So sue me

As usual, I am coming in on the tail end of a controversy. This post has to do with thoughts that started off, anyway, in an Agent Genius post.

No, I take that back. It did not start there- it started maybe 2 months or more earlier in the planning stages of REBarCamp Indiana, had an apparent climax in the post by Greg Cooper, which was answered by another post by Bill Lublin, scads of comments and the controversy is still going strong. I don’t think we have seen the fallout yet, is the thing.

On the surface it would seem that the fallout is whether Greg unloaded his angst in the proper forum- was it blame or flame? Could there have been a better way to do this?  What would Cisco do?

But that’s the surface. What is under all of this is something more important.

This is Todd’s twitter profile: “Social Media Manager for the National Association of REALTORS®, and these are my personal opinions. Oh, and I’m a crummy speller. Deal with it.” He says in a comment/response to Greg Cooper’s video, “My bio is written the way it is for transparency sake. I believe in telling people where I sit before I tell them where I stand. I think it’s important for people to know who I work for. I also think it’s important to tell them that while I do work for them, this is where I intend to share my personal opinions.”

That is actually elegant- “telling people where I sit before telling them where I stand.” I love that.

As an aside- or maybe by way of meandering to the next point I had a broker once who suggested that I not be involved on Facebook because things could be taken the wrong way. At the time if he had more than suggested that, I would have told him to put a sock in it and taken my license elsewhere. How are you going to be able to reach the younger demographic without an online presence?

But even in the time that I have been involved on twitter, it has gone from being a dark smoke-and-conversation-filled room to being an outdoor cafe next to a busy street. Conversations that I wouldn’t have thought twice about putting into the stream a year ago are now reserved for Direct Message. I don’t think I have changed; the medium is more populated.

And maybe even that isn’t the point. Say I am at work and sneak onto twitter and say something that could get me in legal trouble- is my employer liable now too? If Todd answers a question about a NAR-related thing while on twitter on his personal time, who is responsible for the content of his answer? If an agent goes home after having listed the home of the client from hell and says something like, “Great. Another overpriced listing” – on his own time in his own living room into his personal twitter stream-  could his broker be sued? If someone misunderstands an issue and posts publicly about it in an agent’s forum, possibly damaging someone’s reputation- who is responsible for the lawsuit that may ensue? The broker?

If you make a video on a camera that you wrote off as a business expense on last year’s tax returns is it a business video? Where is the line drawn between personal and professional opinion?

Sherry Chris asked on our radio show today whether Maya, Lesley or I had ever gone back and erased tweets. I have had some DM fails that I probably gave me third degree burns from the friction of erasing, so yes. I know that I have had moments I would have liked to erase, without a doubt.

Frankly, real estate agents are always at work. Does this mean that their brokers are always liable if their agents mess up online? How about franchise owners?

I think this is a bigger issue than just a he said- he said problem, and I do not think we will be seeing easy answers to any of these questions, given the fluid nature of new media. One thing I am fairly sure of: if you watch the stream carefully, a good portion of those tweeting after midnight in their time zones are at least somewhat tipsy, and the distance makes it harder to bring them home and tuck them safely into bed.

Lists of good follows for twitter have been floating around lately. There have been many discussions about the validity of these lists, whether a list of followers does anyone any good, and even the motivations behind creating a list. And it is funny how twitter has evolved to be so different from Facebook; I looked to see if there were any lists of suggested followers, and could find none. I understand the difference in protocol, but I wonder if FB lite ever gets going if this will change.

One thing is true: when you are new on twitter, it takes a toll on you to wait to build up a list of friends. It’s like going to a cocktail party where everyone knows everyone already. The conversations, laughter and champagne are flying all of over the place, and you can’t even get the waiter’s attention. Not only that, but so many people have crashed this party that people are a little suspicious of newcomers. You aren’t really sure of the rules of the party- and they don’t seem to be posted anywhere; you can see bouncers all over the place and they are quick and blunt in pointing out if you screw up. I mean, for a long time my list of followers was @realtyman, one other person, and someone whose avatar was o_O.

A list seems like a lifeline.

I had been planning to make a list of TwitterQueens just because it would be that much easier on #FollowFriday. Most of the most engaging and interesting people that I know are there, and a lot of these people are newish themselves, and can remember what it’s like to be the new one at the party.

Then I saw another one of my followers doing the same thing on #FollowFriday- and he had an interesting looking list, too. A lot were people that I was already following, but there were some who looked like fun. *Click*

Here are a few lists that I think are interesting. There will be overlap, and that’s to be expected. But first, if you are new: consider why you are on twitter. Is it for fun? Are you here to improve your business? If the former, that makes it easy.If the latter is your reason, then be wise. This is work. You would not make up a business plan and engineer it around your hobbies. You need to build a list of followers around your target consumer.

• Roost has a monthly list of 50 interesting RE people who are, well- interesting. Good mix, good people; list is put together by @doverbey, who is a great follow. There have been 3 lists so far for a total of 150 people.
• Twitterholic publishes a top 100 list. These are mostly celebs and newsfeeds, and I follow maybe 3 or 4. @Mashable I really like- lots of good info, but this list is made of users with a large number of followers. You aren’t likely to get any engagement here.
• Into WordPress? Here is a WordPress-centric list; it is from last year which is eons ago in twitter-years, but still has some good picks. Add your name to it.
• @donttrythis – Adam Savage from MythBusters, just because if he jumped off a bridge, yes, I would probably try it
• Out of work, or looking? Check out Resume Bear’s 50 People on Twitter Job Seekers Should Follow. Also see The Ultimate List of Employers Recruiting on Twitter by @twitjobsearch, and 150+ Experts on Twitter ALL Job Seekers MUST Follow on Career Rocketeer.
• MommyBloggers by @bendtheweb.
• Need a laugh? Funny People by @skinbro

And my absolute favorite list. One of the first lists that I had ever heard of, by one of the best follows on twitter: @alex.

I wanted to post a few things coming up that some people had asked about:

Oktober 10: Oktoberfest Tweet-up in Maine- Smugglers’ Den Campground, Route 102 – Southwest Harbor, Maine, to be exact

Horny Goat Beer

Next we will be in Delaware:

October 13: Maya, Lesley and I are honored to be one of 12 chosen to present at Ignite Wilmington. We are working on our presentation now for that- we will have 5 minutes to say what we want, and anyone who knows us will realize that that isn’t a hella long time.

October 14: The next day, we will have a booth at the Delaware Association of Realtors Convention. We will also be presenting our 3 hour CE course from 2-5 then and on

October 15. After the second presentation of the course, TwitterQueens are organizing a tweet-up at Fire and Ice at Dover Downs from 7:00 PM until whenever. Thank you so much, @DoverDowns!

At the end of the month of October, Lesley and I will be presenting about twitter to the Greater Boston Association of Realtors. We have a couple of other things going on in the month that will not be open to the public. Starting to get busy!  Hope to see you at least at one or the other tweet-up!

We were on the Social Media Edge Radio show yesterday. I say “we” because EVERY SINGLE MEMBER of the show was a TwitterQueens except Ken Cook, who became one halfway through. Lesley, Maya and I all spoke, and the audience was studded with group members. More listened to the recorded show at night, and I think it is safe to say that we all had a great time, and shot out some information at the same time.

One question that was posed was something I have heard before. “What do you do with TwitterQueens once you are signed up?”- and it’s a good one. It’s like, “What do you do with twitter after you have signed up?”

What DID you do with twitter? I know that at first I took it for its word: when it asked what I was doing, I answered. I treated it as a location update. Probably Gerry “RealtyMan” Bourgeois was most influential in changing the way that I looked at twitter. Although I had figured out that it could be used as a means of connection, he showed me how widespread the conversation was and introduced me to many of the people who are my friends now. If I had not made that connection with Gerry, my experience with twitter would have been very different.

So how does this translate to TwitterQueens? I would start 3 ways.
1. On twitter itself we use the hashtag #twitterqueens to contribute to the conversation. Follow that.
2. Check the blogs for not only the treasure trove of information that they contain but to connect with the individual that is writing about what you are interested in. Which leads to the third way…
3. Contact people who are of interest to you. Contact blog authors, contact other people who look interesting. Contribute something interesting to the blog so that they have a reason to contact YOU. Get together face to face with those around you.

And spread the business around the base. Know someone who wants to buy a house? Ask who is the best agent in your area. Want to throw a party for the girls? Paula Eramo- @rapturemassage- will bring a chair massage to your party in MA. Need a Facebook page designed for you? Mike Mueller does that. If I were, for example, a Virtual Assistant, I would post something about everything a virtual does to make life easier for the business person and put in links to satisfied customers. You will be building a book of business with a connected intelligent group of people.

TwitterQueens

From Mike Mueller’s blog/website:

If you missed the show today – they were great! You are not completely out of luck though.  You can listen to the archives.  Just go to the Facebook Page, become a Fan, and click on the Archive Tab.areweconnected.com, TwitterQueens on the radio show, Oct 2009

You should read the whole article.

It’s funny- just as I was settling in to write this, the Mashable squirrel scampered past, so of course I had to follow it to the Information is Beautiful blog.

These are the graphical depictions  (based on the data from previous surveys – InsideTwitter and the PearAnalyticsstudy, according to Mashable):

Information is Beautiful Twitter Stats

This is what struck me:

Only slightly more women than men are on twitter (55% v. 45%).

Only 5% of twitter users are loudmouths; couldn’t tell from the graph the gender split. I guess I would be categorized as a loudmouth.

Of that 5%, 32% are bots. And I guess thinking about botmerde was what had motivated this post to start out with. I try to review all new followers, although I am at the point where that is getting unwieldy; the first 1000 are slow in coming, but after that you get a snowball effect. Anyway, I got to one, and it looked like all botted tweets- no @responses, nothing engaged. I checked his website link, and that was exactly what it was- ads for TweetLater and tweetadder peppered the site.

I keep reading things like, “Make $1000 in your First 7 Days!” Dang! I could use the jing. But I also don’t have one second extra to invest in a smoke-and-mirrors machine. I read Mark Tosczak’s post What I Learned Experimenting with Automated Tweets, and, at least for driving blog traffic in his instance, he noted the inefficiency of the system.

What I am wondering is this. How effective is an advertising account in twitter? Is ANYONE making any money from this?

If you aren’t achieving your objective- making money- why persist in this practice?

The people who set up these accounts do not see me as a human being; I am seen as a member of their farm, someone to toss tweets to in the hopes that something sticks and they make money from me. I expect this from the television set; it annoys the hell out of me on twitter. In television, there is an implicit contract- give me entertainment, and I will (possibly) sit through your ads.

There is no contract with twitter spam- I am not receiving a thing. If there were some way that I could charge the people who run botmerde through their twitter accounts for my time I would. A pay-per-click aggravation charge for each unsolicited automated tweet received- is there an app for that?

If ANYONE really makes any money annoying the crap out of other people, please email me with the details. No, not really.

What does this picture have to do with this blog? Nothing.

Coming home from Inman Connect San Francisco, I had a lot to think about. We heard a lot of information that people brought in and shared. Even more importantly, when you get clusters of smart people together, you can almost feel the ideas fly off of them. The first day Rob Hahn challenged a group of us with the question, “What do you think the next big thing will be?”

Three years ago, there was no twitter. If I could have anticipated its impact, I would have orchestrated its creation myself, somehow. When I was speaking with him six months ago, my friend Alex (no, not @alex) suggested a whole different way of interfacing with computer intelligence, something more organic and less artificial. Maybe this new kind of interface will be combined with a different way of organizing our interactions with online information.

The thing is, who knows? The next big thing will sneak up on someone in the night, like love does. Either the person whom the idea finds will be smitten with it so his (or her) passion can carry him through days of doubt and wondering if the MasterCard will hold out, or not.

What do you think the next big thing will be?

I saw a great title for a post today. It was:

Social media measurement -- It's like being a great bartender

[from {grow}]

The post discusses, among other things, the difference in thinking about social media results as ROI or Impact.

It can be difficult to quantify exactly where business comes from  if you are active in social media. Say someone starts to follow you on twitter because they found your @name on your Facebook fan page, and 3 months later calls you to retain your services because your microposts imply your expertise. First of all, they may not even give you this information; second, at what point do you start tracking it? Where, exactly, did your involvement in social media become effective advertising? Judging effectiveness probably requires something more all-encompassing: a social media gestalt, I guess.

Gary Vaynerchuck says it very well, as he usually does:

But back to the bartender comparison. If we are all selling drinks, the ones doing the better job- and reaching the most people- will pour the most. If you are certain that you reach the most people by sending out postcards, sending out one card every two weeks will not cut it. Same thing with social media. It takes time to build up a group of friends or followers, and even more time to cultivate them. I try to engage my group of followers on twitter several times a day, and watch the stream for their comments because what they have to say is important to me. When I drink what my followers are pouring- well, as the old saying goes, “Candy is dandy…”

And sharing a drink or two is best of all.

Regarding social media: …marketers need to bring a little balance to the justifiable demand for performance accountability… when you’re in a competitive market that demands innovation, you have to get in the trenches to help innovation along, instead of just throwing up knee-jerk stop signs to every project that doesn’t come with a business case tied up in a neat bow. from Social Media Metrics The Marketers Consortium

Let’s say you have invested a lot of time in ramping up your social media presence for your business.

Let’s say that you have heard a lot of arguments for doing this, including endorsements of aspects of social media by celebrities and other people of influence.

Let’s say that you are in real estate, and your broker wants the agents involved (or doesn’t), or you are in customer service and have read a couple of places that a social media presence can make it easier to solve problems before they get big. Then let’s say that you are watching Late Night with David Letterman. He has Kevin Spacey on, and you expect an interesting show. Oh! They are talking about twitter! But wait…

Letterman says that it’s a waste of time, and what the HELL is Spacey doing with twitter that could possibly translate into increased business? So what does this mean? Is the emperor naked after all?

Probably the most telling article that I have read lately that reinforces that the emperor is, indeed, clothed is this one at internetnews.com. The title is Social Media Marketing Makes More Money, and, really, isn’t that what you want to hear? There are lots of anecdotal reports about the number and demographic of people involved and how social media has benefited certain individuals- all interesting, but is it going to help your top line?

This article cites a study of the top 100 most valuable businesses. 21% of their advertising dollars are being funnelled into interactive marketing- perhaps a better handle than the term social media. The companies that have invested the most heavily in social media are reaping a large return rate than those that are not.

It is possible that the companies who invest the most in social media are just that much more progressive in general and that contributes to their increase in business, but I will stand on the side of progression any day.

It has been said that social media is the least expensive way to fail. Well, I for one do not plan on failing, and it is nice to see data that supports what I believe.

By the way, twitter.com/davidletterman is available as of now. Go for it, Dave!

I was sitting outside today with my daughter and a person working for the local newspaper drove up- giving away copies of that paper. I was surprised at how thin the paper in general was, and when I glanced at the section that contained the classified ads was really shocked at how few there were.

Getting the word out about your business isn’t a dead endeavor, but it is changing.

“Yes, it was built entirely out of 140-character messages, but the sum total of those tweets added up to something truly substantive, like a suspension bridge made of pebbles.”- Steven Johnson in Time.com

This, of course, refers to twitter. Social media is changing the way businesses interact with present and prospective clients. Frank Eliason from Comcast introduced a customer care presence on twitter that has brought attention to the company- even if the twitter presence did not enhance customer service, the free PR generated was priceless. And consumers do feel that their problems can be solved more quickly.

Twitter, Facebook, social media microcultures- these are all low-cost ways to enlarge your presence with both consumers and with other businesses. And there are two aspects to it.

One is the technical- exactly how do you go about setting up this presence? Where can you make the most impact in this changing online environment? And the answers, of course, vary from business to business.

Even more important- do your employees, who have been tasked with the mission of representing you, know how to go about that? Social media is a “pull” type of contact, as opposed to traditional media which pushes your message out to many in the hopes that something sticks. Are your employees cognizant of the unwritten rules of engagement?

Get up to speed with what is going on. You don’t want to be stuck between chihuahuas and chows in a place no one goes.

Dinosaur

]]> http://heyamaretto.com/2009/07/22/in-a-place-no-one-goes/feed/ 2 http://heyamaretto.com/2009/07/09/twitter-client/ http://heyamaretto.com/2009/07/09/twitter-client/#comments Thu, 09 Jul 2009 20:21:30 +0000 Diane http://heyamaretto.com/?p=501 ...Read the Rest]]>

Twitter itself is hard to follow and sort unless you have untreated ADHD, which may be another reason that I like it (Hey- is that a squirrel?).

But most people download a client to help sort things out- like Seesmic Desktop , TweetDeck or PeopleBrowsr.  I have TweetDeck up, and I have filtering several columns that I have set up, including Faves, twitterqueens and twitteratti. I used to use TwitZap, but since twitter increased the API, I haven’t been timed out on TweetDeck, and am finding it easier to interact with all of my followers. That is why I am on there- to meet new people and interact, and the app that lets me do this the most easily will be my huckleberry.

This is a screenshot of my TweetDeck:

TweetDeck Screenshot

You can see some of the titles of my columns. I added search terms to the default terms by clicking on the sixth button from the left, labeled groups. I haven’t even fooled with the colors or anything- by using the little wrench in the upper right hand of the screen, but I probably should before I go blind.

So TweetDeck is my flavor of the month. I like the ease of use, but my most important objective is to relate to people. I like being able to easilly see all of my friends’ updates (TweetDeck used to be jerky, but now if I am on, they scroll by pretty smoothly) so I can comment and interact. I think it is really important not to interact with the same five people and that’s it- I could do that at home.

Message in a Bottle

Today I will have posted my 25,000 tweet on twitter.

I’m not that much of a numbers gal. I am very competive with myself and a few other people who just seem to press that button, but that’s a different type of measuring.

To me, though, this number indicates something bigger. It means that there is life after the death of a marriage. It means that I have cast twenty five thousand little notes-in-bottles to float down away into a conversation stream, and that many of them  were picked up and read. And it means that the net woven from these little floating bottles has been enough to catch me and keep me from crashing on the days when it is really bad.

And through it I have learned that you can construct a new life. You can be embarassed into getting an iPhone, you can learn to drive in the city- and I am almost feeling like I should write my own Top 50 list. There have been at least that many people who have really helped- and maybe three who literally opened my cage and let me out, for better or worse- but it seems like these people would be more honored by my paying it forward than by turning back to point them out.

I guess that I have learned that shelf life is a concept that doesn’t exist for people, and old dogs CAN learn new tricks.

God only knows how long we are going to be here, so middle age is an arbitrary and likely erroneous demarcation. So I will keep tossing out my little bottles- some filled with the thoughts of others, some filled with music, and some with my own ideas- and thank you for picking them up. And I need to remember to reach out when I see someone’s messages float by.

This is a quick run-down of our plans:

Friday night 6/26 TweetUp at Latitude at 6:30- open to general public  . I have added this to community calendars in the area, and we have had more than 200 clicks on the invite looking for more info beyond the fairly extensive amount of info that I placed in these calendars.  I told Latitude that we would be expecting maybe 40 people- we’ll see!

Saturday 6/27

• 6:30 Starting out the day early- we are meeting in the lobby of the Grand Hyatt to head to the CBS Morning Show, where we are F&C and touring backstage after- maybe more, who knows?
• 11:00 Jason Turcotte presents the TwitterQueen website makeover
• 12:00 Presentation/Roundtables session 1
• 1:00 Presentation/Roundtables session 2
• 2:00 Buffet lunch and Michelle Weber with Gyrotonics
• 3:00 Presentation/Roundtables session 3
• 4:00 Bill Lublin

Then, of course, karaoke at night if we can find a spot.

At RE BarCamp Philly Preparty

I was speaking with my friend Alex Wilhelm the other day, and he said to me that it seemed like he had just started seeing the #twitterqueens hashtag yesterday, and when he searched for TwitterQueens, now he sees it all over the place. That made me curious.  I went to Google and quickly took a look at some of the places we popped up.

TwitterQueens sightings:

http://www.truliablog.com/2009/06/01/rebcden-and-rebcphl-the-recap-its-all-about-relationships/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/rtroth/3573818764/ http://twitter.com/crbill/status/2116334106 http://www.powersiteblog.com/?p=2225 http://www.viddler.com/explore/niknik/videos/20/ http://www.eventbrite.com/org/204336412 http://pikchur.com/A2k http://www.braveheartwomen.com/tags.jspa?tag=TwitterQueens,&print=true

http://twitpic.com/613bm http://microblogbuzz.com/redirect/29852001 http://turcottedata.com/blog/?p=150 http://www.twittermoms.com/profile/MarleneMLinke http://localism.com/blog/fl/tallahassee/posts/1034792/Social-Networking-and-How http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBrwYOpJKkI http://www.flickr.com/photos/rtroth/3573818764/ http://www.delawareonline.com/article/20090609/LIFE/906090311/1005/LIFE/Meet-the-Delaware-tweeters http://rebarcampboston.com/sponsors/ http://kristinacusick.wordpress.com/2009/05/26/headed-to-philly-virtually/ http://www.facebook.jp/pages/Dolphin-Marketing-Advisors/57825938649?ref=mf [5th down on this site] http://helpfulhannahs.com/post/1093671/rebar-camp-in-philadephia-rock-stars-of-techno http://www.socialmedian.com/story/3609275/3-twitter-queens

Lots of fun!

Lesley Lambert’s Infamous TrampStamp video

Gary Vaynerchuk speaks on social media at the #140conf. Kind of a little different perspective- he gives HIS answer to the question, “When do you have time to work if you are on twitter all of the time? “Wish I had been at the conference!

Anyone who knows me even remotely well knows that I am a card-carrying member of the TwitterQueens. This proves it:

So there you have it. What are TwitterQueens? Well, it started out being a group of mainly women who chatted online, forming friendships and helping each other out online. It was mostly women, but not all; they were mostly REALTORS, but not all. Later we added the hashtag #twitterqueens so that we could keep track of the conversation in one stream- if you add the hashtag, you can filter out all of the responses with that tag if you use tweetgrid, tweetdeck, seesmic desktop, or twitzap.

Later as the group grew, we had members that were very new to social media, and decided to create a community where they could go and see posts with information (here’s one on SEO), share leads, ask questions and get answers, and share video and pictures. We now have nearly 250 members, probably about 15% men.

The “Boys Allowed” issue caused a little stir but we made it through. I think that none of us really was aware of how fiercely people identify themselves and define themselves within a group context, but I guess I do too. I would have to say that- male OR female- most of my best friends are members of this group.

That is why I am really REALLY looking forward to our first tweetup/social media boot camp. This is going to be on June 27 at the Grand Hyatt in NYC, and I am going to get to meet the people that I am so excited about online face-to-face (some for the first time, some again). Bill Lublin , Morriss Partee, Jennifer Shaheen and Rebecca Corliss from HubSpot are among those either speaking or leading sessions, and Lesley, Maya and I will likely throw our hats into that ring too.

So here’s the deal: We have decided to offer a free VIP stay with us, which means a hotel room for both nights (6/26-6/27) and free pass to the day’s event. One lucky person (man OR woman) will be chosen from among the people who tweet the following before Saturday June 20 at 4:00-

#twitterqueens- choose ME for VIP event reg because (then give us a great reason).

Yes, you will have to sign up on twitter.com and at least put out one tweet, but it will be worth it if you win!

See you in NYC!

RE Bar Camp is an ad-hoc gathering born from the desire for people to share and learn in an open environment. It is an intense event with discussions, demos, and interaction from attendees.- RE BarCamp website

Inside the Loft at RE BarCamp Boston

When I first heard the term REBAR camp (at least that’s what I thought it was) before my trip to NYC in January, I searched the term. At that time, I got post after post about extruded metal used in construction, and it took some hunting to find one site with the not-to-clear explanation posted above.

So a lot has changed in less that 6 months. Search the term now, and you get a ton of information on the correct subjects, and you get a feel for how quickly a movement can develop. You also sense that with the speed of change in real life, Google needs to decide if it is going to be an encyclopedia or a newsfeed for information- because, as I see it, that is a difference in searching that can’t be reconciled without compromise. Maybe a GoogleAll and a GoogleNow?

But anyway. We just had the latest RE BarCamp in Boston, and fast on its heels is Chicago, on June 16- Boston won’t be the baby for long.  And there are at least a half-dozen being planned.

So there are a lot of them. They are “Unconferences.”  Still, what is that?

They are for people who want to learn about the phenomenom of social media: twitter, facebook, blogging, and whetever else is the flavor of the month. In fact, a lot of it is simply describing new ways to use and implement these social media tools to get the most out of their use because the field is not static. They are for people who have never blogged, for people who don’t know what a tweet is- and they are for people immersed in the field to trade ideas about the new things coming.

They are for getting stuck in elevators. They are for hanging out with old and new friends. They are for learning about a new way to connect in a really interactive environment- a place where you can ask questions and even challenge what is being said and brainstorm a solution. It is a place where if you need help, someone there will lead you through the process.

And if you are lucky, maybe someone will hand you the mike.

A special shout-out goes out to James Shiner and Greg Afarian of Zipvo and TweeplePages for organizing RE BarCamp Boston. I think I may owe them a couple of beers.

A tweet-up is a face-to-face meeting, usually held at an informal place like a bar or restaurant. For a little amount of time and no money this is an invaluable way to meet some of the people that you have chatted with online, and get to know their friends as well.

My friend Maya (@mayaREguru) is helping to organize a Delaware tweet-up. They set up a website (less than $20, including domain name), and Maya has been on a radio show, in an online news report, and has been invited back again for another stint on the radio. The tweet-up is also helping to benefit the local food bank- attendees are encouraged to bring two canned food items with them.

So, in addition to doing a couple of good things, Maya is getting a collateral amount of publicity. She is not in people’s faces about what she does for a living- she is a REALTOR®- but it is mentioned each every time she is involved in the publicity. Maya is also a founding member of the TwitterQueens, and that position, together with her contacts, has helped her put together an appearance for that group on the CBS Morning Show. Do you think that they will ask her what she does and where she comes from?

Okay- and this is all BEFORE setting foot inside the tweetup and meeting people face to face!

How can you go about doing this? First, pick a date! Check and make sure it would be okay to bring a group to the location that you choose- that they do not hae an event already planned for that time. Find some way to benefit your local charity, not for publicity, but because it is the right thing to do. Maya’s group chose the Food Bank of Delaware (found on twitter as @foodbankofde).

Then get the word out! Radio, local newspaper (both the calendar section and possibly a news report), twitter itself. Check out MeetUp.

Even more ideas can be found here on Mashable’s site. You can be as simple or get as complicated as you like. Make sure you bring business cards with your @twitter name on them. I had special ones printed up:

These cards are strictly for social media events. Once you go to twitter, my background lists all of my contact information, so, really, all you have to do is google my name or find me by my twittername.

TweetUps- for networking, for business- for fun!

If you do organize a TweetUp. post it here under comments.

Wondering how to find out about hashtags? Some are listed in the Hashtag Dictionary, and more are created every day. Start a hashtag  for your area and keep local twitter traffic coming by adding calendar events and items of local interest.

Can you imagine someone in the area constantly watching this stream for traffic alerts and other pertinent news? What a great way to be established as a local expert- not by sending out your listings, but by branding yourself as someone informed who cares about the community.

originally published in ActiveRain

#1 I have loads of time.

2-5. See #1.

Okay, now that THATS out of the way…

None of us have tons of time.  If you are like most of us, you are juggling family demands, client needs, and the education that an ever-changing market brings.

So where does twitter come in? What is twitter?

Twitter isn’t the place in the social media world that most people go so they can meet up with people that they already know. Clint Miller likened it to a cocktail party- you know a few people, but at a good party you are there with a big mix of people for the intention of forming new bonds.

So- #1. I like twitter because I have met new people- smart, funny new people.

How can this help me with business?

#2. I have learned a lot from these smart, funny people. Knowledge will help you save time, and become better at what you do.

#3. You can pick up on “triggers” in the conversations of your new friends.

What is a trigger that relates to the sale or purchase of a new house? Divorce, birth, an impending transfer because of work- these are a few triggers that you might see in conversations. Does that mean that when you see that Judy’s husband lost his job that you should chime in with, “Judy, that’s too bad! If you ever know of anyone who needs to buy or sell real estate, call me!”

Of course not. Some agents have the word “Realty” or RE right in their name. I know a PhxREGuy, a BeeRealty and a mayaREguru. Everyone knows what they do for a living- every time people see their names they are gently reminded.

#4. Twitter is open-source so there are a lot of tools associated with it.

You can check your rank and find out who is near you with TwitterGrader. You can locate people near you with apps like NearbyTweets or TwellowHood – sites like this are golden for a real estate agent who is interested in a 10 mile radius, let’s say. And there are a ton more- see this article for a Top 20 list.

And my personal favorite- #5. It’s free.

Convinced…or at least ready to give it a try? Go to twitter.com and follow the steps to sign up for an account. And don’t forget to follow @HeyAmaretto.

Parody by brusspup

From Revision3 Internet TV

Interesting- twitter’s evolution has been user-driven

I recently had a drink invented in my honor. What finer tribute could possibly be made, when you get right down to it? Statues crumble, cities are ravaged by war and nature, books come and go in favor.

But the friendship aspect of a simple drink cannot be overrated. It is no coincidence that the first miracle that Jesus performed was to turn water into wine at that wedding ceremony- at the behest of his mother. It is no surprise that some of the best networking happens after hours, after the meetings, when people stop merely listening and begin engaging with each other.

So, Joe Spake, thank you! I am touched! You can read about the recipe here, and I borrowed a picture from his blog so you would know what it looked like.

Drink

Mmmmm.

The name was the hard part. We originally thought Rusty Nail of Love, but that was too cumbersome. “Hashtag?” “AmarettoHammer?” Nothing sounded just right.

Then, Joe had a Eureka moment in the wee hours of the morning. He named it the TwitterQueen- an inspired moniker for what will be MY drink of choice, at any rate, at RE BarCamp Philly.

Thanks, Joe!

Mentioned in the same missive as the Governor:

TwitterQueens and Governor

Go to Splashup.com

1)      Go to File- click New image- choose size of 500 x 500 for avatar

2)      Choose color for this layer and use the fill tool (paint can) to fill the first layer

Choose color

3)      Choose “Open Image” browse and upload your main photo

4)      Choose the lasso tool (rope) and carefully outline your head, making sure to start and stop at the same end point. Go to Edit- click copy. Close the picture you lassoed. It doesn’t have to be perfect – it will still look good.

Upload headshot- use lasso tool (rope) to outline

5)      Go to Edit again- click paste.

6)      You should see your image show up as a layer on top of your background color. Click the arrow tool on the left to move it, and click the Resize tool (third down on the left) to make it bigger or smaller.

Your cropped headshot has now been placed over your background

7)      To add another layer, repeat steps 3-6

Adding my twitterbird with crown

8)      I added my twitterbird- then I changed my background color to black to make it pop

Voila!

9)      File- Save as Avatar.jpg- this is how mine looks:

My finished avatar

Why spend all of this time? Here’s why!

Good luck- have fun! It doesn’t take too long after the first couple of tries, so you can redo it if you don’t like it.

Reprinted by permission of the author:
I am amazed lately at the kinetic power that a group of positive people can create. When @HeyAmaretto, @mayaREguru and I initially had the concept for #twitterqueens, it was built around a desire to solidify our burgeoning twitter friendships with a real life gathering.

That energy has taken us from what was really a tweetup in NYC to the full on glory of the TwitterQueens in ascendancy with a huge core of wonderful women and a great social media camp concept. Our royal rising is a testament to the power of like- minded people finding each other, banding together in support and creating something more powerful together than any one individual can support alone.

You may at first glance be of the mind that a Royal environment is exclusive of Democracy, but I have to argue that it is quite the opposite. Firstly, the definition of royalty as found at www.freedictionary.com:

1. A person of royal rank or lineage.
2. Monarchs and their families considered as a group.
3 The lineage or rank of a monarch.
4 The power, status, or authority of a monarch.
5. Royal quality or bearing.

Now the definition of democracy:
1. Government by the people, exercised either directly or through elected representatives.
2. A political or social unit that has such a government.
3. The common people, considered as the primary source of political power.
4. Majority rule.
5. The principles of social equality and respect for the individual within a community.

If you follow these definitions you see that they are both about banding together as a group, creating a community that rules and defining the status of the people involved.

In practice this is what I have seen…each and every member of the TwitterQueens network is regal; a glowing example of their dedication to sharing their talents in their professional and personal lives. The women (and several men!) who are involved in the TQ revolution are presenting themselves with 100% dedication to the mission statement on our homepage: Women empowering women in the understanding and use of emerging social media techniques.

The beautiful part is that we aren’t forcing this, it is growing organically as one woman joins and tells her friends and so on and so on and so on… This gorgeous growth is creating a force that the Twitterverse is starting to notice. Daily I field questions from new people asking, “What are the #twitterqueens and how do I become one?”. Our membership at http://www.twitterqueens.net is exponentially larger this week than last and I can only imagine that trend will stay on the rise as more fantastic women hear about the opportunity to be loved, understood, respected, assisted, supported and amused by other women who could use a bit of the same treatment. Our royal parade is a beautiful sight to behold.

I asked the Queens to give me their reasons that they feel the TwitterQueens movement is important and here are some of the responses:

“Twitterqueens is important to me because in addition to helping each other through the technical aspects of social media… we have forged strong friendships and are helping each other through our complicated lives. Best girlfriends in every sense.” – Diane Guercio,co-founder Twitter Queens

“TQs is an organization that is needed not only to help empower women in social media, but to show an alliance that is geared specifially toward education and support of one another.” –Clint Miller, First Male Twitter Queen

“With #twitterqueens, u can be yourself. Get & give support. Always a good laugh.Who doesn’t need support and a good laugh?” –Kristen Anclien Jones

“The TwitterQueens are Dynamic and Dependable” –Kathy Hopkinson

“This group is built upon sharing, caring, support, empowerment and fun!” –Lesley Lambert, co-founder Twitter Queens.

Our lovely royal path has brought forth the inaugural TwitterQueens Camp and the first ever TwitterQueens Tweetup, neither should be missed! Mark your calendars, shine up your tiara, fluff the ball gowns and get your butt over to TQ Central where all the other monarchs are hanging these days!

by Lesley Lambert  @LesleyLambert  from the twitterqueens site: http://budurl.com/jyn2

I’ve been trying to be more careful who I follow on twitter.

I dont want to be labeled a twittersnob, but I’ll tell you what. It is getting harder and harder to tell the real friends from the androids out there, and while I don’t have that much against androids, I don’t have the time to be following them around.

One example. I was recently followed by @SkyBlew.The bio claimed that they were “Preachers of Social Media, Pop Culture Junkies, E-Commerce Experts;” 200 updates, all different. However, all of these posts were from twitterfeed, and none were as a reply to anyone.

So I clicked on the link in the bio. This is the site I got:

Blew Sky

Apparently the twitter entity that I nearly followed was a non-entity, really- something “Set Up Once… [to] Make Money EVERY Day.” I just got followed by another couple today.

This honestly made me angry, and here’s it in a nutshell. I don’t make friends to have money- I make money to have fun with my friends. And most of the best friends that I have have been made online. It’s really the only way a working mother of four can socialize.

And twitter’s excellent for forming connections. It’s like a huge conversation, and it is about the farthest thing from random that you can get. The followers separate pretty quickly by common threads- not by occupation or background, but by spirit. Maybe I say this because the majority of my friends are smart, driven and funny, but I also know that I have lost some people because of both the volume and the content of my 140-character-or-less nuggets. That’s life- you have to treat all people with love, but you don’t have to tweet with them.

I know that if I broke up with my boyfriend- were I to have one- I could immediately find a half-dozen or more friends with shoulders I could cry on. When my brokerage was absorbed by another one, and that night I came home to learn that my mother had died, I shot out one sentence about it and was propped up by people all over the country. One even called me and kept me company on the phone until bedtime, and I’ll always remember him for that kindness. And this is not unusual- I observe it happening all the time.

So I guess before I follow anyone I am going to check somehow to see if they have a heartbeat, probably by messaging and expecting a response. And I also guess that I will probably lose a few live souls that are shy or haven’t figured it out yet, and that’s too bad.

But I feel like if we don’t screen like this, the medium will become a mass of autoresponders autofollowing each other, with little oases of interaction. And I love the heartbeat of twitter.

I, Robot