social media is not a guinea pig

so, here's the deal, I do a lot with social media, between my personal obsession with it, my work with Waco Social Media, and the little bit of it that I do for my work.  I also read a lot of blog posts and articles on social media in the workplace and what always seems to fascinate me is the amount of businesses that treat social media as if it is a guinea pig, something that they are just going to "try out" and see if it works for them.  this does not work for 2 reasons:

1. if you are not truly invested in social media, people can tell and you are not going to get the results that you want from it
2. you never get a second chance to make a first impression, so make sure you make the best impression you can with your social media presence

I think social media is a great tool for many business to get the word out about their company with little or no monetary investment.  so, my bottom line is if you are going to give social media a try for your company, give it an honest try.  jump in with both feet and don't just dip your little toe in.

that's my soapbox for today, next week I will talk more about why businesses are scared of social media.

feeding your blog into your twitter account

one of the things that you will notice very quickly after you get on twitter is that people have their blogs set to automatically send out a tweet when they have a new post.  well, if you wanted to learn how to do that, today is your lucky day!  I use twitterfeed to feed my blog posts in, so I will walk you through the steps in getting that set up:

1. go to the twitter feed site at http://twitterfeed.com
2. click on register now
3. enter your e-mail address and create a password
4. click on create account
5. you now have a twitterfeed account and all you have to do next is set up your blogs
6. on step one, make sure twitter is selected in the "connect your feed to" drop down box
7. click on "connect feed to your twitter account"
8. click on allow to allow twitterfeed access to your twitter account
9. enter a feed name for your feed
10. enter your rss feed url (i.e. {your blogs url}/feed/posts/default) and click on test rss feed
11. click on advanced settings if you want to make any additional changes
12. click on create feed

you now have a feed that will automatically post to your twitter account everytime you update your blog, wasn't that easy

what do you want me to cover next?

so, I'm at a crossroads and looking to my wonderful readers to help me decide what to cover next, so let me know what you think in the poll to the right.  please feel free to comment as well.

a waco workshop for twitter beginners

Do you live in the Central Texas area?

Have you heard about Twitter but aren’t sure how to use it?

Signed up to Twitter but don’t know what to do next… or why?

Want to find out how Twitter can help your non-profit or small business?

Here’s the workshop for you. This is a hands-on, step-by-step workshop, led by three of the most influential tweeters in Central Texas. Caryn Brown, Jay Ehret and C.J. Jackson, members of the Waco Social Media Club, will help you make sense of how and why to use Twitter to make an impact for your organization.

Sign up now at http://www.wacotwitterworkshop.eventbrite.com/

Saturday, June 20, 2009
1:00-3:00pm
Cashion Bldg, Room 404
Hankamer School of Business
Baylor University Campus

how to add a watermark to a photo in picasa

so, here was the question I was asked today, what is the easiest way to add a watermark to a picture?

my answer, with picasa from google, here's what you need to do.

1. download and install picasa
2. launch picasa and let it start indexing your pictures
3. find the picture you want to add the watermark to in picasa
4. double-click on the picture
5. the picture will then come up in a photo editing tool where you can edit your picture
6. once you have your picture the way you want it, click on export at the bottom of the screen
7. take note of where picasa is going to export your file to (the file name will stay the same, but it will be in a different directory, so it won't change your original picture)
8. at the bottom of the export screen, click on the add a watermark checkbox.
9. enter the text you want displayed in the watermark in the add a watermark field
10. click on ok

see, now you have a watermarked picture, wasn't that easy?

the people who follow you on twitter

you don't have to be on twitter for very long before you realize that half the new people that follow you are wanting you to try their get rich quick schemes, well, my friend cj, one of the waco social media gurus, wrote a great blog post about just that yesterday; twits, you are on notice

facebook 503 -- how to create a facebook event

one of the great things to do with facebook is set up an event with your friends.  it is great because everyone can easily see who is coming to the event and write on the events wall to share information on the event.

1. from any page in facebook, click on the events icon (the white box with the 31 in it and the red bar at the top) in the lower left hand corner of the facebook page (this will bring up your events page)
   
2. click on "create an event" in the upper left hand corner of the events page
3. fill in all the information on the event info tab (event name, host, event type, and location are all required)
   one note on the network field, if you choose a network other than global, you will only be able to invite people in that network to your event
   
4. click on "create event"
5. you can now upload a picture (or logo) for your event, set your options, access level (I typically choose closed, that way, I can decide who I want to have on the guest list and others can request an invite) , and choose if you want to publize the event
6. click on "save"
7. click on the friends you want to invite or enter their e-mail address if they are not on facebook
8. click on "send invitations"

and your done, see, wasn't that easy!!  one note, if you select to have a closed event, you can click on the view guest list and choose to make anybody on the guest list an admin on the event so they can invite others or approve invites as well.