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.

twitter 401 -- sharing pictures on twitter

now that you are really getting into twitter and making some great twitter-friends, you are probably finding times when you want to share pictures with them. there is a very easy way to to this with twitpic.

1. go to twitpic.com and enter your twitter username and password and click on log in
   
2. you will see your twitter avatar and your bio from twitter, click on upload photo in the upper right-hand corner of the website
3. click on browse to browse to the picture on your computer that you want to upload, select the picture and click on open
   
4. add any message that you want to share and click on upload
5. twitpic then sends out a tweet from your account with your message and a link to your picture
6. when your twitter followers click on the link, they can see your picture and if they want, they can log into twitpic and add a comment on your picture
7. if they comment on your picture, the comment is sent out as an @[your twittername] reply to you with a link to the picture as well
   

what is #followfriday?

so, by now you've probably seen all the people on twitter tweeting out with the #followfriday hash tags on fridays and you may be asking yourself, what is this?

well, this is something that was started earlier this year by @micah on twitter as a way to show off his favorite tweeple (read @micah's original blog post on how and why he started it).  mashable also has a good post on this called "follow friday, the anatomy of a twitter trend"

basically all your do is send out a tweet listing your favorite people to follow using their twitter handle (@[twitter username]) and put the #followfriday hashtag in the tweet.  lately, I have enjoyed having a theme to my follow fridays like twittering couples and the people that I met at SXSW.  but most people just put down their favorite people to follow.

some tweeple have started writing blog posts with more information on why the have chosen their #followfriday tweeple, like this one by sonny gill or this list by mashable.  another interesting blog post is brian troy's "follow friday experiment".

and like everything else on twitter, their are tons of sites and apps to help you with #followfriday.  my favorite one is the twitter tag project.  all you have to do is go to the site and enter your twitter username and it will return the friends you should suggest for #followfriday.  I'm not sure how it works, but I think it has to do with who you tweet with most often.  one of the things that I like about it is that you don't have to put your twitter password in, it opens a new twitter window for you to send the tweet out in.

for more cool apps and sites for #followfriday, check out brian cray's blog post

twitter 303 -- tweet-ups

by now, hopefully you are probably really enjoying twitter and all the twitterfriends you are making and you may be looking for opportunities to meet some of them in real life. tweet-ups, meetings between two or more people on twitter, are a great way to do that, there are a couple of ways to find out about tweet-ups in your area:

1. ask your twitterfriends about tweet-ups in your area
2. search google for tweet-ups in your area
3. check out the social media breakfast site for social media breakfasts in your area
4. if you still can't find any tweet-ups in your area, you can always start your own: how to organize a successful tweet-up

twitter 302 -- twitter parties

in addition to the hash tags, one of the other things you have probably noticed on twitter are all the twitter parties. a good example of a twitter party is twitter mom's girls night out (#gno) that I participate in every tuesday night. you sign up on the girls night out website before the party and then you end all your tweets during the party with #gno. they usually have a topic and host and the party can be very fast paced once it gets started.

there are many more twitter parties, in fact, my twitter friend, @ResourcefulMom has created a site, TwitterParties.com, devoted to sharing all the information she has on the various twitter parties, click on her logo on the left to visit the site.

additional blog posts and articles on twitter parties:

• twitter parties and events explained
• how to host a successful twitter party
  
• rock on! the power of twitter parties
• twitterparties and #hashtags
• party on twitter

twittering 2nd graders??

when I talked to my mother earlier this week, she told me about a 2nd grade teacher who was using twitter in her classroom.  my mom of course was blind-sided by this, she barely gets facebook and can not even begin to comprehend twitter.

this immediately made me think of my boys in kindergarten and 2nd grade, while they are both every into what I am doing on-line (twittering, facebooking, and blogging).  it is my kindergartner who is really into it, you can read my blog posts; my social media butterfly and ed and his women on my the water is fine blog to see just how into it he is.

naturally as soon as I got a chance, I googled it and sure enough, a couple of 2nd grade teachers in maine are using twitter for their students to communicate.  after reading the article and looking up the twitter accounts for these teachers (which were both protected), I really started to think out this.

while I can definately see the learning value and the knowledge that the students will gain from this experience, I have some reservations about it.  for the most part, the twitter community is adults (I have found a few teenagers on twitter, but only a few).  my twitter profile is public meaning that anyone on twitter (or on the web for that matter) can see my tweets.  I use discrestion because of that, but there are things that I tweet that I don't think I would want my son or his classmates to read as part of a school assignment.  I am just wondering if there is another fourm or site that would be better suited for this?  what are your thoughts?