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Twittergrader

Well it seems 20.000 people now follow twittergrader. The site that gives you your twitter grade out of 100.

It seems we never outgrow our schooldays and still long to be graded, and then to display those grades in public.
But what does it mean? Is it actually a measure of success?
Well I’ve always had a high twitter grade close to 100. In fact my twitter grade has gone up another .10 since the webphoto above and is now 99.5.
This could be due to the fact that I’ve managed to build a following of 1,060 in just a few months of active tweeting and the number of replies I receive.Two months work really. But I do engage. Im told there are people that get perfect 100s. Im not sure how that’s possible or even legal, but it happens.

I walk the talk, the wisequeen advice we gave here on how to build a social media empire.
I believe in this form of communication called social media, use it on facebook twitter and linkedin and xing, and I write on it. I’m always surprised by people who say they are passionate about, or love working with social media, but follow 24 people have 20 following and 17 updates in the year they have been on Twitter. I always want to ask them. So what do you love about social media then? The idea? The name?
I don’t think twittergrading should be taken too seriously no. I don’t think any tool is more than a tool.
It’s a bit of fun like most tools.
What do you think? What is your grade? How seriously do you take it?
Share your ideas in a comment here.
Wisequeen
Donna Jackson
Social Communications Specialist.

How to build a social media empire

Video on networking with twitter

One of my favorite Bloggers Guest post

Christine Gilbert is a full time traveler, freelance writer and photographer. She blogs about her transition from Fortune 500 Manager to traveling vagabond on Almostfearless.com. Her tips about traveling Europe on a budget can be found at europestring.com. She travels with her husband and two large, slobbery dogs– and still wonders why it took her so long to make the leap.

How to Build Your Social Media Empire (in 13 easy steps)

These steps assume a couple of things. First, that you have a blog (or business) that you want to promote. Second, that you haven’t really started using social media to promote your blog or your unsure where to start. Next, that you already know what your brand is, how to be consistent you’re your brand message no matter where you write and you actually have something to say. Finally, there are tons of additional places (like plurk, for instance) that I don’t mention here, because this is intended to get your started (not overwhelm you with the thousands of sites out there).
1. Sign up for an RSS Reader if you don’t already have one. I suggest bloglines or google reader.
2. Add your blog, plus the blogs of anyone that comments on your site (or blogs that you read). This will become your task list.
3. Sign up for a stumble account. Add everyone you know as a friend. Be sure to list your own blog on the profile page.
4. Everyday try to comment on at least 5 blogs per day. You want to change up who you comment on, so use your RSS reader as a “To-do list”
5. Everyday stumble at least 5 posts.

You definitely want to pick the best content to stumble, and be sure to write a review. Thumbs up without a review has less bang for the buck.

(Note: you can but try not to, it doesn’t look good. )
6. Check your webstats. Are you getting stumbles? Go to your post that got a stumble and use the stumble toolbar to see who reviewed it. Add these people as friends. If they have a blog, add them to your RSS.
7. Sign up for twitter. Add everyone you know. Be sure to use tweetlater to autofollow and autorespond with a link to your blog or RSS feed.
8. Go to a twitter account of someone with a similar blog topic and start adding their followers. You can usually get away with about 100 a day. After 3 days, drop anyone who doesn’t add you back. Repeat. (Always follow everyone who follows you first).
9. Start experimenting with Digg, Mixx, Reddit, Delicious, and so on. Watch your stats. See what works. There are times when these sites have great rewards, but it takes some finesse.
10. Respond to every new commenter on your site with a personal email. Let them know you have added their blog to your RSS (if applicable) and thank them for commenting (offering assistance or something free (like an ebook) doesn’t hurt either).
11. Sign up for twitterfeed to auto post your last blog post to twitter. Be sure to participate in twitter in a friendly way. Respond to what others write. Offer cool links not on your blog. Give tips. (Don’t just post links to your blog over and over, this is spammy).
12. Once you get a hang of it, create a daily to do list. It should read something like: check webstats, 5 comments, 5 stumbles, 5 tweets, add followers to twitter, catch up on emails, 1 digg/reddit/mixx. After a few months of doing this you should have a healthy following of a few thousand people. Always be gracious and helpful.
13. You have a social media empire, now what? Use it for good. The best self promotion is selfless promotion. Give new bloggers a leg up. Gently promote your stuff. Enjoy the warm glow of being part of a bigger community.

Got something to say? dying to tell us what you think? comment below,
Wisequeen

Five questions

Todays post is a series of questions I try to ask myself at least once a week as a writer and trainer, because you can’t give from an empty bucket.

So here goes you answer them 1-5 honestly.

1. Am I passionate about what I am doing, can others see/feel that?

2. Am I open to change and to new talented people coming into my work network/ or threatened by it?

3. Can I explain to others what I do to earn my living easily?

4. Am I listening to my critics or encouragers, what do I do with this information.?

5. Am I treading water until the next big wave hits/ or am I up on the wave now ready to ride it?

A post Liz Strauss wrote that helped me to think, read my comment.

Answer these 5 questions in a comment, send them to all your followers, to everyone you love and Know.
Donna Jackson
Social Communications Specialist
Wisequeen

Europe welcomes the day of the democrats!

Here in Europe we woke to a landslide victory for Obama just as I had predicted in my previous posts.
The day of the democrats is here! And while Obama and his family wake up to just what he has acheived, Americans celebrate in the streets and across the world, hoping for a new world, a new chance. While European leaders rushed to welcome the new President Elect and sent messages with congratulations. This bodes well, as Euro-American relations have seen moments of strain over occupation in Iraq recently.
The new president elect will certainly be in good company with Bill and Hilary to give him some hard-won experience to add to his files.
A new term has begun, filled with hope and promise. Let’s enjoy the newness of that hope today.
Have something to say? leave a comment.

Donna Jackson
Social Communications Specialist
Wisequeen

Daniel Jörg blogger and head Crossmedia PR Burson-Marsteller CH

Here’s my interview with blogger and head of Crossmedia practice at Burson-Marsteller Switzerland Daniel Jörg just before the recent Somesso conference in Zurich. Here is his presentation.

WQ
Where is your home town?
Bern, Switzerland

Where are you living now
Bern, Switzerland

What were you doing before this?
Classic Advertising, PR and online PR

What did you study after school?
Media and Communication Science

Economy

International Relations

What did you want to be when you grew up?
Me

Tell me how your job came about?
In my current job as head of the Crossmedia practice at Burson-Marsteller Switzerland I can combine all my experiences that I gained during the last couple of years.

I got the offer to work for B-M because of two incidents:

1) In once wrote a very critical blog post about them. That made them aware of me.

2) I worked in the local advertising/communication industry and people started noticing that I’m one of the new kids with new ideas in terms of online communication. The classic advertising guys I used to work with back then were only thinking of banners and campaign sites. I had a different approach and people started noticing.

Explain your company to me.
Burson-Marsteller is one of the biggest Public Relations companies in the industry.
We are providing a strategic counsel on communication in the digital age.
The Crossmedia Unit I manage in Switzerland is combining advertising, online PR and Social Media Marketing Services into a fully fledged Crossmedia Service Offering.

What is your vision?
Out with the old PR/Advertising thinking, in with the Social Media / Dialogue Communication Practice

What would you like to do next?
Too much stuff to even start naming it.

Right now focused on getting better and better with what I’m already doing.

What do your family think of your job?
They think it’s great, and they follow my updates on Twitter to see, what I’m up to all day long.

What are you most proud of professionally?

Being able to combine my personal interests in social media and the web in general with a profession that is interesting, challenging and fun.

Which book are you reading at the moment?
No book at the moment, but I read my GoogleReader every Morning.
Last book I read was Wikinomics.

What other profession would you like to try?
Musician.
Donna Jackson
Social Communications Specialist
Wisequeen.
Got something to say? leave a comment.

It’s not about the tools it’s still about content

There are now legions of social media evangelists marching all over the globe preaching the message and sending out link after link on Twitter daily. Some of these links are valuable and through them I have found services and things I needed without having to dig. But, and it’s a big but, with all this chatter on twitter, facebook, and the myriad other ways being invented every other day of communicating quickly on line, are we really communicating?

If I go on twitter and say “Hey ho I’m depressed today I lost a contract” for example, that’s a thought and  I’ve put it out there into the twittisphere.

Who is likely to respond to this? The people I want to care? or someone on-line in amongst my followers who feels they must offer some kind of abbreviated response in 140 characters like: “chin up chum and get slaughtered”. Now I could get this  type of vegetative comment from any number of barmen or pizza flippers on any street, in any town.

So what do I want when I go on twitter, like minded souls who might tell me of a contract that I could pitch for? Maybe, but unlikely. I’m more likely to get some rabid political zealots who once again hammer home who I should vote for in the election. Or someone telling me in strings of jargon what applications I simply must use, or an incoherent group of blog links most of which have nothing to do with me, my work, or my lifetime ambitions.

Social media is a great way to get your message out to a wide audience quickly. A new blogpost, an amazing find,  a thought for the day, an event, but it should never replace the deep human need to to communicate with others in a way that satisfies that deep human need to listen and be listened to. So don’t sprout tech jargon, that’s what computers specialise in.

It is only a tool, just as your cell phone and laptop are and can never replace face to face and the contact of a handshake. It is but a prelude to this, or an information source and virtual network.

My last thought? Put something edifying into the twittersphere.

The Somesso conference begins 31st October, follow it to see what industry insiders are saying.

Donna Jackson

Social Communications Specialist

www.wisequeen.com

Blogging the beginning and the future

Ever wondered how blogging started and when?  Blogging now mainstream, was still not considered the best way to communicate just five short years ago. I like to see it as a collision resulting in a new star, when the traditional publishing star was falling and the internet star was rising.

“Several broadly popular American blogs emerged in 2001: Andrew Sullivan’s AndrewSullivan.com, Ron Gunzburger’s Politics1.com, Taegan Goddard’s Political Wire, Glenn Reynolds’ Instapundit, Charles Johnson’s Little Green Footballs, and Jerome Armstrong’s MyDD — all blogging primarily on politics (two earlier popular American political blogs were Bob Somerby’s Daily Howler launched in 1998 and Mickey Kaus’ Kausfiles launched in 1999).”  Wiki The history of blogging

Now with social media  sites like twitter you can find blogs, swap links, and as a blogger, list at http://justtweetit.com/

Promoting your blog on twitter  and other social media  sites is an essential.

So as a reader of blogs rather than an expert (I have about thirty in my reader, which I visit regularly and others that I stumble upon whilst on twitter or just searching), I humbly offer this advice to fellow bloggers.

Bloggers golden rules.

Make your posts shorter. We live in the info age. Info is streaming at us so fast and from every possible quarter, that rambling on for pages will loose me, and many other readers I suppose. Bite size rather than the whole roast beef.

Keep it short and sweet, provide links if you want your reader to get more, let them choose. There are blog posts that are captivating enough to hold me for pages if I’m on the mood, but not often.

If your comments start a thread that goes on and on and on consider stopping re-posting and starting over.

Comment on other’s blogs if you want to get the same attention.

There are people who categorically refuse to post comments based on the fact that people meaninglessly repeat what has gone before and rarely read the string, but I’m not one of them.

Let your readers know what the blog is about in the title or within the first few centimeters. Purpose!

Don’t steal content, but credit and link.

Donna Jackson

Social Communications Specialist

Wisequeen

Social media - Is e mail dead or dying?

O.K. we seem to be on a roll here, so who am I to stop it? First I wrote on social lending, social etiquette, and twitter social media, now let’s introduce Dopplr yet another way to keep in touch for frequent travelers with cool applications for bloggers and anyone who just wants to keep track.

I was skeptical when Facebook mania first took hold. Did I really want to know what everyone had for breakfast. Well, not everyone… but those special somebodies, yes!

I also wanted to know what my colleagues and peers were up to. So, facebook, linked n, twitter, plurk, and before you knew it a whole quiver full of unpronounceable names where in there.

Then I blogged live at a tech start-ups in Zurich and discovered Sandbox, Doodle, Wua la, Poken, Yes.com and so many other ways to keep up and transport your contacts wherever you need them. I will in the next few posts, give you the features of each of these.

But what does the corporate world think of this?  Here’s HP in action The big boys like IBM who need communication to flow between thousands of staff members on different continents. Is e mailing dead or dying? Do they use social media?

Somesso The corporate social media conference seeks to answer this question, kicking off in Zurich on 31st October and with dates in London and Barcelona to follow. They hope to captivate the attention of corporate communications experts in this niche market and plan to ignite passion where others have failed in more generic Web2.0 conferences.

Their website lists an impressive array of speakers. CEO’s and top managers are being encouraged to adopt social media as the medium of choice in communicating internally with their teams.

For those who would like to attend, tickets are available on the website up to the day and for those who can’t, pod casts and tweets will have to suffice.

Have something to say? send a comment.

Yours tweetly

Wisequeen

Donna Jackson

Social Communications Specialist

Twitter tips for twits

Most of us have heard of, or use twitter right? Wrong! most don’t, or at least not effectively. This social media, micro-blogging site, where you can send quick messages, links, and info to those who follow your updates, can be a lifeline to networking and building an internet presence.

I joined recently, and as a follow on to my post on social etiquette golden rules Here are some tips that I have to offer so far, as a relative newcomer.

Say who you are by including your name. Calling yourself sprogit may work as an enigmatic tease on a dating site, but this isn’t it.

Log in each day, respond to those who have started following you, if you agree. Spend half an hour twice a day and then get off. You have a life don’t you?

Don’t just give impersonal updates, have short conversations with those who post on your subject or area.

Contribute something useful to the social space.

Don’t spam other twitterers with a hard sell, this is not a place to sell your product it’s a place to socialise.

Don’t spend all day talking about your children and the chocolate cake they have smushed all over their faces. For you cute yes, for everyone else - not as cute.

Be a mentor to someone and receive mentoring from someone in your area of interest, that’s powerful.

Don’t blather on with political messages 24 /7, angry and bitter is what you become. Politicians have campaign managers for that, save your energy to make your business better.

Here’s a post on the types of social media users

Be a happy twit!

Have something to say ? send us a comment.

Wisequeen

Donna Jackson

Social communications specialist

Wisequeen launch party on August 1st, 2008 be there!

Un-common sense advice blog for business, life’s rules,social media, etiquette, money, startups, entrepreneurship, conundrums, and everything in between.

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from the Queen of un-common sense, WISEQUEEN writer, global lifestyle coach and irreverent, curmudgeonly blogger.

Your blog-for-life

here are snippets of what Wisequeen who has written as moneypenny and wineloversworld has blogged about on the world wide web …

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IT’S BUSINESSTIME

http://www.digitalmoneyworld.com/blogging-takes-over-as-the-media-of-choice/

http://www.franchisepick.com/franchisepickcom-announces-esean-payment-processing-system/

http://www.digitalmoneyworld.com/what-makes-an-entrepreneur/

TechCrunch Zurich meet-up

http://www.digitalmoneyworld.com/e-dream-design-your-own/

Finding blogger jobs
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Real people caught in real scams, their stories

>moneybookers.com rip off.