... but first things first. Back on track (hopefully) and Creative Bloggers is going around again. Macaroni and Glue is up in the spotlight and I'm seriously liking the banner! I don't recall seeing this, but it has been a while since I paid Kelly a visit. I'll blame the Texas heat and I'm sure she'll understand! Check out her Facebook fan page too!
Another artist being featured is Susy of Earth Expressions. Susy creates exquisite jewelry. But she also is creative with her blog and I loved her post about with packing and shipping tips. I can imagine a new customer of hers receiving a package and thinking: "What a class act!"
If you head over to Facebook, please take a look at my fan page. I set it up a while ago, didn't quite know what to do with it, but I've been learning. There is no documentation from Facebook about how to fully use the application, but there are some giving souls out there who are sharing what they know. It's a learning curve, but learning is great for keeping the gray matter within the skull nimble and functioning!
And I've been slowly building my Twitter following. Twitter is like the wild, wild west of the internet. All sorts of colorful folks. And all sorts of nuts too. All sorts of lazy people amassing huge followings by using automated applications, but it's only about quantity, not quality. So I'm doing it the old fashioned way. One by one with absolutely NO AUTOMATION, not even an automatic welcoming message.
A friend of mine has developed a new application for social media. It just launched so take a look at TipDrop. I signed up, but haven't authored a tip sheet yet. Jon gives us 255 characters which beats Twitter's 140, but 255 is not always enough. My plan is to blog tips here and link to this blog from the tip sheets. Hopefully Jon has programmed the application for follow through links.
I've created some new handcrafted jewelry pieces for the summer, but every single last piece has sold. Sold without pictures too. I'm a dunce. o_O Beautiful pieces, too, using "Candy Jade" which has become a new favorite of mine, and some shell/pearl/crystal pieces. Ooooh, even writing about them is making my fingers itch to make more!
Oh, and another thing, I've been making a ton of paper craft bookmarks and cards for a friend of mine to take to a special international convention (worship related) to pass out as gifts to all she meets. I've so enjoyed my monthly workshops I take from my local StampinUp representative that I've decided to sign up as a demonstrator myself! Since it will be about handcrafted paper goods, I figured it would be a nice fit with my existing creative business and I will keep it under my '57 Design Studio business umbrella.
Now, I must remember to take pictures!
Showing posts with label twitter. Show all posts
Showing posts with label twitter. Show all posts
Friday, July 17, 2009
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Tweet, Tweet
Twitter is quite the animal. I recall seeing a prediction a while back that Twitter would prove to be a major component in a fundamental shift in how the internet will be used. I'm not 100% convinced of that, but it definitely is a movement that keeps growing. Not everyone understands it, but they'll still play with it. Those that do understand it do more than play with it.
I'm not going to bother defining Twitter ... if you're reading this blog, you've probably already have it in your head what Twitter is all about. I find some opinions about how to use Twitter to be very interesting. I've read several comments for very web-savvy folks that if someone uses Twitter only for promotion, they would tune out (stop following) that person. They want to see some of the personal behind the person. But I'm not too sure about that ... most of us are living in the moment (even though we are aware of our past and planning our future, we still live in this moment) and most of our moments are rather mundane. No matter how exciting life can be, most moments are still mundane. I couldn't care less if you just washed and dried 3 loads of laundry. Even if you're my mother (Hi Mom!) or a good friend (Hi Jenn!) I couldn't care less. Now if your washer or dryer broke down and you found a great service guy who came to your house in less than two hours and charged you an unbelievably low price for an excellent repair job ... THAT I would care to hear about, IF you can talk about it in 140 characters or less.
So I won't bore my followers with my mundane life stuff. I will tweet, when I remember, about going to a local network meeting. I will tweet when I find something intriguing on the web. I will tweet when I made an amazing discovery (that hasn't happened in a while). But my usual forms of tweets are promotion and they happen automatically because of the beauty of TwitterFeed. You can feed anything that has an RSS feed to your Twitter account. Both my blog and my Etsy shop have RSS feeds. Blogger makes setting up an RSS feed really easy, nearly automatic, just be sure you have your "Site Feed" which you will find in your SETTINGS section turned on to either "Full" or "Short" ... not "None."
After you set up your account with Twitterfeed, you can add any number of feeds to automatically post to Twitter. All you need is the URL of your feed, and each one is different. That was the most confusing part for me, but I fumbled around and found out what they are.
After you click "Create new twitter feed" you'll be given a new page with a form to fill out. The user name and password are where you will enter your Twitter info, and be sure to click the "test twitter authentification" to make sure you've entered the correct data.
If you are a Blogger/Blogspot user, your RSS feed URL is as follows:
http://yourusername.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default
You'll need to replace your actual user name before the .blogspot part.
I found my Etsy RSS feed URL by clicking on the RSS widget, as if I were going to subscribe the the feed. The URL displays on the browser, just copy and paste the address in appropriate box in the Twitterfeed set up. You can find any of your RSS feed URLs this way.
Another way to determine the RSS feed URL is to right-click the link and select "Properties" from the right-click menu (this is how it works with Windows, I don't have a clue about Macs!) and find the link address (NOT the image address!) which you can then copy and paste.
Go ahead and hit the "test RSS feed" to make sure it's going to work.
You'll have a few more things that are preferences you'll need to fill out to finish up the feed set-up. Give some thought to the update frequency. If you do a lot of listing in your Etsy shop at any given time, you may want to experiment with the frequency so that you don't send a feed for every single listing which could be considered spam by the Twitter community and your followers. You do not want to lose any of those precious followers! Keep in mind that this feed cannot tell the difference between a new listing and a relist.
Also give some thought as to what you want in the "prefix each tweet with:" box. I simply say "Just listed:" for my Etsy feed and "Blog update:" for my blog. The form only allows up to 20 characters, but each one counts towards the 140 maximum allowed. I use the "Tiny URL" option.
The tiny URL link generated for the Twitter feed is a "no follow" so don't get your hopes up that this will help in search engine optimization. In fact, it appears that all links in Twitter are "no follow." Oh well. Guess we still need to get our coveted links the old-fashioned way ... beg or buy.
Hope this is clear and understandable. Let me know your thoughts.
*************
Now for the LinkyLuv for those taking the time to read and comment:
Getpalmd * Storybeader * Leah * Anna * Meekiyu * FeeFiFoto * CassieMarie * BlackFeatherFarm * Kerri Slade * Lynne * Abigail * Leslie * Angie * Michelle {{hug}} * Laurie B * Casto Creations * Avenue 7 * Shinade * Zen Ventures * Fidget * Swapna * Terrie * Raymond * Lois Lane * Jenn {{{{big hug}}}} * Petula * Lily * Elizabeth * Annette {man, I miss Skwiggazine!} * KML * Rachel (I hope I got the name right!! Memory ain't what it used to be...) * Tammy * Duni * Michelle * iWalk (love the cow graphic! How y'all manage to draw pictures with a keyboard amazes me.) * And last but NEVER least, Leet!
Whew ... this post took forever!! But may all your page ranks rise because y'all helped my bounce rate to fall. I should take a lesson from The Turnip and concentrate on getting the bounce rate down. Which could mean "bye bye" Entrecard. But that's another meditation. My eyes are really tired now.
I'm not going to bother defining Twitter ... if you're reading this blog, you've probably already have it in your head what Twitter is all about. I find some opinions about how to use Twitter to be very interesting. I've read several comments for very web-savvy folks that if someone uses Twitter only for promotion, they would tune out (stop following) that person. They want to see some of the personal behind the person. But I'm not too sure about that ... most of us are living in the moment (even though we are aware of our past and planning our future, we still live in this moment) and most of our moments are rather mundane. No matter how exciting life can be, most moments are still mundane. I couldn't care less if you just washed and dried 3 loads of laundry. Even if you're my mother (Hi Mom!) or a good friend (Hi Jenn!) I couldn't care less. Now if your washer or dryer broke down and you found a great service guy who came to your house in less than two hours and charged you an unbelievably low price for an excellent repair job ... THAT I would care to hear about, IF you can talk about it in 140 characters or less.
So I won't bore my followers with my mundane life stuff. I will tweet, when I remember, about going to a local network meeting. I will tweet when I find something intriguing on the web. I will tweet when I made an amazing discovery (that hasn't happened in a while). But my usual forms of tweets are promotion and they happen automatically because of the beauty of TwitterFeed. You can feed anything that has an RSS feed to your Twitter account. Both my blog and my Etsy shop have RSS feeds. Blogger makes setting up an RSS feed really easy, nearly automatic, just be sure you have your "Site Feed" which you will find in your SETTINGS section turned on to either "Full" or "Short" ... not "None."
After you set up your account with Twitterfeed, you can add any number of feeds to automatically post to Twitter. All you need is the URL of your feed, and each one is different. That was the most confusing part for me, but I fumbled around and found out what they are.
After you click "Create new twitter feed" you'll be given a new page with a form to fill out. The user name and password are where you will enter your Twitter info, and be sure to click the "test twitter authentification" to make sure you've entered the correct data.
If you are a Blogger/Blogspot user, your RSS feed URL is as follows:
http://yourusername.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default
You'll need to replace your actual user name before the .blogspot part.
I found my Etsy RSS feed URL by clicking on the RSS widget, as if I were going to subscribe the the feed. The URL displays on the browser, just copy and paste the address in appropriate box in the Twitterfeed set up. You can find any of your RSS feed URLs this way.
Another way to determine the RSS feed URL is to right-click the link and select "Properties" from the right-click menu (this is how it works with Windows, I don't have a clue about Macs!) and find the link address (NOT the image address!) which you can then copy and paste.
Go ahead and hit the "test RSS feed" to make sure it's going to work.
You'll have a few more things that are preferences you'll need to fill out to finish up the feed set-up. Give some thought to the update frequency. If you do a lot of listing in your Etsy shop at any given time, you may want to experiment with the frequency so that you don't send a feed for every single listing which could be considered spam by the Twitter community and your followers. You do not want to lose any of those precious followers! Keep in mind that this feed cannot tell the difference between a new listing and a relist.
Also give some thought as to what you want in the "prefix each tweet with:" box. I simply say "Just listed:" for my Etsy feed and "Blog update:" for my blog. The form only allows up to 20 characters, but each one counts towards the 140 maximum allowed. I use the "Tiny URL" option.
The tiny URL link generated for the Twitter feed is a "no follow" so don't get your hopes up that this will help in search engine optimization. In fact, it appears that all links in Twitter are "no follow." Oh well. Guess we still need to get our coveted links the old-fashioned way ... beg or buy.
Hope this is clear and understandable. Let me know your thoughts.
*************
Now for the LinkyLuv for those taking the time to read and comment:
Getpalmd * Storybeader * Leah * Anna * Meekiyu * FeeFiFoto * CassieMarie * BlackFeatherFarm * Kerri Slade * Lynne * Abigail * Leslie * Angie * Michelle {{hug}} * Laurie B * Casto Creations * Avenue 7 * Shinade * Zen Ventures * Fidget * Swapna * Terrie * Raymond * Lois Lane * Jenn {{{{big hug}}}} * Petula * Lily * Elizabeth * Annette {man, I miss Skwiggazine!} * KML * Rachel (I hope I got the name right!! Memory ain't what it used to be...) * Tammy * Duni * Michelle * iWalk (love the cow graphic! How y'all manage to draw pictures with a keyboard amazes me.) * And last but NEVER least, Leet!
Whew ... this post took forever!! But may all your page ranks rise because y'all helped my bounce rate to fall. I should take a lesson from The Turnip and concentrate on getting the bounce rate down. Which could mean "bye bye" Entrecard. But that's another meditation. My eyes are really tired now.
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