Hootsuite Questions (asked on Twitter)
This post is for: @lizlange and @casualinteriors
hootsuite Qs
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Q1: what is the “favorite tweet” stream-seems to contain random tweets. which stream shows
A1: Favorites are tweets you clicked the “star” next to. They are the ones you want saved so you and others can see them. Not everyone uses them. I typically will Favorite a tweet about a blog post I put out or maybe something that just struck me and I wanted to keep it – like bookmarking a page, or highlighting a passage in a book.
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Q2: which stream title shows my tweets retweeted by others?
A2: I find the “My Tweets Retweeted” stream useless since it doesn’t tell me who retweeted me. You can see this information on Twitter.com. I’ll look more deeply into Hootsuite and see if I’m missing something.
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Q3: why does “mentions” stream have gap from 8:30am until i “woke it back up” @ 5:3 -mentions in between missing.
A3: Did you click the refresh icon to refresh the stream? That may bring in the missing @ mentions.
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I recommend checking Help Desk at Hootsuite for answers. Typically that’s where we go first. Also, we play with the software a lot – looking in every menu we can find! 
Please let me know if you have additional questions. If I can, I will answer them.
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Additional Resources can be found under our Resources page.
Regarding LinkedIN: Be sure to wear a tie
This is the Brandon Pierce avatar that upset LinkedIN. Yes, that is a photo of my hand.
LinkedIN informed me today the photo of my hand as a profile pic is inappropriate.
I left corporate America for so many reasons a series of books would be in order to explain them all. One was the dress code. I’ve lived off a company I own for more than 8 years now and I dress how I like, and present myself as I see fit.
I’m not a normal person, never claimed to be. But I am creative. And I’ve stayed self-employed through my wits and my creativity all this time. Years ago I chose the hand as my avatar because it best represented my commitment to being a creative person.
So I wrote back to LinkedIN (after my initial email that said I should’ve put a tie on my finger to be more professional) and asked them why focus on this? Why focus on a photo of my hand as inappropriate when I get inundated with spam weekly from folks who harvest my email address from groups or just sign me up for their newsletter because I’m connected to them on LinkedIN? It seems LinkedIN has bigger issues than just my hand…
For now, I’ve taken my hand avatar off LinkedIN. I have no picture. I am better represented that way… for now.
In a very real sense, this shows LinkedIN doesn’t totally understand, nor support, personal branding.
LinkedIN recently posted “Pimp my Row” on Facebook… Apparently this sort of content is appropriate. Do they mean like human trafficking, prostitution? Were they trying to be witty?
What do you consider inappropriate on LinkedIN?
What constitutes a true representation of a person? (Is it a photo of that person – such as one shot at a Sears photo studio in the mall?)
references:
LinkedIN’s “Pimp my Row” post… Apparently this is appropriate. (Thank you Kristen Daukas for sharing this!)
Do You Participate in #Twitter chats?
For those of you who are active twitter users you know how integral twitter chats are to your social media strategy and growing organic relationships.
Twitter chats help you tap into a community of like minded users who gather on a regular basis to share ideas, ask questions and help each other grow the way they they think, collaborate and do business.
Take a moment to read this fantastic article by @angelamaiers on Social Media Explorer.
Are Twitter Chats Part Of Your Social Media Strategy?
Still wondering what the heck a hashtag is? This is a great resource from the very helpful fella’s over at twitter.
If you are interested in jumping into a chat, here is a growing collection of great twitter chats to put on your social media editorial calendar.
For those of you in the interior design and home furnishings industry you will appreciate these chats recommended by @tkpleslie
#designtv Mondays at 11:30 am ET – http://www.facebook.com/DesignTVChat – follow @DesignTVChat
#intdesignerchat Tuesdays at 6pm ET – http://designerchat.wordpress.com/ – follow @IntDesignerChat
#homespachat Tuesdays at 8pm ET – http://artofthespa.net/about-3/ - follow @HomeSpaChat
#getpublishedchat 1st Wednesday of the month (plus special editions) 6pm ET – http://getpublishedchat.com/ – follow @GetPublishdChat
#tablechat Wednesdays at 4pm ET – http://www.at-the-table.com/ – follow @TableChat
For you foodies out there here are a couple of great twitter chats to get your mouth watering!
#chefchat Wednesdays at 2pm ET - http://billyparisi.com/ - follow @ChefBillyParisi
#FNIchat Mondays at 4pm ET – http://www.cookingwithcaitlin.com/foodies-night-in/ – follow @cookingwcaitlin
Thanks to Mashable to these Tasty Tweets: 55+ Foodies to Follow on Twitter
MORE Chats to add to your calendar!
- Be sure to check our @deirdrereid‘s post on her favorite twitter chats! She offers a great list of some of the best chats on twitter!
- Rebecca Subbiah of Chow and Chatter reccomends @RDchat (#RDchat) which is a monthly food and nutrition chat on Twitter moderated by @JanetHelm that takes place on the first Wednesday of the month from 8-9 pm ET.
- Rebecca aka @chowandchatter, also recommends Travel Talk On Twitter (#TTOT) moderated by @traveldudes which takes place each Tuesday at 9:30 am and at 9:30 pm GMT. If you are a traveler at heart you can tweet with travelers about topics and questions, which were submitted on Facebook.
What twitter chats do you participate in?
Share the hashtag and time they happen so we can add your recommendations and join you!
Why are you watching me!?
I'm watching you!
This post is for all us superstars out there, who feel like somebody is watching!
Probably because I’m on Twitter, Facebook, and now on YouTube… I always feel like somebody’s watching me. And that zombie movie I checked out on IMDB.com is now showing up in my ad feed on Facebook… I know Facebook is watching me!
Well if you feel like that too, this video clip is for you.
(and yes, I do know this is a cover version)
“I wonder who is watching me now?” Great lyric, and all the more relevant now that social media makes it so easy to track users.
Advertisers love it of course – they love more data on who is doing what – and speculating on the why and what that means to their bottom line…
How much privacy are you willing to give up so your web surfing leads you to better deals and more appropriate advertising?
Does all this attention make you feel like a superstar?
Email Marketing Etiquette: “The Opt-In”
Email Marketing - the Opt-In
This morning I’m reminded of a basic principle of email marketing and etiquette: the opt-in.
“Opting in” is when the recipient has given express permission to contact her via email. She has provided her email address through a sign-up form on your website or by filling out a paper form in your place of business. She knows she will be receiving your newsletter at some point in the future. She’s “opted-in” – she wants to hear your message.
But she did not give express permission just because you have her business card or corresponded via email a couple of times before… Or an all time most annoying one: just because you connected with her on Linkedin and she posted her email address in her profile – it’s not an invitation to add her to your newsletter.
I have a lot of contacts that reach out to me for various reasons: to offer services, share up-coming events, announce new births or a up-coming wedding… etc. Sometimes these notifications come through in an email newsletter. More often, a newsletter I didn’t sign up for.
If someone you’d like to receive your newsletter hasn’t “opted-in“, it is good practice to ask the recipient beforehand if they’d like to be on your newsletter list. Most Email Marketing Service Providers offer a double-opt-in.
iContact assumes your list is comprised of folks that signed-up for your newsletter (or in other words: they opted-in). The double-opt-in feature allows the recipient to confirm: Yes, yes I do want to receive your email newsletter. In Constant Contact it’s a simple on/off toggle.
So before you hit that send button on your newsletter to all those folks who did not sign up for it, at least turn on the double-opt-in feature so they can have some say in the matter.
I have a specific email address for all the newsletters I subscribe to, do you? I usually contact them to give them the correct “newsletters-only” email address if I’m interested, despite them signing me up without asking. If not interested, it goes to the spam folder, perhaps inspires a blog post, but definitely is gone and forgotten.
Have you ever been signed up for an email newsletter that you didn’t opt-in? How did you handle it? How do you recommend handling it?
Reference: The CAN-SPAM Act: A Compliance Guide for Business (this what the government and the law has to say about “opting-in” or as some may consider unsolicited emails: spam)
#Firefox on the Mac fix for #YouTube video not playing
YouTube Won't Play
Some of you like myself updated Firefox and lost the ability to play video on YouTube. I researched into it and found a fix. Here goes:
Download the Zip file with instructions and Adobe DMG Flash Player Install/un-Install files
Here are the basics, if you want to download the files yourself.
Go to Adobe.com and download the un-Installer app for Flash Player. Also download the Flash Player installer app.
Once you’ve downloaded the files, here’s what you do:
1) Close all of your browsers (InternetExplorer, Safari, Chrome, Firefox, etc.)
2) Run the un-Installer app
3) Run the Flash Install app
This should fix your YouTube video issue on Firefox for the Mac. It worked great for me. Let me know if you run into any issues.
What technical issues have you run into with Firefox or YouTube?
#HowTo make a @WordPress post
This tutorial provides an introduction for how to make WordPress posts. This will be the first in an on-going series of How-To’s for WordPress authored by the Farmers here at Experience Farm.
Some of the particulars may vary depending on the version of WordPress you have and the particular Theme you currently have installed.
Items covered:
- Add New Post
- Selecting a Title
- Introducing the Toolbar
- Adding Content
- Inserting a Photo or Graphic
- Inserting a Link
- Inserting a YouTube video
Add New Post
Add New Post:
From the Dashboard, on the left hand side, click Posts, then Add New.
Selecting a Title:
Let’s start with the “Title“. Select something descriptive. Remember this is the first impression most people have of your post.
Try to use a keyword or keyword phrase in the Title. Search engines love text.
Setting your post's Title
I used “WordPress” in the Title because it’s a great keyword for this particular post.
tooltip for "Kitchen Sink"
Introducing the Toolbar:
Hover over any of the Tools in the Toolbar and a tooltip will display showing you what that Tool is called.
On the far right you’ll notice there is an icon that is a square with dots in it. Hovering over this Tool will show the name to be: “Show/Hide Kitchen Sink“. I’m a big fan of the Kitchen Sink! I like having the Undo button, extra text formatting options, and more. I recommend getting in the habit of working with the Kitchen Sink shown so you get the full range of Tools in the toolbar.
This is how the Kitchen Sink looks when shown.
Adding Content:
Type into the text field what you’d like to say. You can Bold your text or put it in Italics. You can strike through text: Like This. The tools are similar to most standard text editors.
WordPress Text Field
"Add an Image" tooltip
Inserting a Photo or Graphic:
Adding images is easy, and optimizing them for the search engines is easy as well. In the Toolbar, click on the icon just to the right of “Upload/Insert”. This will call up the “Add an image” window.
Inserting an Image In a Post
Title and Alternate Text are ways to provide additional information on a photo/graphic. Hovering over the image will display this info. Search engines read this too.
Caption: Add a Caption for photos/graphics that need information visible below the image.
Alignment: You can have the text in your post wrap the image, select the Left, Center, or Right – depending on where you’d like the image to be aligned to.
Size: If your image is over-large, you can select Thumbnail, Medium, or Large to make it smaller. Chose Full-Size if you don’t need to change the size.
Inserting a Link:
Inserting links to other webpages is easy to do. Select the text you want to be a link, then click on the 
symbol in the Toolbar. I usually select Open in new Tab/Window. This leaves your blog open in the visitor’s browser even though the visitor has navigated to the linked page.
Inserting a YouTube Video:
Ok, learning this one took me some time to figure out. I thought it should be a whole lot harder – so I totally missed how simple it is!
Go to the YouTube.com and pick out your video. Copy the url of this video, paste it into your WordPress post where you’d like the video to appear. Yes, it is that simple.
Copy then Paste the YouTube Web Address to Insert Video into WordPress post
Insert Post Tags:
The best description of what Post Tags are and why to use them (from @MyBusinessPresence on her blog MyBusinessPresence.com – this is a great article about Tag Posts) :
Using Post Tags on your WordPress blog not only helps your readers find related articles by clicking on the tags, but it is also a great way to add relevant keywords to your posts, which help it become found by the search engines.
Post Tags
Conclusion:
This concludes our introduction to “How to make a WordPress post”.
Check out our Resources page for more WordPress how-to’s and tutorials.
What would you like to learn about WordPress?
Y2K: The End is Nigh
IN THE YEAR TWO THOUSAND!
As we are preparing for the end of the world next year, I’m reminded of Y2K.
Remember 1999 and the computer manufacturers warned us they’d neglected to account for the century turn over on their little digital calendars? … And thus the world was about to end.
The Got Milk? campaign capitalized on the hype:
Here’s how Nike took advantage of the fear:
Fear has always been a motivator for public opinion. Fear of lack of sales, fear of not having the right technology, fear of the end of the world! Usually I think of fear as a political tool, but it is also a powerful marketing tool.
The examples above are most definitely tongue and cheek. However, people were really concerned the world was going to screech to a halt as surely as if an EMP had obliterated all electronics. I’ve often wondered just how much money the Y2K software fix developers made off this fear.
One more example, this one is a print ad:
This ad for Isogon's TICTOC Year 2000 compliance software made a strong point. TICTOC was used to test Y2K compliance for MVS applications by setting fictitious dates on a job-by-job basis. (Image courtesy of Isogon Corporation, www.isogon.com)
How are advertisers currently capitalizing on fear?
What brands have you seen using fear in advertising?
Social Media Revolution 2
This is a great video, and yes, many of you have seen it already. I’m posting it for those of you that haven’t! 
“Social Media Revolution 2 is a refresh of the original video with new and updated social media & mobile statistics that are hard to ignore. Based on the book Socialnomics by Erik Qualman.”
[author's YouTube caption]
Chief Harvester- Let’s help CarlSometimes even doing a good deed can go wrong. Carl Wheeler stopped to help a minivan on the side of the road on I-40/85 early one July morning. A drunk driver collided with the parked minivan, and Carl was hurt badly. Darren Jones, the driver of the out of gas minivan died on the way […]
Chief Dirt Digger- Recipe : Leftover Spicy Zucchini Stir Fry BakeYou all may remember my Spicy Zucchini Stir Fry recipe. Well, this is a fun leftover bake that is perfect for breakfast! Time : Start to finish approximately 40 minutes What you will need : Leftover Spicy Zucchini Stir Fry 2 potatoes 4 eggs 1/4 cup heavy cream 1 medium tomato 1/4 cup red […]