microblog about what’s got your gears going, writers of all types have powerful new showcases for their talents. Copywriters are just one type, but a good example.

6) Consultant/ Freelancer. If you’re in business for yourself you should be spending a good part of each workday marketing yourself and your skills. An excellent way to do this is through LinkedIn’s Answers section, where you can demonstrate your expertise in a worldwide forum, and unobtrusively include your background information just in case you’ve inspired someone to hire you.

7) Information Technology worker. Many programmers, software engineers and their managers use social networking sites; they’ve always been early adopters of new forms of electronic communications. These sites should be one of the first places you turn when you’re looking for that next IT job, as if we had to tell you.

8) Comedian. We’re going to thank MySpace again, this time on behalf of comedians for making it easier for them to promote themselves and get new gigs. And we’re not kidding around, either.


9) Web Designer. Businesses of all sizes need web designers to help them get their sites up and running, and then webmasters to keep them going. You can demonstrate your skills in this area in many ways, using social networking sites. These include the design of your MySpace or Facebook page, the portfolio you include as part of your LinkedIn profile, or the questions you answer on those ubiquitous discussion boards.

10) Marketing manager. Prove that you can sell yourself and you may have an easier time convincing someone you can move products for them as well. Social networking sites make it much easier for you to sell yourself to a worldwide audience through your words and accomplishments, and reach people who would care.

Copyright 2009, McGraw-Hill, from the forthcoming book How to Find a Job with LinkedIn and Other Social Networks