I am still observing Twitter from the outside; too timid to take any big steps.  Although, considering where I started from, I should join the Olympics for long jump.  Hello, I put up a profile picture! Or, as I have been told, an avatar.  It took me a year to do that on Facebook.  And I love Facebook.

I must admit I had a strong aversion to Twitter from the moment I heard of it.  To me it meant entering a barn yard of nonstop ‘quacks,’ ‘moos,’ ‘baas,’ ‘oinks,’ and what not.  Being an avid fan of Facebook, I often felt like redirecting friends with too many status updates for me to handle, to Twitter.  It did not occur to me that it would be a silent barnyard, considering you know how to use it.

Well, I am not being completely honest.  The real truth is that I am the queen of procrastination, and I honestly feared that I would get sucked into the stream of useless chatter, even contribute to it.  Kind of like the way I lose my husband to the endless pit of information floating deeply in the web. Just imagine how dysfunctional we would be if I was not there to pull him out, occasionally?

Well, I decided it was time to put my pride aside, and submit.  There have been some pleasant surprises, and I have even learned how to ignore some of the buzz on the ‘sidewalk.’  The advantage I noticed was that Twitter enables you to easily build the network that works for you.  It really is a phenomenal marketing tool, and there are many ways Twitter can benefit your business.

I’m finding it fun to explore and figure out the world of Twitter.  I did, however, feel quiet foolish when I initially responded to those automated messages.

I cannot help but wonder what twitter would be like if it limited your amount of tweets per day.  I tend to ignore people who talk too much.  It especially bothers me when people waste words.  Thankfully, there is a 140 character limit.  I guess it wouldn’t work otherwise.  How would you improve Twitter?

(Image Credit)

National Grandparent’s Day (September 13th) is one of the most overlooked and neglected days of the year. While I’m sure more people recognize the day much more than other “national days of celebration” like for instance, Flag Day or Secretary Appreciation Day (no, I’m not making this up,) National Grandparent’s Day is one of those days that a great deal of people do not even know exists in the first place. Because of this, Grandparents.com and MomSelect have teamed up to kick off a celebration for Grandparent’s Day by holding a Twitter party.

I have a unique respect for grandparents and more specifically, my grandmother, whom I have to thank for my deep understanding and passion for Democratic politics and the women’s liberation movement. I credit my grandmother solely for giving me the Lincoln Logs to build onto my own modern-day feminist activism. I come from a so-called “unconventional family,” being raised by my father, grandmother and aunt. My grandmother and aunt have always been and still remain to be the mother figures in my life, giving me that unique and unwavering respect for all that grandparents around the country do for both their children and for their grandchildren. Because of my “unconventional family,” I am thrilled that Grandparents.com and MomSelect have teamed up to dig National Grandparent’s Day out of the overlooked national days of celebration closet.

The Grandparent’s Day Twitter party will take place Thursday, September 10th from 8-9PM EST. The conversation will consist of swapping stories, sharing ideas and giving away great prizes that would make terrific Grandparent’s Day gifts. You can find the discussion on Twitter by searching for hashtag #grandparents. If you are planning on joining the Grandparent’s Day Twitter party, RSVP here. Your registration will count as an additional entry to win a $25 e-gift card from Target.com. Additional giveaways will be held throughout the evening, including 2 $25 gift cards to 1-800-Flowers and 2 gift cards to Snapfish. For updates as well as prize information, make sure you are following @ResourcefulMom on Twitter.

For even more chances to win great prizes, if you tweet the details of the Grandparent’s Day Twitter Party (including hashtag, date and time) between 8AM and 8PM on Thursday, you will eligible for a separate drawing for another $25 e-gift card from Target.com.

It can be pretty difficult to break into the Twitter world and become the power networker that you dream of being; especially if you have no idea how to go about finding the people who would be interested in getting to know more about you, your business, and your brand. Megan Calhoun saw the potential of Twitter early and has succeeded in building a network of almost 18,000 incredibly smart and interesting women with Twitter Moms, the influential moms network.

Twitter Moms is a genuinely accepting and supportive community for virtually any woman with a Twitter account who wants to reach out to, connect with, and share information about pretty much anything you’re interested in with other women. With 345 different groups (and counting!) there is something for everyone; from conversing about how to stretch your dollar as far as it will go, how to increase your blog traffic, being a work at home mom, and there’s even a Twitter Moms book club. But while you could very well find more than a handful of other fun groups that make it a lot easier to connect, communicate, and network with other women bloggers (I should know, I’m part of more than a handful of others, including Twitter Moms,) what sets Twitter Moms apart from the others is their unique sense of camaraderie. While genuine friendships evolve from all forms of social media and internet communication, Twitter Moms takes it to a new level by hosting monthly get-togethers the only way it would be acceptable to with a name like Twitter Moms—right through Twitter.

On the last Friday of every month from 5pm to 7pm PST Twitter Moms hosts the Twitter Moms Wine Tasting Twitter Party. I participated in the Wine Tasting Twitter Party last month and I can attest that it is definitely a great time. Each month there is a wine that the community discusses or you can talk about what you’re drinking if you’re not tasting the wine the group has decided on; last month there were wine drinkers, cocktail drinkers, and tea and coffee drinkers. The point of the monthly party is not to get drunk in front of your computer and be in bed by 7pm, although that certainly is a possibility. Overall, the monthly Twitter party is just to sit back, relax, and have fun while talking to a group of amazing women and we’re not just talking wine; the conversations that take place during the Twitter Moms Wine Tasting Twitter Party are varied but always interesting and you always end up making some new and fantastic contacts.

This month’s Twitter Moms Wine Tasting Twitter Party will be tomorrow, July 31st from 5pm-7pm PST and participating in the party is super easy!

To view the discussion just search for #tmwc on Twitter or click here to go to the discussion automatically. To make comments and/or reply just include the Twitter hashtag #tmwc so your comment can be seen by the entire party!

Don’t forget to pick up a bottle of wine and join in on the fun at the Twitter Moms Wine Tasting Twitter Party!

Regardless of what city you live in or what types of clothes you wear, chances are that if you are a woman who has ever walked down the street for any reason, you have been the recipient of catcalls. Catcalling is a form of street harassment; it includes being the target of leering, whistles, honks, sexually charged comments, and vulgar gestures.

Every person has the right to walk down a street without having to be whistled at, leered at, honked at, or have unnecessary comments made in bad taste directed at them, so the next time you’re harassed tweet it to @catcalled, a “moderately attractive young lady just tryin to walk around without getting hassled.”

I love the idea of tweeting catcalls that are directed towards you or that you hear on the street directed towards other people. Oftentimes your tweet will get retweeted and it will continue to show others who pay attention just how often and just how consistent catcalling is, regardless of where a woman is located or what she is wearing.

Unfortunately, many people do not take street harassment as seriously as they should. When a woman comes forth with information about being bothered by street harassers and being catcalled, women are often told to get over it; that it wasn’t that bad or to stop complaining because at least she didn’t get hurt, and looking at the silver lining, at least someone thought she was so attractive that they just had to say something about it. The pervasiveness and complete terror that comes with this problem is often completely ignored; that is, unless you’ve been walking home from work one night and just about jumped three feet in the air and swore your heart exploded right out of your chest because a car drove by and honked at you and then went speeding down the road; or instead of speeding down the road, the people in that car rolled their windows down and while driving slowly alongside of you, yelled obscenities and hurled sexually charged comments at you.

Hopefully, as more and more people start taking street harassment more seriously, it will not be something that women must merely tolerate or be told to get used to.

Every few days (or more, admittedly) I log into my Twitter account to check out who is new on my list of followers and who are worth following back. I have been getting about 5 to 8 new followers a day, yet maybe 1 or 2 of those followers I will actually deem worthy of following back. Why? Well I personally have a very small list of criteria:

• They must have an avatar.
• They must have their bio filled out.
• They must be involved in actual conversations.

These needs must be met for one reason: validity. It does not matter to me why you have your Twitter account, or any social media account. You could be using it to connect with friends you already know, you could be using it to connect with me personally because you like my blog, you could be using it to promote your own blog, business, or even your MLM business. I will follow you back and connect with you through social media if you bring something to the table; if there’s some meat to you.

When I go through my list of new followers, I have noticed that quite a lot of them are just meaningless spam. Those are not accounted for throughout the rest of this article because this isn’t about Twitter spam; this is about people and businesses using social media without fully understanding how to use it; they are merely seeing the benefits that others, who know what they’re doing when they use it, have achieved and fully believe that social media is something that they can hop right into and see results immediately with.

While social media presents itself as an easy way to make business contacts and while that could be the only reason why you ever signed up for a Twitter or Facebook account; you should invest more than just what you’re trying to advertise in your social media account.

I cannot tell you how many people I check out on Twitter who only Tweet when they have written a new blog post. Their entire list of Tweets are made up of absolutely nothing but the name of their new blog post and a link. Additionally, these same people are following over 3,000 people, yet wonder why they only have about 100 followers.

You need to bring something more to the table other than your blog. As I have pointed out in a past post, social media is your space to share yourself with other people and those other people just may like what you bring to their social media encounters, and that is when the social media magic happens. That is when you begin making real connections with other people who could potentially skyrocket your blog or your business.

My partner just recently created his own Twitter account. He is a professional musician, guitar teacher, and author of various technical guitar and songwriting eBooks. I have been telling him for quite some time about the benefits of social media, but because he did not understand the huge amount of impact that it could have, if done well, he just let me keep telling him how he should get involved in social media without actually doing it. Then one night something clicked for him and he decided to sign up for Twitter. Within a few hours of having his account, he told me that social media did not work and that he got nothing out of it and for that reason, it was not worth pursuing.

This is yet another classic example of someone who has seen the benefits of social media work for some people and then automatically assume that it would work—and work immediately—for them; because come on, how can you go wrong with 140 characters in the first place, right? Without understanding how social media as a whole works and how to work it to your advantage, it doesn’t matter how long you have your Twitter account, the only people who will be keeping track of your updates are your close friends and family, assuming your family is tech-savvy.

The big secret to social media is communication. You follow people whom you think are interesting and who you could see yourself wanting to get to know and who you honestly think would benefit from your fountain of knowledge. The people that you follow ultimately do the same thing and the cycle continues. That, in a nutshell, is the wonderful world of social media. We all have something to learn from each other and once we stop our ‘promote, promote, promote’ mentality, the sooner we actually start connecting with other people who just may happen to turn into beneficial and irreplaceable business contacts and connections.

It is a well-known and much lamented fact that twitter attracts spammers.

When I first joined twitter, it felt like a small town. Perhaps everyone didn’t know everyone else, but at most people were one or two degrees removed.

As long as someone didn’t come in and try to add the whole community at once, people were patient with newcomers. And even most of the better known twitter users would respond back if you asked a question.

Utopias never seem to last long though, and unfortunately spammers soon discovered twitter.

The first spammers were easy to spot, they’d be following thousands of people with only a few hundred follow backs (usually from people who used auto-follow software).

After a while, spammers learned other tricks, including following a rush of people and then unfollowing any who didn’t follow back, then repeating the whole process. This built their stats up to a respectable level fairly quickly, so they could start drawing followers on their own.

Another trick that was sometimes used was to follow a large number of people, then unfollow all of them, then repeat. This tactic has been seen more and more, especially since Twitter set limits of following 1000 people a day and up to 2000 people to start, increasing to 10% of the number of people who are following you once you’re over 2000.

Because of the rush of spammers, I’ve complained before that it seems like maybe 1 out of every 10 new followers is actually a real person. I’d even considered going private if something wasn’t done soon.

Finally, someone did something about it.

Yesterday, two things happened to help free me from twitter spam. I received my invite to use Topify (Yay!) and I saw Todd Jordan (@tojosan on Twitter) discussing TwitChuck.

First, let me say that it is worth however long you have to wait to get an invite to Topify. And yes, there likely will be a wait (it’s that good!), but sign up anyway.

Once you get the invite, Topify will ask for your e-mail and make sure it’s you, then give you a new e-mail via Topify to enter on your Twitter account.

Because a picture often truly is worth a thousand words, I’m going to show (instead of tell) you what happens when you add Topify to Twitter.

The usual Twitter notification message. Doesn’t really tell you much, does it.

Topify’s notification message. Note the e-mail header that gives stats without having to open the e-mail, and the last updates so you don’t need to visit their page.

What to do while you wait for your Topify invite

Wouldn’t it be nice if you could send out a mass message to spammers telling them to wait a couple weeks until you get your invite before following. Second best, of course, would be an easy way to check to see if someone is a spammer.

That’s where TwitChuck comes in.

Simply fill in the name of the person you’re wondering about, and TwitChuck goes through a surprisingly detailed list to arrive at their spam grade.

Odds are twitter will never lose all the spammers, but it’s nice no longer feeling like if I don’t check into every follow notification, there’s a chance that I’m throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

Once upon a time, twitter had no @s.

If you wanted someone in particular to see your tweet, you used their name and hoped they’d catch it.

Then people started using @ in front of the name so others would know who the tweet was directed to.

Twitter saw it, and thought it was good.

Then Twitter decided to multiply the goodness and allow @ to link to a tweeter’s page and added a link for people to see their own @s if they wanted to check.

And it was still good.

Then Twitter decided to allow people a choice of whether they wanted to see others @s or not. And some chose to see and comment on others @s and others preferred that @s stayed covered.

And still, all was good.

But then twitter decided to take away all choice. And allowed no one to see @s that didn’t involve them.

And it was NOT good. And lots of people complained and wanted to show their @s.

So twitter backed down, but only part way. And they allowed people to show their @s only if the other person already knew both the @ser and the @see.

And this is where it gets serious.

Because before twitter covered their @s, when someone I respected carried on a public conversation with someone I didn’t know, I’d get a good idea of what the new person was like, and could follow them if I wanted.

Not only that, if it was a conversation that I had additional information about, I could join in and share what I knew.

The majority of my first twitter friends were made this way, by enjoying conversations and wanting to get to know someone better; people like Susan Reynolds, Connie Reece, BarbaraKB, Dr Mani, jjprojects, Tindle, and the list could go on and on.

In fact, I’d bet that many of us made new friends that way.

Since twitter took away the option of seeing others’ @s, I’ve noticed a dramatic change in my following.

Before the change, out of 10 new followers, at least 3 or 4 would be real people and not spammers or bots. After it, I’m lucky if 1 out of 10 new adds is a real person unless I’ve participated in a #chat recently.

Coincidence? Possibly, after all twitter has gone big time lately.

But still, I think it’s at least partly a matter of @s covering.

As a stay-at-home Mom (SAHM) who homeschools and does social media consulting as well, one thing I’ve discovered is that online social media is only part of the story.

The rest is meeting people in real life.

There’s something about matching a name to the actual person, shaking a hand, or giving a hug to a friend you’ve never met before that makes relationships Velveteen Rabbit real.

Which is why I was so disappointed over the past year as social media conferences came and went and I couldn’t get to any of them.

It’s also why I was so excited when Patrick Muldoon (d00n on Twitter) sent a plurk telling me about Social Media Breakfast – Tech Valley.

At last, here was a meeting I could actually get to without needing my husband to take several days off work to watch our boys.

If you’ve never heard of Social Media Breakfast, don’t feel bad. I hadn’t either until I received doon’s Plurk. Here’s what I discovered about them:

The Social Media Breakfast was founded by Bryan Person in August 2007 as an event where social media experts and newbies alike come together to eat, meet, share, and learn.

Oh boy, I thought, this is right up my alley!

So, this Friday, with a mix of excitement and trepidation I kissed my boys, grabbed my backpack with my Mother’s Day laptop in it, and headed to breakfast.

First impression: It’s feels a little disconcerting walking up to someone and saying “Hi, I’m Te-ge…uhh, Teeg” and having them respond, “I know, I recognized you from your avatar.” That’s what happened when I met doon.

After getting a name tag and wandering around a few minutes peering at others’ tags and introducing myself, it was time to find a seat and listen to the discussion. A pleasant surprise was finding a mug from CAbunga waiting. Yay swag!

First Amy Mengel of Mengel Musings introduced the three speakers, Rhea Drysdale of Outspoken Media, Mike Germano of Carrot Creative, and Stuart Foster of TheLostJacket.com, and then each one talked a bit more about their background:

In 2004, Rhea discovered that her new job had really wanted an SEO, but didn’t know how to advertise for one. Talk about on the job training.

Mike Germano and a friend created a social site for Dave Matthews band when he was in college. Eventually, he received a call from the band complimenting him on the site and asking if he could help with theirs. Now Mike works with companies such as MLB.com, The Onion, MTV, and Oscar Meyer.

Stuart Foster writes a blog focused on social media, public relations, marketing, and brand management.

I ended up sitting beside Chris Wessell (albanymba) and Meghan Butler (MeghanButler) who kept making me laugh during the discussion. I managed to return the favor since I was checking Twitter as well as TweetChat and saw this come across my stream (I just had to share it ):

A few quick thoughts from the discussion:

Mike commented that social media is one of the only areas where the grownups listen to the younger people. This bothered me, because I think it’s just touching the surface. I know way too many social media experts who aren’t college age or even just out of college. Instead, I think social media is one of the few fields where experts in other areas will listen to anyone who seems to know what they’re talking about (and unfortunately, will sometimes listen to the wrong person).

Rhea mentioned that you need to be on every social network, protecting your name and your brand. I’ve read way too many stories of people who were moderately well known and waited to claim their name on a major social network, then discovered to their horror that someone else had taken the name and was posting things they’d never want anyone to even think came from them.

By the way, this is one reason Facebook’s name goldrush bothered me.  What if you’ve worked hard to create a brand, only to discover that your brand had already been claimed by someone else, with few recourses to get it back?

A question asked, I think, by Mike, “If you had to choose between Facebook and Twitter, which one would you choose?” I think it would depend on whether I was choosing a site to be my only social media site or just between one of the two. If it was my only one, I’d keep twitter. If I could keep all the rest (and still link to twitter via them), I’d choose Facebook.

Something I found fascinating was when Mike mentioned that they friend all potential employees on Twitter, Linked-In, and Facebook to do background checks. Anyone applying for a job has to accept them as a friend or they won’t get the job. He also mentioned that they don’t advertise their jobs, but still received over 1000 resumes last month!

Jimstagnitti tweeted that he’s “been using sm to research candidates for years. Remember its just part of who that person is. Still have to look them in the eye.” Wish I’d have caught this during the discussion, I definitely would have retweeted it!

One problem I ran into on Facebook (before they revised the site) was friending a couple people who would frequently leave inappropriate (well, inappropriate if you have clients or your mother visit) videos and pictures. I solved it back then by removing apps that allowed anything except text messages, now, I would do what AlbanyMBA suggested, and customize what different people could see/do on my site, since you can do it with each user.

Rhea mentioned an idea that I thought was great, setting up an editorial calendar for your blog. For example, I could have Twitter Tuesdays, every Thursday could be about StumbleUpon, Fridays for homeschooling, etc.

Especially for someone like me who’s horrible at posting with any kind of frequency, a calendar might be just the ticket!

All too soon, two hours was over and the gathering broke up. I said good bye to some new friends, thanked Amy for bringing Social Media Breakfast to Albany, oohed and aahed over doon’s Palm Pre and headed back home with my Geek badge shining brightly.

Every so often one of my marketing friends will ask me, “How big is your subscriber list.”

I used to answer, “I don’t have any subscribers, but I do have friends and contacts on the sites I’m on.” (Although I recently discovered I actually have quite a few e-mail subscribers…Thanks guys!)

But, when I’d answer this, I’d throw my marketing friends into a tizzy. “You have to have subscribers. How else do you let them know you have something new to share.”

Which of course, I’d answer with, “The same way I always do. I’d share it over the social media sites.”

When we arrive at this point, it’s a perfect time to explain about Reach.

Reach is the number of people I can potentially reach out to on a site (not counting others sharing my info).

One of the great things about Reach is that it can even be explained mathematically. And of course, anything that can be explained mathematically has now grown exponentially in how important it really is.

So, here is my basic equation for Reach:

Reach = Number of your subscribers x site’s retention rate

For example, twitter’s retention rate is about 40% according to the latest Nielson survey (which included twitter app users if you were wondering). Since I have around 800 followers on twitter (rounding it off to make the math easier), that means that my Reach is:

800 x .40 = 320

A few sites don’t just send things you share to your followers.

For those sites, the basic equation is added to the number of non-followers that receive your posts. StumbleUpon is a great example of this.

For StumbleUpon, the equation looks more like:

Reach = (subscribers x .35 (+/- .3)) + (subscribers x retention rate)

I can’t find a record of SU’s retention rate, so just judging by my subscriber list (which SU posts in order of Online Now – Hasn’t Been On In Forever) I’m going to be conservative and say a 50% retention rate although I’d guess it tends to run a little higher. The non-follower half of the equation depends on what category you choose for your post (a more popular search category will raise the number significantly) and possibly how many followers you have. So far it’s drawn only from my experience. I’d love to hear your numbers to help make the equation more accurate.

So, my average Reach on SU looks like:

(600 x .35) + (600 x .5) = (210) + (300) = 510

At which point in the conversation I can easily explain why StumbleUpon is one of my favorite sites, since the numbers have already told part of the story for me.

So, what’s your Reach?

Two of my very favorite bloggers and social media dads have been battling it out to see who would give in first to Twitter Peer Pressure. Matt McGee and Jeff Quipp have finally decided to start conversing in 140 characters or less and are now racing to see who can reach 500 followers the fastest. The winner will get $500 sent to the cause of his choice by the loser.

While both Jeff and Matt are passionate about social media, in their efforts to avoid wasting time on Twitter they may have just found a way to make this very useful tool work for them in the long run……

“It’s no secret that I’ve been trying to be the last person on Twitter for some time now. You may also know that Jeff Quipp (of the Toronto-based agency Search Engine People) was also not on Twitter, and has been challenging me to see who could last the longest without joining.

Well, we’ve put out heads together and have decided to sign up, and raise some money in the process. Here’s the scoop:

1. We’re both putting up $250 for a total of $500 on the line.
2. We’ve both chosen a charity that we like and want to support.
3. We’ve both (finally) signed up for Twitter.
4. Whoever gets 500 followers first is the winner, and all $500 will be donated to that person’s charity.

Essentially, there are no losers in this game and that’s what I love about Jeff and Matt. Each will gain something, whether it be loyal followers or $500 to his favorite charity. Certainly, The African Well Fund, which is Matt’s charity, will benefit by being able to bring clean water to parts of Africa where it doesn’t exist.

And also, the Tuberous Sclerosis Canada, a cause near and dear to Jeff’s heart, could use some financial help as well. The people that suffer from this horrible disease need awareness, support and most of all…a cure.

I am following both Matt and Jeff on Twitter, not necessarily for their causes but because they are awesome guys who care more about others than themselves. Good Luck Guys!

You can follow them both here and here!