The pressure to post an all-encompassing review/recap of 2009 or a big social media prediction/pronouncement for 2010 was not lost on me.

However I opted to step aside and let it pass me by. (Traffic schmaffic.)

When I look back and consider my time in social media in 2009, it’s not the cool marketing tools I’ve experimented with, the great content that I’ve consumed or even the new business opportunities it has created — it’s with complete humility that this anti-social curmudgeon confesses (with uncharacteristic optimism and utter embarrassment at my public display of “joie de vivre”) it’s the people I’ve met and reconnected with that made my 2009 brighter, more interactive, more professionally rewarding and, even, more entertaining.

So as I look at 2010, I hope to continue to experience all of the spectacular and unexpected side effects social media, social business and social networking put before me each and every day.

We are all of us so much more than the sum of our work and it is the people with whom we work that make the work itself more pleasant…or unpleasant.

Social business provides more consistent, personal and direct access to people we like — people we want to be around and work with — which can bring greater value and meaning to how we spend our workdays.

If you’ve interacted with me here on this blog, on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Flickr, meetup.com, blip.fm, slideshare.net, at a local Panera, at a conference, at a seminar or event, through email, on google wave, by phone, at one of my presentations, on a sailboat or through Social Gets Local… I just want to say thank you.

You have enriched my life — online and off.

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To begin (and for transparency’s sake), I should say I’m not Italian. Not even a little bit.

But this is not the point.

I was scanning the Twitter stream the other day and noticed one of my posts was “retweeted,” so I went to send a “Thx for the RT” which led me to a closer examination of the fellow’s Twitter bio — now he turned out to be very Italian. That’s when I officially met the “master of the Italian card game Scopa.” And then I took a moment to enjoy a flashback to more than 15 years ago when I played the game on a regular basis while living in Europe. Molto bene!

But this is not the point, either.

I invite the two of you who are still with me to follow this pictorial trail (if you’re reading this through your RSS feed reader or your email inbox and not seeing pictures, click here) and I promise to usher you directly to my point, which is about how you can use social media to build a community around ANYTHING that is of interest to you and why that matters.

Hmm…what’s this “Meetup” about…(click) –>

Hmm…wonder what other groups are on Meetup.com that would interest me…

Okay…I’ve arrived at my point. (Grazie for your patience.)

THE POINT: (drum roll…) My Twitter time went from Scopa (a long forgotten personal interest) to Meetup (an online community building tool I simply hadn’t stumbled upon before) to a search of other Meetup groups…and, because I can never turn off the marketer in my mind, the realization that if I were the community manager for a business, I’d want to know what Meetup groups are out there and where they’re meeting. I’d want to see how my business could add value to the group, whether in promoting group participation within my own company or in offering a sponsorship of an activity to one of the groups — whatever. The point is (another point?), THIS is where social media and social business meet. (Or, “meetup” in this case.) And meetup.com is just one of the multitude of places they’re meeting using social media tools.

On a personal note, I found some groups that appeal to my unique interests, such as groups for “Chinese Language Learners.” Seriously. Who knew people were meeting up to chat in Chinese (or to try to, at least!)? I think that’s 酷.

Business. Personal. Italian. Chinese. Social Media. Social Business. It’s a mix that requires you — the mixer — to stir things up and engage.

I think this post serves as a case study on multiple levels:

• How Twitter can be a valuable tool for business AND personal use
• Why it’s important to READ PEOPLE’S Twitter bios and make sure yours reflects your interests
• Why taking a second to send a personal note to someone on Twitter can be worthwhile
• There is some truth in advertising (when they say “there’s an app for that,” they’re not kidding)
• There are people meeting up everywhere over just about everything — consider what that could mean for you and your business
• There is networking value to overlapping the professional and the personal online (safely and cautiously, of course)
• And for my new Italian friend, be careful where you invite “@usegraymatter” because she’ll end up posting about it

Scopa Cards (translated in Italian, "Scopa" means "sweep"). Points are awarded on each deal and when a player "sweeps" or wins all the cards on the table.

To think, all of this came out of a little tweet about a little deck of cards.

Meet online. Move offline. Maintain your network.

Scopa!

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Melissa M. Gomez, Ph.D., is a jury consultant and owner of MMG Jury Consulting in Philadelphia. She tweets @mmgjury and blogs at The Legal Intelligencer. I want to thank her for taking the time to share her twitter experience and for not listening to her cousin.

Twhat?

About a month or so ago, I was sitting at my dining room table with my cousin (who, for his protection, will remain nameless) and he mentions something about this Twitter thing.  “I have heard of that. What is it?” I ask. His answer: “It is the ultimate tool for narcissists. Basically it is folks thinking that they need to share with the world when they drink their coffee, eat a ham sandwich and use the bathroom.”  Hmm. I don’t think I would be very interested in that.

Fast forward a week. I am chatting with my good friend and “social media stylist” (@usegraymatter). I need advice because I am going to be a regular contributor to The Legal Intelligencer blog, Pennsylvania’s local legal publication, and I had only written traditional (print) articles before. She brings up this Twitter thing again and I share my cousin’s perspective.

I tell her I am not sure how Twitter would be useful for a jury consultant like me. I get an earful.

In a few hours, I have a Twitter profile up and am searching around to see if there is anyone in the legal profession tweeping or tweeting or twipping or whatever they call it. I am not very hopeful. I know that none of my clients have ever set foot on twitter. They barely have time to check their email.

TwaHa!

What I find is something pretty incredible.  Folks in the profession are not only on there, but are really using Twitter as a professional tool. I see folks using Twitter as a platform to share ideas, articles, legal blogs and ask for referrals. Only the occasional ham sandwich rears its head. Pretty cool. So, I start to follow people. And they start to follow me back.

But what to tweet?

I am pretty sure no one is interested in the half-eaten granola bar sitting on my desk, so I start to tweet about what I would be interested in: good quotes, articles about courtroom psychology, blogs, things that jurors tweet about their jury duty experience. More people in the legal field follow. I follow more people.

Twa Moral of the Story…

So far, my take on using twitter professionally can be summed up in a comment I made on @lancegodard‘s  blog posting  “Aren’t you on Twitter yet?”

I think it is important to realize what social media may and may not be for legal marketers. For my business, I find that the point of marketing is to not only look at immediate gratification, but at the long term benefits.

Specifically, I am tapping into a whole new potential client base through Twitter-folks who may or may not need a jury consultant in the future, but who I know are going to be the future leaders in their industry — they are already setting themselves apart as the experts of their field through their blogs and such.

I realize that Twitter will likely not lead to immediate business, but it is getting my name out there in another form and with a new group of folks. That is never a negative for anyone as long as you put yourself out there in a meaningful way.

When I started my solo practice after years at a big litigation consulting firm, a good client advised me: “It doesn’t matter how you do it, just keep your name in front of people in a meaningful way. That way, if something comes along next week, next year or 10 years from now, your name will be the one to pop in their heads.”

I think Twitter is a great way to do that.

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Tiffany Thomas Smith, who works in the strategic communications and public affairs unit of the Annie E. Casey Foundation, has enthusiastically taken on the challenge of introducing social media to one of the nation’s largest and most respected philanthropies.

In this (very first) “Social Gets Local” post, an interview with GrayMatter Minute contributor @cameronbarry, she shares the successes and challenges of adapting new communications tools in an organization with a social mission.

Q: How has social media impacted your marketing efforts?
A: The biggest change we’ve seen to date is in public relations.  Social media is where the journalists are. Sites like Twitter and Facebook are the new bridge to our media contacts and the answer to the question of what’s the best way to get in touch with them.  They also give us insights into the stories that journalists are talking about and covering. However, we’re about to launch a new social media campaign that I think is really going to change the way we communicate.

Q: What social media tool do you use the most?
A: Twitter, where I have both my own account and one for the Foundation.  We also have a Facebook page and I’ve been working with my colleagues on the benefits of using LinkedIn, but between listening and posting and answering questions about what it is and why my colleagues should care about it, Twitter definitely gets most of my attention.

Q: How much time each day do you spend using Twitter?
A: I worked with our IT department to install Twhirl on my desktop. Since then, I’ve been able to keep an eye on our accounts and post or respond quickly.  I can’t put an exact amount of time on it because it’s always kind of a low hum in the background.

Q: Do you consider your time on Twitter “time well spent?”
A: That’s a lot like asking a PR person if there’s a value in building a relationship with a reporter if the story you pitch doesn’t come out right away.  In other words, yes, especially in maintaining and managing relationships with journalists.  The Foundation tends to keep a low profile and now, because I’m in regular communication with reporters, they remember us.  We don’t have to constantly restart the conversation every time we have a story to share. In the area of policy and communications strategy, we see more and more members of Congress using social media to take the pulse of their constituencies.  They’ve discovered that there’s more than one way to have a conversation and maintain relationships and we’re going to be taking a look at social media from the policy perspective as well.

Q: Is the leadership of your organization supportive of your use of social media?
A: They are supportive and curious.  All foundations are on information overload, but as tools like Twitter get more and more mainstream media coverage, our leadership is realizing that we have to make an investment in learning about how to make good use of these tools to engage with all of our audiences.

Q: Do your colleagues use social media?  How and in what ways?
A: Yes.  In addition to the basic networks like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, we’re also using social media to help our grantees across the country stay in touch with each other.  The Foundation awards grants to address specific issues and our grantees have been asking for help in setting up their own smaller social networks.  We use ning, an online platform for creating, customizing and sharing your own social networks.

Q: How are you gauging “ROI?”
A: Right now, we’re being modest, but we’re getting smarter as fast as we can.  We’re still evaluating what success means, but we’re tracking how often bloggers write about us and how many tweets we get and of course, our website traffic. Our new social media campaign is going to give us a much clearer idea of how we can make social media engagement work for us.

Q: How is social media working for you on the…
Local level?
A: Our success is most visible locally, probably because I’m here in Baltimore.  I can see our message getting out via local channels, I hear from our grantees, the media can see our local programs at work….
Regional level?
A: We have offices in several cities around the country and from our headquarters here in Baltimore, we view a regional rollout of our social media efforts as a next step.  We’re going to take what we’ve learned here and share it with our offices in Atlanta, Seattle and New Haven so they can use social media to support their efforts.
National level?
A: Nationally, there’s a lot of internal recognition for our efforts, but extending our social media efforts nationwide is still a goal.

Q: What would you say to other area philanthropies about social media?
A: I would say that social media engagement is totally worth the effort if you’re willing to take the time to build relationships.  Social media is great for taking the pulse of what people are talking about, thinking about and listening to. It’s easy to get insulated – we all have a tendency to think that because we want to say something, people want to listen, but that’s not always the case.  Social media encourages you to listen and it gives you the quickest return on being a good listener.

Q: What question do you have about social media that you’d like to ask your local community?
A: I go right back to the question of ROI.  Even with the phenomenal growth of social media, how are folks out there figuring out when it’s worth doing?

Click here if you’d like to be a part of Social Gets Local, a FREE local directory supporting businesses located in Baltimore, Washington DC and Annapolis that are using social media effectively.

Every day you get dressed and consult a mirror before stepping out into the business world. But what about how you look online? Are you looking your very best, virtually speaking? Here’s a few fashionable ways to dress up your business profile style.

Email

Now, many may consider email “casual wear” as far as the look of it goes. But every email (and most of us zip through dozens every day) is an opportunity to make a statement.
•    Check Your Signature: Do you have all relevant contact info presented in an attractive format? If not, there are surely a few folks around the cubicle who are handy with a mouse. Add some color. Make your name bold. Every email leaves an impression; why not make it your electronic best?
•    HTML or Text: Most email clients can handle html code adeptly, so please don’t let yourself be seen in plain text. (It’s so ‘80’s.)
•    Accessorize: Go crazy, if your corporate culture allows, and add an image to your signature. Nothing unseemly. Ideally it’s your company logo, which, hopefully, was professionally done. If so, by all means, work it!

LinkedIn

This is solid online business networking. Don’t show up to the event with the wrong profile picture. C-level executives rub elbows in this space and people will be expecting to see professionalism. It’s like putting your resume on a runway…lots of eyes looking at your business outfit (literally) and a few curious folks watching to see if you’ll trip.
•    Portrait: One word: retouch. I’m not saying you don’t look good au naturale, I’m just saying, if you haven’t had your portrait taken professionally, at least find a Photoshopper to point and click you toward absolute perfection.
•    Resume: One more word: proofread. Seriously. A typo in an email is one thing. No excuse for it here. Have someone else look your profile over to check grammar and spelling on everything you input. No matter how far up the ladder you are, grammatical errors on your resume don’t fly and they could cost you a really good sale.
•    Groups: Two words: join some. This is where you can really show your stripes and meet some new people. Do a search for groups related to your industry. Peruse the weekly email digest. Contribute and converse. The big plus here is that you can do it all without having to wear a nametag on your suit. A note of caution however, when you decide which group logos to make visible at the bottom of your profile, consider that you are showcasing your professional associations and affiliations. Sounds obvious, but you’d be surprised what some people put on.

Twitter

Imagine every business dinner you’ve ever been to…got it? Okay, now imagine them all happening at the same time. Welcome to twitter. Step lively.
•    Profile Picture: It’s okay to go casual, but remember, if you’re representing a business you want to look buttoned up, whether you’re on the deck of your fishing boat or at the megapixel mercy of your webcam. Choose wisely.
•    Bio: Be interesting. This is akin to “speed networking,” so whatever you have to say about yourself, say it succinctly and memorably. Don’t want to pressure you here, but for many, the bio decides the follow/unfollow fate of your relationship with other tweeters. Be original. Be yourself. Be smart. Be your absolute best in 160 characters or less. (And if you’re not tweeting for a business, you still should consider your “personal brand” and tweet accordingly.)
•    Site Link: Who doesn’t love a link? Twitter is a fabulous traffic generator. Drive your tweeps to your blog or your business web site…the point is, drive them somewhere. Show them the rest of your professional wardrobe.
•    Colors: I know this is subjective. But some colors have absolutely no business being on a twitter page. If it hurts your eyes in real life, imagine how it looks on the monitor in all its 1280 x 1024 glory. Sunglasses, please.
•    Background: Customize, customize, customize. Toss that old twitter template for a custom design (that you can acquire at any of the online twitter background design websites, (if you don’t have an ad agency or design firm already on retainer, that is). It’s inexpensive and the visual impression you make can go a long, long way. Even if you choose not to have a twitter profile page designed, make sure the image you use sets you apart from the masses. This is one instance where it pays to stand out in the crowd.

There you have it. A few simple tips for looking as good online as you do off…and for people like me, maybe even better!

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So, get this: the number of unique visitors to twitter jumped from 8 million in the month of February to 14 million in the month of March (Source: compete.com). If I were standing in front of you, I’d repeat that for emphasis with wide eyes, a series of explosive hand gyrations and a giant grin, blinding you with my recently whitened teeth.

While I’ve heard a bit of grumbling from long-time twitter users (using since 2007!), worried that twitter would be ruined (somehow made less useful and/or less cool) now that it’s being investigated and embraced by the mainstream, I am ECSTATIC! (I’d also love a break from the trend I’m seeing in blog posts about why you’re unfollowing people…our apologies for creating so much “noise.”)

Only in mainstream understanding and adoption will ANY type of social media gain more versatility and usability for businesses.

Think about it in terms of the introduction of email, whose mainstream and mass adoption led to exciting (and ongoing) opportunities to advance communication, productivity and content sharing on both professional and personal levels. That said, utilization by the masses always comes with a few extras we’d all prefer to do without, such as SPAM, get-rich-quick schemes and abusive/annoying marketing tactics (hence the grumbling by the early adopters)…but you have to take the good with the bad, no? That’s just how life is. Accept it. And if you feel like getting your zen on, embrace it.

I want to extend a WARM WELCOME to the masses.

Welcome to twitter. Welcome to LinkedIn. Welcome to facebook. Welcome to youtube, ning, flickr and digg. Welcome to Web 2.0. Thank you for coming. Because YOU are here, we (the collective “we”) will be able to advance the power of these platforms.

YOU are driving “traditional” businesses to shift in their seats, sit up, take notice and evolve. Thank you!

This communication evolution will…scratch that…IS creating an abundance of personal and professional opportunities for us all. Each social platform offers something unique; so come one, come all and ask for help whenever you need it. Don’t “get” something? Google it. Everything you ever wanted to know is at your fingertips, the trick is in finding the platforms and tools to navigate through all of the excitement to find what you are looking for. Don’t look for social media “experts” busy building up their egos…look for businesspeople who can help you help yourself.

The cost of entry here begins with your time.

If you’re a small business owner, you should be doing cartwheels right now (right after you make sure your LinkedIn profile is 100% complete). Spend a few minutes asking someone who is using online social tools a few questions. Educate yourself, grow your business.

In January of this year, Peter Kim asked social media thought leaders to help move us all toward tactical solutions for social businesses. So while the masses are amassing online, I want to tip my hat to all of the businesses that are busy about developing their internal social media policies, plans and guidelines to expand their methods of external outreach. I’m thrilled to be working with clients and companies who are focused on finding ways to overcome some of the actual and perceived barriers that other businesses are using as excuses to keep their heads in the social sand.

“I don’t have time for it” is simply shortsighted; successful businesses find ways to overcome barriers, of time and tactics, period.

If you want to learn more about some practical solutions for engaging in social business, Amber Naslund is doing an amazing job right now on her blog, Altitude Branding, providing blueprints for moving forward. Another practical person to tune into is Kyle Lacy, whose blogging offers post after post of socially creative insights.

Me? I’m seeing the virtual rubber hitting the road all over the place and I know EXACTLY who we have to thank for it.

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So you’re LinkedIn, facebooking and tweeting. But are you moving those connections offline? That is, when you make solid, quality connections in any of the online platforms you’re in, are you moving your conversation into a one-on-one context? A phone call? Coffee? A mini-meetup or tweetup?

If not, then why not?

When I find myself talking about why I like spending time in the online socialsphere, I always like to make the point that, for me, it’s not about sitting in front of my computer for hours on end. It’s about meeting new people and building those relationships into a quality network.

Consider your ratio of social networking to social business.

I have to credit Peter Kim for raising my awareness of the term “social business,” and his point is not lost on me. If you’ve ever had to explain “social media” to a C-level executive, I’d highly recommend the “social business” positioning. Of course I’m not saying you need to be all business all the time, but the fact is many of us have integrated social media into our workdays. We learn here. We share here. We connect here. Sure, I’m entertained in and by the process, but I also have a job to do, clients to serve and projects to complete. So I take the time I spend on the socialwebs somewhat seriously.

What’s more personal than talking or meeting offline?

Time is money. So I do my very best to put my money (and my time) where my mouth is. (Literally.) That means I want to talk with you offline. Sometimes we’ll connect on a business level and sometimes on a personal level. I’m happy either way. This post is NOT about looking at everyone with “what-can-you-do-for-me?” eyes. It’s about further personalizing your engagement, your conversations and your network. Or, as Jacob Morgan puts it, “You ARE a social network.”

Call or meet a virtual contact today. If you enjoy your time talking with people online, imagine the reward of talking with those same people offline. Go ahead, do it.  I triple dog dare you.

And now the TRANSPARENCY DISCLAIMER: I’m behind on my calls, (for obvious reasons), but I look very forward to speaking with @JoshSmith12 @ariherzog @CharityHisle @bruceyang @ApothecaryJeri @peabodytweets @mrshadeed @cirqueldesign @JohnSheridan and @GusSent. Talk to you all soon. (Well, as soon as I can!)

Today, the twitter hashtag thunderbolt finally hit me.

I mean, I understand “what” it is, and yet I’ve never really used it for my own purposes. All of that has changed as of today…

Feeling a dash whimsical when I woke up this morning, I had a single factoid in my head that I wanted to share. So I went online to confirm it before sending it out. That’s when I found a site with a whole slew of interesting and related factoids. It was right then that the window of opportunity opened and I tweeted right through it:

And so it began. A series of posts that I created virtually by accident.

And when I had finished, I thought, well, would you just look at that – a series. Haven’t done that before. Then another idea: I could do “a series” every now and again and make it that day’s “10 TopicalTweets.” I can choose a topic that I have questions or thoughts about and then tweet them into a series – all of this doable in five minutes or less (for those already thinking “I don’t have time for that”). I realize the use of the hashtag and/or posting in a series is not revolutionary to the twitterverse, but it was a shazam moment for me, personally. And that’s revolution enough to make me happy. (It doesn’t take much these days.)

And then it hit me:

WHY didn’t I think of using a hash mark to tag those tweets?

If I had put a #D10T within each of those individual posts to reference my Day’s 10 TopicalTweets, the following page would have been full of my eco-factoids, available for easy reference and search. [One more time for the business tweeps out there: easy reference and search. As in, apply the hashtag whenever you post on twitter about your business, products, brand, etc. Tags can also be used to follow discussions, tweet events, seminars and breaking news in real time (live) and more.]

But instead, my “search page” for #D10T looks like this:

Well. I now see how the twitter hashtag can work for me (and my business). And for all those who have ever asked, “What does that hash mark mean?” I’m happy to share my thunderbolt of a moment here for posterity.

So when you see me post a series of tweets with the following tag:you’ll know I have a Day’s 10 TopicalTweets going out that you can view in all their glory, if you are so inclined, by using the twitter search engine, any time – well, any time except today, of course – and typing in #D10T (or whatever other hashtag you might be interested in looking into) where it says “this hashtag” as shown below.

This is one of the things I love most about twitter.

I learn something new every day.

#Literally.

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If you’d like to follow me on twitter, you can find me @usegraymatter.

A Deeper Dive into Twitter Follow Strategies

Maybe not everyone would call the choice to click follow or unfollow a “strategy,” but when you click that button, it’s a conscious choice. Even setting up one of those awful auto-DM services is a conscious choice, and I would thereby suggest, a strategy.

“It’s not about the numbers.”

Baloney, I say. While I may not care how many followers I have, I do care who I follow. And I can’t help but notice their numbers. Who of us doesn’t look at a person’s “numbers” when reviewing his/her twitter profile. (Auto-DMers excluded, of course.)

Here are a few follow strategies I’ve identified in my twitter travels…

THE AUTO-FOLLOW STRATEGY

APPLICATION: You have 10,000 followers and the number grows every day. No way you could respond personally. It just doesn’t scale.

PROS: Time-efficient

CONS: Impersonal

TOOLS: Socialtoo.com

THE EVEN-STEVEN FOLLOW STRATEGY

APPLICATION: A) You feel that if people follow you, you’d like to follow back, but you’d first like to (manually) view their twitter profiles to determine if the mutual follow will be mutually beneficial. AND/OR, B) you want to follow people ONLY if they follow you back and you (may or may not) want to automate that process.

PROS: A) Improves the quality of your personal twitter community and offers the opportunity to send a personal Thank You DM, which can lead to some great extended conversations; B) Nice even numbers, process can be automated

CONS: A) Time-consuming if manual; B) Questionable quality if automated

TOOLS: A) You and your computer; B) Socialtoo.com

THE DOUBLE TAKE FOLLOW STRATEGY

APPLICATION: I had at first suspected hubris until I inquired further on this one. Turns out that some people whose numbers are heavy on the followers side and light on the follow side only follow back people who @, DM or RT them. So you can get their attention, and they may be more than willing to follow back or connect via email, but it’s a 2-step outreach for you either way.

PROS: Time-efficient

CONS: One-sided

TOOLS: With @, DM and RT alerts via tweetdeck or email alerts via tweetbeep you get a ping when you are mentioned

THE UNEQUIVOCALLY UNRECIPROCATED FOLLOW STRATEGY

APPLICATION: UberTwitterati and VIPs want to provide you with their insights but have no interest in following just anyone. That is, why follow? Why not lead? (It’s all the rage, these days.)

PROS: A very uncrowded twitter stream

CONS: A very unrequited exchange

TOOLS: Unecessary

THE RANDOM FOLLOW STRATEGY

APPLICATION: Spam.

PROS: None

CONS: Bad Karma

TOOLS: The people who do this

Those are my observations. Personally, I opt for balance in my follow strategy. I still look for quality new people to follow and if someone follows me, I still manually check every twitter profile before I follow back. If I choose not to follow someone back, then I would find it more than reasonable for that person to stop following me, if they so choose. I’m in this for the give and take. I am as delighted to Retweet as I am to be Retweeted.  I realize that I’m not going to have regular conversations with every single person in my twitter community, but I know they’re there because we have something in common and the door to direct two-way communication remains wide open…just like in real life.

So what’s your twitter follow strategy? What are the pros and cons you face? What tools do you use to make it all work?

Just don’t tell me you don’t look at the numbers. Because I’m not buyin’ it. The numbers count. And it should be clear by now that I’m not talking about quantity.

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• Why I Hate Twitter Auto-Response And Why You Should Too.
• My Top 5 Twitter Tips
• Who To Follow On Twitter?
• New to Twitter? Let Mr. Tweet Help
• Twitter me this-if auto DMs are such a pain, why do so many people use them?

Alright people. Party’s over. Time to dig into 2009. Set the course. Adjust the steering. Power ahead.

Up until now, my posts have illustrated my obvious enthusiasm about engaging in various communication platforms which we’ll call “social media” for the time being. And doing so has made my world so much bigger, so very quickly.

Consider That Networking Now Means Getting the ‘Net Working For You

The very fact that most of my subscribers are NOT friends and family tells me (and thus, you) how much bigger a person’s world can get when you put yourself out there. This was not how I thought things would get going. Believe me, I’ve been doing virtual handstands to get my friends and family to jump on the party bus with me. I finally had to pay a few of them off, although I think they would have been willing to pay me to leave them alone…could this be a new strategy for monetizing my blog? (Hmm, may have to give that strategy some serious thought.)

You Learn Something New Every Day.

How could you not? At any given time I know that if I have a question about something, I can Tweet it to HUNDREDS of people and they will share their answers and ideas. I know that by using my RSS feed to follow the blogs of DOZENS of businesspeople, designers, artists, authors, up-and-comers, motivators and innovators, I will get the content I’m most interested in delivered right to me, automatically.

Social media is about opening the door to one-to-one conversations, but it’s also open to the masses.

If my efforts thus far have inspired you to take a new look at your LinkedIn profile, join facebook or sign up for a twitter account, then a big “Ta-Da” goes out to you, right here and now. If you’ve invested the time to understand how these platforms work, you’ll probably agree that they enable us to converge, en masse, only to organically and, rather efficiently, find other people who share common interests and can enhance your/our thinking. I mean people you really want to talk to…people who are happy to share information and expertise.

I’ve had my “Ta-Da” moment.

After much, much, much, much ado, GrayMatter Minute is designed, coded, redesigned, recoded, tweaked, recoded, tested, recoded, officially launched, live and fully functional, even in blankety-blank Internet Explorer, (hence the need for all the aforementioned recoding).

“Ta-Da!”

Now it’s time to move my conversation forward. Please join me. This is going to be fun. So…what would you like to talk about next?

Ask a question. Go ahead, I’m serious. Or am I going to have to break out that “triple dog dare” again?

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Friends don’t let friends use Internet Explorer.

Having been entrenched in the redesign of this blog for the past month, I was suffering “blog-posting withdrawal.” And while I recognize that starting off here by “reposting” Darren Rowse’s TwiTip guest post by Jenny Cromie (“8 Ways that Twitter Can Grow Your Freelance Business“) isn’t quite as rewarding as getting original content on the boards, it does give me a chance to test my rockin’ new template, as well as remote posting using ShareThis.

It also provided me with the light bulb that I now have a TWITTER FOR BUSINESS case study to tout (or tweet, if you like).

Before I dive into that, I want to take this opportunity to thank Shane Poteete at BUILT CREATIVE for his collaboration, patience, dedication and determination in what started as a “little blog-building project” that wasn’t little at all, it turns out. (After all, blogs often do build big communities.) So a deep-hearted thanks to Shane and his team for their design and (far-beyond-the-initial-scope) code work.

I also want to thank the folks at We Fix WP, a business I met on TWITTER!!! (Thus begins my case study on how Twitter can help your business!)

The folks at We Fix WP saw a post I made on Twitter about WordPress, the platform for this blog. (Well, it was actually a post about how Internet Explorer is destroying the universe, which resulted in a contact from a website dedicated to freeing the web from the ruinous force that is IE6, but I digress.) We Fix WP returned a tweet offering assistance. We moved our discussion offline and they rounded out our effort swiftly and seamlessly. After working with them, I now consider them my go-to WordPress resource.

But the story doesn’t end there!

Along the way, I reached out to a few other Twitter friends (@rjleaman, @jamesdickey, @niknaz, @discocowboy, @afhill, @atwookie, @mousewords, @calebhays, @jaskeg, @coreymade, @afhill to name a few) and received valuable feedback and support throughout the redesign/recoding phase of my blog relaunch—all communicated via Twitter. I then twansmitted (sorry, couldn’t help myself) their feedback along to the team at Built Creative and, together, we processed it all accordingly.

So the next time you see me and ask me what Twitter has done for my business…sit down and make yourself comfortable, because my answer will be anything but brief. But that should come as no surprise to anyone who has ever chatted with me, online or off. Which reminds me, if you’d like to share the gift of gab, my twitter handle is @usegraymatter.

Thanks again to everyone who supported my design, technical, creative, branding and social media objectives. And especially to Shane who NEVER got mad at me for messing with the code. Even though, he was given VERY good reason to—often.

I promise not to touch it. Much.

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Believe the Hype
Twitter, Linkedin, Facebook, My Space, SlideShare, Flickr…it’s a lot, I know. And I keep hearing the same question: “But have you gotten any business out of it?” My answer: That’s not why I can be found at any of those places (at the moment). I’ve jumped in the water and I’m soaked through to the virtual skin with the possibilities of it all. I’m in a service business, but right now, these web-based social venues are not about “getting more business” online—they’re about “getting more out of my business network” online so I can build my business better offline.

Learn. Share. Link.
The truth is, I haven’t even scratched the surface of what any of these social media outlets can do for me. The untapped potential at my fingertips is enough to keep me awake at night, I tell you. Now, instead of going online to search for information that I’m interested in, the information I’m interested in comes directly to me. Once you find the global, national, regional and/or local leaders in your online community, you’ll have instant and consistent access to the content, thinking and innovation that may inspire you on the local level. In turn, you can then filter, frame and forward on content, thinking and innovation to (and for) the clients, peers or prospects who are interested in what you have to say. (HINT: This is the part where you actually DO “get business out of it.”)
So instead of looking at online social media outlets as “forced socialization” (which is how some real life networking functions can feel), think of it as “flexible socialization” that you can customize, alter, enhance, engage and disengage at a hard cost of $0. And as an added bonus, you don’t even have to dress up and put on your uncomfortable shoes. The only cost here is your time. And for that, I say input equals output.

Make Social Media Make Sense To You
If you STILL think you “don’t have time” for this stuff, consider finding a few (or even one!) good blogs to read that are put forth by someone who has invested the time to sift through the virtual layers of dialogues, chatter, posts, walls, comments, etc. (Obvious recommendation to subscribe to my posts here on GrayMatter Minute, as just one REALLY GOOD example.) And chances are you’re going to eventually find yourself wanting to join the conversation. When you do, be strategic and break it down:

Stop Talking Yourself Out of It and Tweet Yourself Into It, Already!
I recommend trying Twitter as a starting point if your online objectives are business oriented, as are mine. Twitter will lead you to great blogs, great thinkers, great sites, endless resources and even face-to-face meetups (or “TweetUps” as they are called) with other tweeters. Here’s a great post from Sarah Evans (a.k.a. @PRsarahevans on Twitter) that can help you get your head around the Twitter “How To’s” so you can fast track your learning curve. You’re also going to want to check out Darren Rowse’s blog: TwiTip.

Move Yourself From A Follower to A Following
Take it from someone who was never a big fan of networking events because they felt so forced. It’s the absolute and unabashed flexibility social media offers me that has me singing…er, tweeting, posting and facebooking…its praises. You’ll be amazed at what building your own little (or big) following can do for your business. You’ll probably even find yourself no longer asking if you’re “getting any business out of” social media and focusing more on the value you’re “bringing to it.” And that, folks, is the real bottom line on social media.

Find Me and Say Hello
Get to know my business better on LinkedIn: Renee Lemley
Join the conversation I’m having on Twitter: www.twitter.com/usegraymatter

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I promise myself (and my 1 other follower…thanks, mom) that I will return to the written word in my posts very soon here on my little blogcast, but I keep stumbling upon these fantastic video links that do such a GREAT job showing some of the things I’d otherwise be trying to say in my posts.

So here’s another, for all the folks who keep asking me, “What is Twitter?” (And there are a lot of you out there. You know who you are.) This one’s for you…

You can link directly to this video presentation at TwiTip, a blog for newcomers to Twitter. Or head straight to youtube if that’s where you’re most comfortable, virtually speaking. TwiTip is edited by Darren Rowse from ProBlogger and is all about getting started on Twitter and making the most of your twitterstream. This site will be a much needed “How To and Why Should I” for newbies. So if you are a newbie, I highly recommend you signup for his RSS feed or Subscribe via email.

If you’d like to follow Darren Rowse on Twitter, just click on @problogger.

Like lists? Don’t miss: 17 Ways You Can Use Twitter by Dosh Dosh, a blog offering “internet marketing and blogging tips, alongside social media strategies. Best consumed by bloggers, entrepreneurs, web publishers, marketers, freelancers and small business owners.”

Like pulp? Leaf through some of the very handy resources on the Twitter for Business Reading List from Pistachio Consulting.

That’s all for today. Time to close out another gray matter minute, always committed to saving you time online. Well, look at that! Managed to do some actual writing along with this video post. Hope you find the links useful.

image source: iMediaConnection

With so much information and technology available, changing and churning, it’s a challenge for any busy person to keep up with new social media outlets without feeling like you’ve been pulled into an endless “time suck.”

But don’t let the potential perception of social media (SM) as time-wasting technology override the long term benefits of keeping up with the “Joneses, Inc.”

You may not think you have the time, but your customers and clients do. And after dipping your toes in the SM water, you’ll be surprised how many of your peers are using the latest online tools to communicate, network, link, blog, SlideShare, bookmark and boost SEO. It’s not a bad idea to take a closer look at how you want to define your social spectrum.

By reading the leading bloggers or following the most twitterful tweeters, you’ll also be able to find ways SM can act as a “time saver” instead of a “time suck” when it comes to generating leads, finding resources and staying current on innovative marketing trends.

Here are a few articles that offer a few of the WHY’s of why Social Media is becoming a Social Must:

Why Social Media? Bridging the “productivity divide.”
Why Blog?
Why Twitter? How to use Twitter for Marketing & PR.
Why is it that if I’m not LinkedIn, I’ll be LeftOut?
Why should I use SlideShare? What is SlideShare?

What’s the bottom line?
The SM technology train is moving fast. Now is a good time to find out how you can enjoy the ride…