Social Media networking can be a great boon to your business, but one thing many people need to always keep in mind is that what you say/do online IS your online presence and it is important – if you are networking for your business – to remain professional.

I’m not saying you cannot have a good time or that everything you say on your networks has to be 100% happy and upbeat at all times. Trust me, I am never 100% positive, but I am professional.

I can be seen airing my frustrations of the day – but rarely anything that could be construed as an unprofessional. My gripes tend to be technical-related ones or ones that don’t offend people but make them see how ‘real’ I am.

A software program causing issues in my email program is okay to complain about – but you will never hear me venting about a client or frustration related to my clients. That crosses the line and I would never want people thinking – “Is she talking about me?”, or “That seems mean.”.

This is my number one lesson with clients.

Never say or do anything online that you wouldn’t do in person.

Pretend you are at a business networking event and act according to that. You will find this keeps it fun and professional and makes your time on social networking sites useful for your business and great for building relationships.

Technorati Tags: social media training, social networking

I have been getting many inquiries lately and thought maybe it would help to tell people how I learned to use Twitter and Facebook and more…

How did I start? Well, I read… a lot!  If you check the Resource Page on this site, you’ll find several great places to kickstart you.  There will be more added as well, so feel free to re-visit this page to see the updates. (more…)

Technorati Tags: Facebook, online training, social media training, social networking, Twitter, virtual assistant

As many know, the Twitip Blog is one of my favourite places, among others, to keep up to date with all things twitter-related. Twitip is run by Darren Rowse, a blogger from Australia (@problogger) with help from some others as well (@larakulpa)

Well, yesterday I joined in many others to help answer a reader question – What are your top tips?  There were many great tips from people all over. Today someone send me a note on Twitter congratulating on being mentioned on the Twitip blog. This is when I discovered that Twitips blogger, Lara Kulpa, pulled out her favourites from all those comments, and mine was one of them.  Too Cool! and an honour for a devoted Twitter user.

There is always great and up-to-date advice here for anyone using
Twitter and I encourage you to read and subscribe to Twitips!

What tip of mine did they pick out… you’ll have to jump over to Twitip to read it!

Technorati Tags: Blogging, social networking, Twitter, virtual assistant

One of the most important branding tools you can do with your Twitter profile is to create a customized background.  Personally, I create them in Adobe Photoshop using clients unique images, logos and anything else possible to make it part of their business brand and image. 

Not everyone has Photoshop, nor the skills to use it… there are many other resources on the internet and several are very easy to use.  Today, in my readings, I came across a blog post that makes reference to several of these do it your self sites and other ones that help you create twitter backgrounds.

Thanks to Bill Stevens at the DailyTwitip for his great post and I am sure many of you can use one of these resources to set up your own custom background.

Technorati Tags: branding, Social Media, Twitter, twitter background, virtual assistant