BusinessBlogAngel

Twitter Gold - 3 Really Useful Social Media Marketing Resources

Had a conversation with @JoannaYoung today in Twitter... went more or less like this:

Me: Ur experiment's pushed me to add 'subscribe by email' to [this blog] Not that there's owt new to read :)
Joanna: Maybe the new subscription box will tempt you to blog something...?!
Me: I have a lot of explaining to do - and lots of great stuff to share! But no idea where to start!
Joanna: You could start with just that - where do you start when you've so much to share?
Me: You're so wise! This'll sound like procrastination :) but I promise to post something by the end of the day!
Joanna: I'm not wise Claire, but I have learned that writing what you know and where you're at is best way to go :-) 

Well, technically, the end of the day happened over an hour ago. However, since I'm still up, fuzzy logic says the day's still going... ergo, I made it.  So "where do you start when you've so much to share?"

 

Writing with confidence - project confident writing (reprise)

In my last post, I mentioned that I'd been thinking about Joanna Young... Coincidentally, I had an email that same morning from Karen Swim of Words For Hire with a secret mission all to do with that same amazing lady...

Joanna has just moved house to the west coast of Scotland. As a result, she's been offline for some time. As Karen pointed out, for a prolific blogger like Joanna, a week or so offline must feel like an eternity - and Brad Shorr along with Karen and fellow blogging/Twitter friends Robert Hruzek and Daniel Smith came up with a lovely idea: to welcome Joanna back to the blogosphere with a collection of posts on her various friends' blogs featuring our favourite posts from her Confident Writing blog. I've raved about Joanna on this blog several times and clearly I'm not alone in recognising her greatness. It speaks volumes that virtual friends want to do this for her.

Anyway, I've had a good rummage around her blog and, continuing the 'confident writing' theme, have opted to highlight a 'round up' post she did earlier this month which features a whopping 8 posts from the archives all about what to write when you're feeling stuck. So...

"Welcome back Joanna - we've missed you - we love you - you are the mutt's nuts!"

8 From The Archives To Help You Free Your Words by Joanna Young  at Confident Writing

Smart Twittering, Twhirl and an invitation to Twitterers

Last month, I promised an new article on Twitter... I've still not got around to it, but I've just opened up the latest issue of the SubHub Insider: Publish for Profit newsletter and found a great article on that very topic. This isn't the first time I've borrowed an article from SubHub.com - and I'm sure it won't be the last... well, they produce great content and I've checked and they dont mind provided I link back to them. So here it is:

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Twitter - The Smart Way
by Mark Ramskill, SubHub.com

Twitter - http://twitter.com - is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that allows users to post regular updates (otherwise known as 'tweets'), which are text-based posts of up to 140 characters in length.  Updates are displayed on the user's profile page and delivered to other users who have signed up to receive them.

The aim of this article is to give you more of an idea about how to use Twitter (and by association other micro-blogging services, such as Pownce or Jaiku) for following and engaging with the world's top bloggers and top websites.  I call this 'Smart Twittering'.

ShareThis - social bookmarking to promote your blog

I haven't really being saying much about social bookmarking here at Business Blog Angel, have I?

It's the classic small biz 'issue' of spending so much time working 'in' your business that you can't find the time to work 'on' your business, and rightly or wrongly, maintaining this blog always takes second place to client work.  BUT, if you are a business blogger and you are not yet using the wealth of free social media tools to promote your content, then you are missing out on a lot of the power of blogging for business. I'm talking now about social bookmarking, social networking, blog directories & communities and micro-blogging.

Liz Strauss' 25 Words of Work/Life Wisdom Writing Project

There is no doubt that Twitter is a seriously powerful weapon in your social media marketing arsenal. Over the last couple of days, I've seen some great examples of how people are using Twitter to not only network, promote their business activities and attract traffic, but also drive more sales.  In the last hour, as a direct response to a couple of Tweets that caught my eye, I've bought a product I didn't know I needed(!) and been inspired by Robert Hruzek to take up Liz Strauss' 25 Words of Work/Life Wisdom Writing Project challenge.   

I'll write again about Twitter, but in the meantime, here's my attempt at those 25 words:

Oh The Shame...

"Do as I say, not as I do";
these words float shamefully around my brain
as I fail
to Twitter, Stumble, blog and podcast
consistently.

Given that I'd not posted for ages - and this is my second today - I'm inspired to do another...

Time to get social: networks real and virtual

Photo by alexdecarvalho

The festive period is upon us already, which seemed like the perfect excuse to get a little social, learn a little about the power of networks, oh and share a little link love too.  Well it is nearly Christmas :-)

One of the things I get to do as part of the Blog Angel Team is dot around the blogosphere looking for good resources to bring back here, and to follow what Claire's blogging clients are up to.  (It's a pretty long list now - just take a look at the length of that client blog roll!)

There's been a distinctly social theme to some of the posts that have been pinging my feed reader over the last few weeks, and without further ado here's a serving of some links to the best of what you've been writing on networking, social media, and making them work for you.

Microblogging (eg. Twitter, Pownce, Jaiku) - small, but is it perfectly formed?

Ok so I promised a few days ago to blog about the various social media thingies (that's a technical word!) I've been playing with and here's the first... microblogging!

As it sounds, microblogging is blogging on a small scale. Sort of. Small as in you don't need to type entire essays or articles - just one or two lines and maybe a link depending on which microblogging service you are using which lends itself to blogging from your mobile or pda. MySpace and Facebook both have 'status updates' built in and MySpace has the blog thing going on too, but surely the best known standalone service is Twitter. Others are Jaiku and Dodgeball for mobile - neither of which I have used - and the 'newest-comer' Pownce - on which more coming up in a moment. But first...

Have you tried Twitter yet? How do/did you find it? It's certainly an interesting idea. I signed up back in May, but I didn't really 'get it' and lost interest fairly early on. I just couldn't see how or who it could benefit, beyond people with JOBs who aren't closely monitored and the unemployed.  Well...