Posts Tagged ‘Twitter’

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First Post of New Year (2010)

Tuesday, January 5th, 2010
Sydney New Years Eve Fireworks 2007
Image by Christopher Chan via Flickr

It’s 2010?  Already? 4 days ago?

Yeah, Yeah I know, it’s already January 4th and I am just now posting my first post.  Get over, I have – :-)

I was extremely ill last week with a stomach bug, and was in bed most of the day January 1, worked everyday since and as I write this at 11:20pm I have just finished working for the day.

Pertaining to Work

Speaking of work, we recently debuted the updated Live Event Center at the Professional Bull Riders – much smoother user interface, much better updates and runs much faster than before.  It will be bringing live updates this weekend as the PBR invades New York City!

In additional working news, I am working with the fine photographers from Bull Stock Media, the official photographers to the PBR.  I am helping them update and maintain their web site, which is going to be pretty fun considering what great guys Andy and Matt are.

Nikon D5000 Digital SLR with AF-S DX VR Zoom-N...
Image via Wikipedia

Did someone say photography?

My awesome wife, knowing how hard it is to decide on items for me for Christmas, went out on a limb this year and simply gave me a Visa Gift Card.  How cool is that?  So cool that I am in the process of listing a bunch of items on eBay that I have had laying around for far too many years so that others can enjoy watching them collect dust as I have these years.  Why?  My next goal is to get me a beginner to intermediate Digital SLR camera and begin taking more and better photos.  I have always wanted one, and it appears I may be able to see that dream happen – so yeah, my wife ROCKS!  I am leaning towards a Nikon – either a used D40 or a new D5000 – yes big price difference, but we will have to see how fast and how much I can earn on eBay, which if you click the eBay link you can see what I am trying to sell ;0)

Speaking of photography I think I will be starting a photoblog to go along with the camera once it has arrived.  Yes I know I hardly update this one (or any of the other 4-5 blogs I write on), but hey, lofty ideas sometimes come to fruition, right?  Right.

If you didn’t know….

In case you didn’t know, I launched a new blog some time ago.  Yes it only has one post, but I believe it will become part of the photoblog and will become a more personal blog – for posts much as these.  You can find it at: billynab.com – pretty easy to remember since it’s my name.  It launched November 27, 2009 and has one post, another one going up tonight and maybe more soon.  Or….maybe in a month….my blogging schedule is low priority right now.

If that wasn’t good enough to know that you can still find my occasional tweets on Twitter – @southplatte – where I send a few tweets here and there.  I used to tweet much more, of course that was before I got extremely busy making the Interwebz work.

Speaking of making the Interwebz work

One of my goals for 2010 is to get some “industry” certifications. You know the piece of paper I can use to claim I know what I am doing on making the web work.  Actually I nearly have my B.S. degree finished so I may finish that as well.  However, in the mean time (simply because time permits quick study and quick tests) I will be trying to obtain my ColdFusion certification, PHP certification and possibly my Java certification this year.  I could be real lofty and try for my C# as well, but we’ll wait and see how many of the three I get done first, okay.

For many of you that might read this, you may not remember the prank I pulled on April Fool’s day last year.  It was one of the biggest traffic days I had all year – so be on the look out in a few months for something else fun, mimicking, or full of gimmickry.  Why?  Because we all need a laugh, and we all need some fun in life.

Laughter? How about the final laugh?

One of the goals I have for 2010 is to laugh more.  I feel it is a gatekeeper of all that is good, and can mend many things that drag us down in our daily life.  Often I am so serious, so intense on what I am working on my sense of humor is fading and failing.  No more of that.  My sense of humor is actually rather dry – so I try not to joke to much because so many people think I am serious – but oh well, if they truly know me, then they know me.  So lets laugh this year, share a joke or two.  Let’s take some photographs, work on some web sites that kick ass and get together on social networking, shall we?

Why not.

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Posted in Blogging, Off-Topic | No Comments »

It’s All In A Week

Monday, April 20th, 2009

The past 7 days, yes week, have been simply incredible, strange, exciting, changing, and all around crazy.

It started last Wednesday with an email about a job interview. I had interviewed twice before with the company, and their needs have now changed so they brought me back in. I will find out in a day or two if I am the candidate selected. So tonight I have been brain dumping ideas, sorting and preparing in case my life changes tomorrow. If not, I needed to do the brain dump anyway.

A few other things have happened this past week. I started a “social” experiment on Twitter. I was going to start testing the “celebrities” to see which ones truly care and interact with people. Pointless, I know. But still I think they represent a very interesting part of Twitter. I have tried to interact with @moonfrye without a reply. Yes, she is up nearing 300,000 followers, but I started when she was at less than 5,000 followers, and never a response. Expected.

The next “celebrity” I tried to interact with literally shocked me out of my stupor. @kathyireland not only responded, but then went on to carry a conversation on Twitter with me. Interacting, asking questions, responding to my questions. She even started following my wife, @raekaye, and I both. Asking questions, sending DMs and generally being very proactive and very engaging. You can’t fake this stuff people, and if you look at her Twitter stream, you will notice she interacts with quite a few people. That is powerful. Why?

Take a look at what happened during the @aplusk and @cnnbrk saga. The push to hit 1,000,000 followers. Sure there is interaction, but most people think “snob”. Use something other than Twitter. Some have gone so far as to say @aplusk and other “celebrities” (see @oprah) have ruined Twitter. Not so fast – if nothing else they need to be there to protect their personal brand, just as companies need to be there to protect their brand. If either side interacts – it opens a whole new world for them and their supporters.

That brings me to today. Job interview is over – I feel it went very well. I will know in less than 24 hours what the outcome is. It also brings me to today where I did a complete brain dump to my wife of so many thoughts, ideas and just simple things that have been crowding my brain for a while now. This not only helped get them out of my main thought process to be clear for the interview, but also sort them and organize them to start creating forward motion.

So – what about you? What are your thoughts on Twitter celebrities? The job market and interviews? Do you do brain dumps to others, paper, voice or something else to organize? Chime in the comments and let us all know!

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Posted in Off-Topic, Social Media | 2 Comments »

TwtPoll: Auto-DMs

Wednesday, April 1st, 2009

There has been quite a bit of discussion on Twitter users sending auto-DMs to new followers. Some think they are great, but it seems most feel they are useless, sometimes rude and generally not okay to do. Most of the time they come in the form of: “Hey, thanks for the follow. Check out my link/blog/MLM/Scam/Whatever” and so it is understandable that it can be taken as those aforementioned thoughts and feelings.

However, I wonder, would it change if it was businesses sending the auto-DMs? Does that change perception? Some on Twitter said it would even be worse if a business, especially a large corporation, let’s say Dell or Toys-R-Us used this method. My thought process took it one step further, would it change the outlook for Twitter users IF the auto-DM contained a coupon code, discount code, rebate offer or other special offer?

That last thought changed some views, and that is why I am running this poll. Does it change the view if, let’s say hypothetically, one of Dell’s Twitter accounts sent an auto-DM with a 20% or 30% e-code or coupon code? It would be a one-time auto-DM that could really provide some great deals only offered through the auto-DM and nowhere else. Would that change the view of Twitter users? Maybe. Then again, maybe not.

Take the poll and chime in your thoughts in the comments and let’s see what happens – maybe a shift in the auto-DM feelings? Maybe a shift in who uses them and how they are used?


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Posted in Social Media, Twitter | Comments Off

Twitter and TRUE Rockstars

Friday, March 20th, 2009

On Thursday, March 19, 2008 I had the privilege of watching history take place. Yeah, I know you have all heard that before. THIS is different.

Good guy Danny Brown (@dannybrown)is the brainchild behind 12for12k – raising $12,000 for 12 charities in 12 months. Each month a different charity is picked, and money is raised in support of that charity. Someone happened to his idea this month. That someone was Scott Stratten (@unmarketing). Scott organized a 12-hour Tweet-a-Thon for 12for12k’s March charity, Strength.org.

For 12 hours, Scott pushed the envelope on Twitter. Through the combined efforts of many, spearheaded by Scott and Danny, in 12 hours $13,000 was raised. $13,000 in 12 hours, that is more than $1000/hour in donations.

You know, many people talk about social media not being worth the time or effort. Others talk about how it can and cannot be used. Yet still some say it is a passing fad, just as they do with anything that is “new”. Yesterday, I witnessed the social media micro-blogging service known as Twitter blow so many myths and rumors about ways to do things, what can and can not be done and rules simply shattered.

We MUST NOT label tools because we can all use them for the ways we want, and purposes we want, short of being a snot-nose-spammer – that’s wrong no matter what the tool.

I don’t personally know either Danny or Scott. I do know this – I seen something amazing on March 19th from these two, and I know they are good people from what they did. There were countless people helping to Tweet and retweet calls to action. Each one of us making a small difference, that collectively raised enough money to help feed over 500,000 children over summer break here in the United States. That is power my friends – when you can use a tool to accomplish that type of feat in ONE DAY, in 12 HOURS no less.

It is not about the number of followers, the number of readers or any numbers at all. It is about the passion of connecting, interacting and creating positive value for those who are in your network. Seeing Scott’s and Danny’s passion yesterday was awe inspiring and humbling. Seeing the passion of those tweeting and retweeting was the same. If we only use the tools as a way to get as high of number as possible on readers and followers, just to broadcast our messages to I think we are going to miss quite a few GREAT things that people are doing.

Don’t believe me?

Why don’t you just try it for yourself. Instead of using tools and gimmicks to gain mass followers to whom you merely broadcast yourself and your message to, why not build your followers by way of engagement, interaction and conversation. Sure, it does take longer. In the end though, when you call your network to action, they will do just that ACT. March 19th proved that to me.

To me, Scott and Danny are Twitter & Social Media ROCKSTARS with an exception – they are EXCEPTIONAL people who INTERACT, ENGAGE, CONVERSE and CARE about their networks – it is NOT just a numbers game to either of them.

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Posted in Social Media, Twitter | 1 Comment »

Do You Follow Through?

Wednesday, March 11th, 2009

Yesterday I wrote about a great customer service interaction with our phone provider Qwest. I will update that post with more information about what has happened, what is going to happen and how it all works out. In the meantime however, I wanted to take a moment and write about follow through.

You see, the tech came out and checked and we have a bad drop from the box at the corner of our property to our house. So he ran a new temporary line. About 2 hours later I was contacted by the contractor that is going to run a new underground line to the house. I no more hung up from that call and Steph from @TalkToQwest sent me a DM through Twitter. The purpose? FOLLOW-THROUGH! She wanted to make sure things were getting resolved. When she found out we needed a new line, which will take some time given they have to locate underground utilities, mark them, dig, run line and test she apologized that it couldn’t all be resolved today. No problem – I understand what it takes to run cable, been there-done that type of thing. But the follow through. Amazing.

Oh yeah, I was also thanked for the post yesterday giving props to the Qwest team and their service on this issue. That was unnecessary albeit welcomed and impacting.

So how about it. Do you follow through with your customers? Even if just to say hello or to check and see how things are going? Why or why not? Should you?

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Posted in Marketing, Social Media, Twitter, customer service | Comments Off

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