Personally I can’t wait for the spammers to tire of Twitter. It is most annoying looking at tweets that have a link and a bunch of usernames…and nothing else of value to anyone at all. Do these users really think people are that gullible? That we actually hit any of these links?

I don’t click any of these links, not even out of sheer curiosity. What do I hit though is “unfollow”.

Even worse are the followers listed under one person as many, but in reality it is the same person and even the username is the same except for some numbers attached (ie Spammer16, Spammer25, Spammer32)

Having spent a bit of time lately finding connections for my clients I was shocked at the changes I see on Twitter now compared to 6 or 8 months ago. I see usernames that are almost duplicates of each other but with a different number added to each, and lots of them. One person’s follower list I was on the other day had more than two pages of the same person. That’s more than 40 followers in their numbers but in reality it is one person. That’s a real valuable connection to have – Not!

My recommendation to anyone looking to make useful and purposeful connections on social media is to ignore all these people and tweets. Don’t click any links and unfollow them.

The fewer people they are connected to the more of a waste of time they will incur. It does take time for these users to create the tweets and profiles they do – if that investment does not pay off they will move on to another venue to try ‘hocking their wares”.

Eventually they will get the message – keeping the twitterverse clear for the rest of us who get a benefit from it whether personal or business related.

Technorati Tags: quality, Social Media, virtual assistant

Well… I got a glimpse of inbox chaos this week.

Something happened and my facebook notifications were changed.  A glitch I suppose, but the glitch meant I started getting email notifications when anyone friended me, wrote on my wall, made a comment, sent me a message…. You get the picture.  My inbox was jammed full of emails that I did not need to see.

Now, if you are asking “Why don’t I need to see them?”  I will tell you this and it is the number one trick to managing your social media profiles more effectively.

Look around when you are on Facebook and Twitter and Linked In. Answer people and make comments back to them directly in your social network. It’s a much more efficient use of your time, plus you learn to understand where you ‘are’ in your profile.

How?

On Twitter, when you sign in click on the @yourusername link on the right side of your home page.  See who has been ‘talking’ to you.  Answer them on the spot with an @reply. You only have 140 characters to type; it’s not a book and can be done quickly. Do the same thing with the Direct Messages.

On Facebook, follow the same principles.  Check your personal wall, answer people talking to you – or better yet talk to them – make a comment about their update.  Look at your inbox and send replies right there.  Check your fanpage and do the same. Look and see if anyone has posted on your fanpage wall.  You are using Facebook to connect with more people so it is vital you check in here and make the connections.

If you follow these practices you will soon find that the email notifications you have coming are redundant; and in fact take more time to clean out. Change your account settings and the way you ‘check’ your networks and you will find an inbox that requires less maintenance.

Technorati Tags: Facebook, Social Media, Twitter, virtual assistant

Every so often Twitter runs a purge of inactive users and accounts, when it happens you will see followers drop off your profile.   Even the folks at Twitter realize that it’s okay to hit unfollow, I do it all the time.  Shocked?  Don’t be.  There is nothing wrong with clicking unfollow and in some cases even the block button is okay to hit too.

Why do I do it? Well, in most cases it is because I get no value from that person and my connection with them. Many will argue you have just removed the viral-access from their connections (you tell two friends, they tell two friends and so on – well, on Twitter that number could actually be two thousand or even more), but sometimes those people may not be connections you want to have or be associated with.

I tell all my clients the two main standards I have for not connecting with someone; naked pictures and blatant swearing… though recently I have added overzealous sales pitches and using the @reply to mention other people along with a sales link.

I use social media primarily for my business as do my clients,  but a lot of my personality comes out too. Overall I try to keep it fairly professional and would rather not be associated with certain actions I deem unprofessional.

There will be many people that disagree with me wholeheartedly on these choices and that is fine.  The difference between us comes down to our social media strategy – our reason for being on Twitter.  The point is to remember that it is okay to click the unfollow button when you want. It is your choice and no harm can come from doing this; in fact in some cases it can free up space so you can see your more valuable connections more often.

Technorati Tags: online networking, Twitter, virtual assistant

Facebook fanpages or pages for business…many people use them as a support to their social media and marketing efforts. One of the biggest requests I have from clients who have hired me as their social media virtual assistant is to set up auto linking of twitter updates to fanpages. Until this past week there was not a simple way unless you used ping.fm

What changed was the latest update to tweetdeck.  Tweetdeck is similar to Hootsuite and Seesmic in that it is a management tool to help you keep on top of Twitter – your followers, special hashtags you follow or even certain terms. Everyone has their preference and opinions. Mine is Tweetdeck.

As with previous version, the new one – v. 0.30.4 – allows you to host multiple twitter profiles in Tweetdeck, letting you post updates from several different accounts should you need that service. The change to this version allows you to link to your personal facebook as well as your fanpage – or fanpages.

Plus, Tweetdeck has added many more features to this latest version, which originally came out September 3rd, but with a  facebook linking issue. The September 18th update has fixed that.

It takes a few minutes to access your settings, click add an account, then facebook account. Whatever pages you are an admin on, you will have the option to link to that fanpage.

Once you have it setup then a button appears on the top of your tweetdeck window. When you publish an update, you can pick and choose what account to go to.

For those who may not realize it, this also allows you to pick and choose what gets posted on your personal facebook. This option can really help curb your facebook posts especially if you find some of your closer friends and family always wondering why you have so much to say on facebook.

Try this new version out, I’m certain you’ll love the new features, many of which are intended to help users save time.

Technorati Tags: Facebook, Social Media, Twitter, virtual assistant

A few notes came through the grapevine lately that Fanpages could now book their user names without the minimum requirement of 100 fans.  Seems the limit has now gone down to 25 again, the original limit set.

Read this post from July to understand more about how to set your fanpage username.  If you have more than 25 fans now, go do it.  Better to get your brand name now than have it scooped up by someone else.

Don’t forget to add the Fan Box to your website or blog if you would like visitors to be able to easily connect to your facebook fanpage. You will find the link to this application under your fanpage profile picture.  Click on “Add a Fan Box to your website” and it will take you right to the application.

Time on Task Va Services

Promote Your Page Too

Technorati Tags: Facebook, Social Media, social networking, virtual assistant

I have kind of experimented somewhat with Twitter these past few months when I opened a second profile.

When I started @timeontaskva I built my following one by one, picking people I wanted to be connected with and following them back if I made the choice.  Nothing automated about it.

With @mytwitrva I started it off with some followers and then sent it on its merry way with some automated systems for following.

The results are most interesting…

The profile I built by hand has more followers that have value to me, ones I enjoy connecting with. The more automated profile is building up contacts that seem to have tweets/updates that don’t do much for me.  Oh, there are contacts there that I do value, but the majority seem to publish updates such as: Make Money online guaranteed or Quickly grow your Twitter following go here …

The scary part is a few of these (not these two above) I recognized from having helped clients fix up some spamming and hacking issues with their twitter accounts. Each time, my clients had signed up and entered their twitter username and password to the systems promising lots of followers. Soon after, some funky stuff started happening with their accounts – spam posts/updates were published from their twitter accounts. In one case the account was suspended. Not good.

I keep cleaning out the second account so that it will give me connections I would prefer, but that takes more time and eventually I will have to spend even more time and energy to make the contacts I wanted in the first place.

Lesson learned from this is an age old one: Quality vs Quantity.

You can certainly build up quantity and have quality; but only if you seek out quality while doing so. Many of these promises and guarantees may not bring you the value you are looking for, not that I am saying they are all bad .

A little something to keep in mind as you go about “Building your Tribe”.

Technorati Tags: contacts, quality, Twitter, virtual assistant

One of my clients – and one who is my best social media success story – recently had their Facebook fanpage disappear.

No warnings, no explanation – just gone. It was a fanpage we have been working on for a few months and one that had more than 500 fans and a lot of good interaction with the fans.

I sent off an email to several areas of facebook, but will not be holding my breath for a quick response. I did get the automatic emails stating they have received my request and that ‘we may contact you for more details’

Honestly, I expect nothing less from support of a ‘free’ platform that has millions of users. Users of any of these types of applications are at the mercy of the limited resources available to support them.

This loss of a fanpage is one more scenario that makes me think the unthinkable for many people.  Is it time for some of these applications to evolve and move to the next level? A level that requires users to pay (Yes, I said pay) for a service in order to receive more reliable support and service.  A service you can count on, especially when using it for business.

“You get what you pay for”, my Mom always said. A statement that certainly rings true when you are dealing with millions of people using a free platform.

Technorati Tags: Facebook, Social Media, social networking, Twitter, virtual assistant

You know, I honestly enjoy my time on Twitter…

Tonight I saw a tweet about a live party on Ustream with @MariSmith (for those not familiar, she is a “Relationship and Buzz Marketing Specialist” born in Scotland, lived in Canada -yay – and now is in California.  She is very successful with Facebook, Twitter and Social Media) , so I decided to join the party. My virtual friend @Teri8D is always a reliable source of good social media fun, and it was her tweet!

Onto Ustream (a type of live broadcasting)  I go and find about 60 or so people live online with Mari who is streaming from her kitchen in California. A friend flits about in the background helping prepare for the ‘live’ party a little later.  It was great fun, chatting about some social media tips and even just chatting.  She even had a few draws for some prizes, and I won one of them!

I correctly answered a question about facebook and won @Davelakhani ’s Book “How to Sell when Nobody’s Buying”  (I think it was, in the excitement I may have won a different title of Dave’s – no matter I say, It’s Dave Lakhani!)

Why so exciting? I have been following Denise Wakeman’s blogs for some time and she has mentioned Dave and his book many times. It is too cool that I won a copy and cannot wait to receive it!

So, that’s my Twitter Good News for today, I won a book.

Have you any good news or success stories from Twitter?

PS. I asked Dave’s permission to put his book pic here… so it’s ok

Technorati Tags: social networking, Twitter, virtual assistant

Personally the biggest item on my list is an easy way to Retweet someone’s fantastic post. Quickly, easily and directly in Twitter.

I find it odd that an application that discusses and has rules regarding Reposting others’ content, does not make it easy to do so.

One of the hardest things I have to teach during training sessions with clients is teach them how to do send an ‘at reply’ directly on Twitter. (I know it’s easy on Tweetdeck and other platforms, but getting into a management system is even more complicated and sometimes too overwhelming for people new to Twitter)

So, that’s the #1 item on my wishlist.  What’s on yours? What would you like to see? Think of what would make your life on Twitter easier/more efficient?

List your items here, and I will forward the entire list off to the guys at Twitter… you never know, feedback can sometimes be a great kickstart for new ideas!

Include your Twitter id as well, so we can connect there too!

Technorati Tags: Social Media, Twitter, virtual assistant

August 6th, 2009… the day that Twitter almost died.

My fear was near realized today when both Twitter and Facebook were part of targeted attacks that caused issues with their service which means for us users – we cannot Log In!

Once I realized this early in the morning…as it is part of my practice daily to log on to Twitter and Facebook – I then ended up doing some unexpected blog reading – Mashable is fabulous at keeping me on top of things with his updates.  This lead me to sending notes to clients and after finishing some other work, I realized this Denial of Service Attack was not going to end soon.  I headed to the beach with the kids, got out my pen and paper and started writing some blog posts.

Yes, your Blog.  it’s another way of using social networking though some don’t always realize the benefits in blogging. (more…)

Technorati Tags: Social Media, social networking, Twitter, virtual assistant