If you are a Twitter user in the Rochester, NY area, then you are what I would call a “Roc Peep.”  That being said, there is a monthly lunch that takes place called “Roc Peeps Lunch” or known on Twitter as #RocPeepsLunch.  This was a lunch group that started just over a year ago.

It was a totally random thing. I had been tweeting out to some new Twitter connections in Rochester that I thought it would be fun to meet up for lunch and do some networking. Immediately a hashtag was created (#RocPeepsLunch) and we started tweeting about it.

January 2011 #RocPeepsLunch at Aja Noodle.

The first RocPeepsLunch was more than a year ago at Plum Garden in Pittsford.  We continue to meet monthly, and try to patronize various restaurants all around the Rochester area.  This enables people to come to a lunch on a month where the location is perhaps more convenient for them.  There are a few die-hards, like myself, who try to get to every lunch regardless of the location, but the really cool thing is we get new people each an every month.

Over the past year, the group has evolved, and we’ve added a page on Facebook to promote upcoming lunches, allow people to RSVP (so we can call ahead and let the restaurants know we are coming), and allow folks to post photos and comments about these lunch meetings.

This month’s lunch meeting was scheduled at a Mexican restaurant in Perinton Square Mall.  Being one of the first to arrive, I realized the restaurant was out of business.  Hmmm, issue – what to do?  Another fellow RocPeep was also there, and we quickly chose another location in the same plaza.  Now we had to get the word out…  Simple!  FourSquare Check-Ins shared to Twitter with the hashtag #RocPeepsLunch!

Any of the RocPeeps who got to that Mexican restaurant that was closed, could jump on FourSquare, Twitter or Facebook (via their mobile device) to very quickly see that the lunch had been moved and to where.  We were able to still have our lunch and not miss a beat!  Thank you FourSquare!  (Three cheers for social media!)

If you are a “RocPeep” and have not yet joined us for lunch – we’d love to meet you!  How do you get in the loop? Follow hashtag #RocPeepsLunch on Twitter, or join us on Facebook!  I personally have made some great friends, job recommendations have been made, and I know that some business deals have also come out of these informal lunches on more than one occasion.  (Here’s the lo-down on March’s RocPeepsLunch – come join us!)

I just reviewed the webinar: “The Science of ReTweets” (Viral Content Sharing on Twitter) by Viral Marketing Specialist @DanZarrella of HubSpot.  It was an hour of charts and graphs of statistical information about ReTweets, and how to get more of them.  I found to be quite helpful (as I do most HubSpot content).

Here are 5 tips I took away from this helpful webinar (and at the end of this post an expirement using the thoughts shared in this webinar to try to generate some ReTweets).

Tip 1:   Don’t be boring.  Going to sleep? Nobody cares…

There are words to avoid in your tweets that typically don’t get ReTweeted often.  Words like:  tired, sleep, bored, gonna, watching…    If you are climbing into bed watching a show on tv and listening to a song on your iPod – you don’t need to tweet about it. Chances are it won’t get ReTweeted anyway.

Tip 2:  Keep your tweet under 100 characters.  Make it easy to RT.

Kraft your tweet in such a way that your followers don’t need to edit/shorten it to make it fit within the 140 character limits of Twitter.  This is a great rule of thumb to consider when writing blog post titles.  Write them in such a way they can be easily ReTweeted (espcially if you are using a tool such at TweetMe).

Note: When someone RTs, your longer tweets do get shortened via a link to the original tweet.  Just something to keep in mind.  Shorter is better.

Tip 3:  Don’t self promote (and do nothing else)

Clearly, we use Twitter for the purpose of self-promotion or promoting the companies we work for – however…  Twitter is about relationships – provide value, share information freely, and look for ways to mutually help people that you communicate on Twitter.  You may be awesome, but don’t repeatedly tell the world that.  They wont ReTweet that content, and in fact – will probably un-follow at some point.

Just BE awesome, without telling the world you are awesome.  They’ll figure it out on their own.

Tip 4:  Keep it clean people

Swearing in your tweets may get your point across and people may agree with you, but chances are you will not get ReTweeted.  I may agree with your sentiment, but I will not Tweet bad language to my followers out of respect for them.  Negative emotions can have a positive reaction – if presented in a diplomatic and effective way.

Tip 5:  People don’t read, they scan – choose your words wisely

People this is not rocket science.  Depending on your follower base and how many they follow, you have about a fraction of a second get someone’s attention via your tweet.  Make it short, concise and interesting.   Statistics show that certain words get ReTweeted more than others.  Some of these words include:  you, help,  how to, new, etc…

Kraft your tweet in such a way that stands out, and makes your point clearly without using big words.

And now for the “experiment“

The title of this blog adheres to the rules which I’ve outlined above.   I will Tweet it once the post is published   It is under 100 characters (and will fall around 120 once I drop in the bit.ly link to this post).  I’ve also used a combination of the most ReTweeted words according to the webinar.  So we’ll see how much it get’s ReTweeted!  (I’m also sending this out at around 3:15 PM EST which is one of the higher ReTweet times of the day)

In summary – the Webinar was well worth the hour of my time, and has made me put more thought into how I create my tweets and what they will say going forward – not only for me, but for the company I represent on Twitter.

Happy Tweeting (PLEASE ReTweet)!

If you are not currently displaying your Tweets on your LinkedIn profile – you should be…  There are two ways to do this…  You can set up a connection between the two to update your LinkedIn status with your last tweet, or you can add the Twitter App which displays your tweet stream on your profile.  I have both set.  The status updates are helpful because your network connections can then see and comment on what you are tweeting about right inside LinkedIn.

Here’s a quick run down on how to set this up.

Log into your LinkedIn and Twitter accounts in your browser (open more than one tab).  Once in your LinkedIn account, in the upper right corner, select settings (shown here).

This will open up all your settings for your LinkedIn account.  From this list, you’ll chose Twitter Settings (shown below):

Once you’ve clicked into your Twitter settings, you’ll see a link to “Add Twitter Account”.   When you click that option a new window will open from Twitter (because you are already logged in to your Twitter account), that will automatically detect your Twitter accounts.  This window is asking you to authorize the connection between LinkedIn and Twitter  (see below):

You are almost done!  Once you’ve added it, you’ll see the display below.  You will want to set your account to visible, and share your tweets in your status on LinkedIn.  You may add more than one Twitter Account, but must select a primary to display tweets to your LinkedIn profile.

Note that shown above you can select whether you want ALL tweets to show up in your LinkedIn status updates, or whether you want only tweets that include the #in hashtag to show up.  Personally, I recommend all.  If you select the latter, you’ll need to remember to include #in within every tweet you want to show in your profile.

Hopefully this is simple enough to get you started.  You can also connect your Twitter account and your LinkedIn account through tools like TweetDeck, which allows you to see a stream of status updates from your connections on LinkedIn, but that’s for another post.

This updated of the social revolution captures the impact of social media.  Check it out…  (and thank you to @equalman for providing such a great snapshot)

Just spreading the word.  Twestival is next week people!  Rochester, NY Twestival will be held at Lovin’ Cup at Park Point at 6:PM on Thursday, March 25th.

Come and join the fun and support a great cause.  100% of all ticket sales goes directly to the chosen global charity Concern Worldwide.  Concern Worldwide is dedicated to reducing suffering and ending extreme poverty. Learn more:

Our story from Concern Worldwide on Vimeo.

Not only is this a great night out at a really cool spot with some fun tweeps, but it’s a way to support a global cause as well!

Hope to see you at #RocTwestival next week!

I recently attended a Social Media seminar hosted by a local Chamber of Commerce.  My goal for this first part in a 3 part series was to make sure I wasn’t missing the mark on any major social media networks I have been using.   By no means do I consider myself to be a ‘guru’ in social media, but what I found interesting was the number of business professionals who were not using what I consider the 3 major social media sites (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn).

It was a reminder to me that the small business owners I represent each day in my role as their eyes and ears on the internet is that most of them don’t have a clear understanding of what social media is or, or what it can mean to them.  I have to think of my clients as those of the 50 or so professional folks in that room who were not yet on Twitter and barely have a LinkedIn profile, let alone how those things will help them.

After the meeting I got talking with a few folks, two of which admitted they were on Twitter, but just not ‘tweeting’ yet out of fear of not having anything interesting to say.   Questions immediately started running through my head about how to pull out information from these folks about what was tweet-worthy info, or what their respective communities may be interested.  What would I want to know about if I were in their follower base?  Here were a few questions I had:

• what is your line of work
• who are your first line customers
• what questions are you frequently asked
• what problems or concerns do your customers or audience typically have
• what praises do your customers or audience typically have

So a municipality might tweet about leaf pickup, plowing policy and village or town events.  A manufacturer might tweet about supply and demand, industry news, or product innovations.  A politician might tweet about the issues that are pressing to his/her constituents.  A student might tweet about what’s going on in school or look for input on that thesis they’ve been working on.

As for a social media enthusiast like myself?  Well I just tweet about any and all of it.  I find watching what others are doing to be the most interesting.  I am intrigued by how much people value their relationships in the twitterverse and it’s evident in their tweets that they do.  (which I think is just about the coolest thing).

Twitter has also brought the world together during crisis – look at this past week with the earthquake in Chili and the predicted tsunami.  The waves turned out to be smaller than expected, but if you watched the Twitter stream in the hours prior, everyone was working together to get the word out – in concern for the well-being to those at risk.

Still not sure you have anything interesting to say?  Start spending a few minutes here or there watching your followers – as someone tweets something you find interesting – send a reply – open a dialog.  You might be surprised to see a new relationship unfold with the conversations that follow, and the folks that end up following along as a result.

Good luck and happy tweeting!

What a horrible image! Makes you think doesn't it?

Tuesday, January 19th, 2010 I woke up and said to myself, “I don’t feel like smoking anymore!”  It wasn’t something I planned or thought much about in advance.  I have talked about quitting smoking but always told myself that I had other things to fix in my life before I gave up the tobacco.  Here was my list:

• Get my spending/bad money habits under control (working on this!)
• Lose 40-50 lbs (already did that)
• Wait for my significant other to be ready to quit (he’s just not ready)
• New Year’s (or this date or that date – like ‘after my birthday’)
• When I move into my new place (that didn’t happen)

Excuses, excuses – and sometimes the spontaneous things we do in life are the most effective.  So with Tuesday morning’s revelation, I just gave it to God and decided to run with it.  I should note, I’ve been on a spiritual recovery journey these last 2 years anyway, and have overcome a gambling addiction, and have vastly improved my unhealthy relationship with money.  The foundation for my recovery has come from Celebrate Recovery and the work I’m doing there has allowed me to gather up the tools I need to get my life in order.  This time around, the quitting smoking is entirely different for me because I’m viewing it as an act of worship that is pleasing to God.

Some days, this is how I feel.

So what brought this on?  I’m not 100% sure, but I know it’s a God thing.  This past weekend in church a very wise young pastor talked about the importance of community – he shared statistics that stated that a person who is totally healthy and totally lonely will typically not live as long as the person who smokes and drinks but is actively involved in community.  The by-line was something to the effect of – it’s better to eat a twinkie with friends than to eat an apple alone. (Remember this is all a paraphrase, but the message was profound).  So, since I am actively involved in community, I thought it would be even better to get healthy AND be in community – so I can live to be 120!  (I’m sure my kids will love that!)

So in line with that, I am leaning on my community to hold me accountable.  I currently co-lead a women’s 12-step study at my church to help others through their journey to let go of life’s hurts, habits and hang-ups, but I’m also realizing that I need far more than that small group to hold me accountable. That’s where Social Media comes in.

The rough math – in my real “in person” life, I probably have about 20 people who I would look to keep me in check and hold me accountable to not smoke – but knowing myself and my lack of will power I decided to take it to the masses.  If I add up my current online social networks – just including Twitter, Facebook & LinkedIn, the numbers amount to about 3,300 connections.  To some that number may seems small in the world of social networking, but for me that’s over 3,000 that can hold me accountable to not smoke.

I hadn’t intended to use my online connections for this purpose, but one Tweet and one Facebook status update (both which fed to my LinkedIn status) amassed many many comments in just mere moments, and the comments and praise continue to come.

The kinds words from all of my Social Media “friends” and “tweeps” and “connections” are truly helping to keep me motivated.  The only one I’m truly accountable to is God, but the “You Go Girl!”, “You can do it!” (and my personal favorite) “Just think about how much money you will save!” are really helping me to stay motivated.  Here are my other 3 reasons for quitting:

So for those that don’t want to hear about it – sorry, but I will continue to tweet and post until I feel I’m free and clear – and to those who are taking the 30 seconds to leave an encouraging word – I AM TRULY GRATEFUL!

If you would like to join my accountability team and watch my progress, please send me a friend request, or catch up on Twitter!  Not only do I already feel better… but I smell better too!  :)

Please Re-Tweet this post! Maybe we can get just one more person the encouragement they need to quit smoking too!  We can do this!

Skittles/Mars takes the giant leap into the Social Media arena with a bold new web presence that fully utilizes social media tools such as Twitter, Facebook, Wikipedia, Flickr, YouTube and more.

Don’t be suprised when you visit this edgy new site – if have to second guess whether you’ve landed on the right page or not.  Today when I hit it, it landed on Wikipedia’s definition of Skittles candy flavors.  How cool is that?

They make great use of Social Media tools including a full video library of very edgy new commercials/videos embedded in their new site – along with YouTube.  Here’s just one example called Pinata Man:

Users are given direct access to Skittles related images on Flickr as well, which by the way shows over 17,000 results when you click on the pics link in the skittles navigation.  The Friends link takes users directly to their branded page on Facebook allowing users instant access to their FB profile.  It’s sheer brilliance in my mind.  

What better way to manage your consumer brand than only through Social Media channels.  As an internet marketing professional myself I look for ways to educate my clients on the benefits of jumping into the social media arena now – even if to just dip their toes in – they need to be taking the swimming lessons now so when the relay starts they are ready for the race.  If they don’t get on board now – it will be too late when their competitors realize the importance of social media and get ahead of them in the race.

Click image for Flickr credits.

The areas I’ve had luck with to date are Facebook, LinkedIn and blogging – as far as getting my customers ramped up in Social Media…. I say that to a certain degree.  Getting there is one thing – getting them to use the tools with which I have equipped them is a totally different game.  Blogging is only as great as the effort you put into marketing your blog.  Facebook has a huge audience you can tap in to… if you work your page and develop relationships… The same applies to all Social Media tools.

My clients believe it to be a daunting task to manage all these outlets, but truth be told a structured plan for addressing each social tool can maximize your efforts and minimize the time you spend keeping your social media tools current and active.  Once your customers are on board with it, and using Social Media regularly – they’ll be amazed by the outcome. 

I have established relationships that have helped me in ways I never even thought of when I got going on sites like Twitter and LinkedIn.  I cannot say enough… you just don’t know when you meet someone how you can help them or they you.  Don’t miss out on getting your brands/products in the Social Media game before your competition does.

I’m suddenly craving some Skittles.  :)

And my Twitter friend @peasandbananas just posted a poll – which do you like better?  M&Ms or Skittles?  Vote Now!  

Today I connected with a new friend on Twitter and Facebook Gabe O’Neill.  It did not take me long to realize there was something truly special about this guy.  He and his daughter embarked on a journey together and created a website called Kids Are Heroes.  This site promotes the great things that kids do that make such a difference in our world.  Each child CAN make a difference and this site encourages and celebrates our youth.

In today’s society (and being a parent of 3 myself), there is so much heartache and negativity for our youth, from poverty, to drug use, neglectful parents, peer pressure – and to some extent the expectations we put upon them to be perfect.  As a parent of a beautiful teenager I can say first hand we’ve experienced some heartache – but I believe within the heart of every child is the desire to be the best person they can be.

Kids Are Heroes is a place for kids to go to learn more about things they can do to make a difference in their community and globally.  We must invest in our children so they will in turn invest in their futures and in making this world a better place for us aging folks to live!

The Pitch Video for Kids Are Heroes is now up for vote and has the opportunity to be shown in flight on Virgin Atlantic Airlines, and subsequently online as part of PitchTV.  If you are like me and believe that our kids ARE our future – please take a minute to go and vote – lets get this video pitch in the top 5 and have it shown to thousands of travellers on Virgin Atlantic!  Vote Now!

If you are a parent – encourage your child to visit this site and learn how THEY too can make a difference in some small way that will have a huge impact!

Pay It Forward!  Go Vote!

I just read a post from @sheconomy titled “Market To Women with Social Media – Become A Leader”.  A great post – but what got me was the 5 minute video – which I will now pass along to you all.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard the phrase “my customers are not online” – which I say is a totally and completely untrue.  Furthermore – the really exciting thing is the customers you never knew, and that never knew you – are most definitely online and are proably looking for you and they don’t even know it yet!

If you think Social Media is not for you – check out this video – it’s just a snippet of information that will leave a lasting impression on technological advances and the importance of staying ahead of the game with your online business.  As @sheconomy points out in her post – NOW IS THE TIME!

When my customers go on about not needing to do any “social media stuff” I say to them – with 160 MILLION users on Facebook – why would you not put in the effort to even reach 1/100 of that traffic.  The same applies to MySpace, Twitter, etc. 

Please pass it on – and Get In The Game!

@socialpmchick