Posted in Angelique, Commerce, Culture, Lifestyle on Feb 7th, 2011
Saturday night at 11pm I was simultaneously watching Dark Knight, tweeting and Facebooking, when what should arrive via email but a one-paragraph message from the university president, saying basically… I’m not sure what. It sounds like a mission statement crafted by the sort of committee that would reshape a horse into a camel. I think it was supposed to be inspirational. The point is, it was 11pm.…. Remember: You want your recipients to actually read your messages, and you also want them to know that you understand how they use their time. Properly scheduled email messages may not enhance your reputation, but badly-scheduled email messages will certainly harm it.
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What was the most obnoxious thing about Ebenezer Scrooge before he was visited by the three ghosts? Was it his miserly lifestyle? His sour attitude? His general rudeness? No, I think his worst act was to make Bob Cratchit work on Christmas Day. Scrooge himself was “all business, all the time,” and he believed that everyone else should behave in the same way.
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Posted in Angelique, Commerce, Culture, Cyberia, Humor on Dec 20th, 2010
On December 6, in an article entitled I Can’t Read Your Card, I challenged my blog readers to tell me all the things wrong with a business card. I promised the winner ETERNAL GLORY. And the winner is….
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Posted in Angelique, Commerce, Cyberia on Dec 2nd, 2010
When writing newsletters, a surprising number of business owners and corporate marketing communications employees feel obligated to entertain a group of fantasy readers who are both fascinated by and grateful for information that has nothing to do with the company’s product or service. There are several theories that drive this type of newsletter…. but after a few overcrowded issues, your entire newsletter could get dumped.
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Posted in Angelique, Arts, Cyberia, Language, Media on Nov 17th, 2010
Fiction writers often feel that they don’t need to network with others, on- or off-line. Nothing could be further from the truth! Whether you’re self-publishing or hoping to get picked up by a major publisher, you need to establish relationships with others, both in cyberspace and face-to-face. You also need a place where fans, potential customers and potential editors and agents can get a good sense of who you are and what you write.
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Posted in Angelique, Commerce, Cyberia on Nov 8th, 2010
The relationship you have with your Facebook followers and Twitter connections are very different. Therefore, the types of things that you post, and especially the frequency with which you post, needs to be tailored to each network….
Here are the major differences between the relationship you have with your Facebook followers and your Twitter connections…. Facebook followers are like subscribers. Twitter followers are like people you meet face-to-face: colleagues, clients, students, teachers, neighbors, friends.
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Posted in Angelique, Community, Culture, Cyberia on Oct 25th, 2010
It’s 1am, and you’re on Twitter, reading the hashtag conversation #unfollowmeif. The people you follow in your city are posting things like “Woo hoo! #IdreamofJeanie marathon!” and “Oh, great. The DH is barfing again. Do not want to catch this. How can I sneak out to a hotel?”
Then there’s this guy — Scott Stratten would call him That Guy — who also lives in your city, and who posts the following….
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So I took the test, which is sponsored by an outfit called Intelligent Elite. They are a boutique social network for people who like to delude themselves into thinking they are smarter than the average bear. Trust me — if you think they are really offering “scientific” IQ and EQ tests, or if you, like me, don’t realize that no matter what you do to say “no, don’t share,” you will be hacked, then you are just about average, bear-wise.
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Posted in Angelique, Commerce, Cyberia on Sep 7th, 2010
You’re notable in your own city, and you have a Facebook business or public figure page with lots of followers. You want to have the same relationship with them as you do your personal Facebook friends.
You are completely untroubled by the prospect of inviting all these strangers to view all of your Facebook postings. After all, you don’t put anything really personal up there, anyway. So you send invitations out to everyone, asking them to be your own personal friend. Then you let a few days go by.
When you check back to see any of them have accepted your offer, you are surprised by the sound of chirping crickets.
What went wrong?
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The only AFMarCom work I planned to do during my vacation was specific tasks for clients…. However, I did expect to use Twitter, both personally and professionally. I was as surprised as anyone when, several days into the New York leg of our trip, I realized that I hadn’t even glanced at Twitter, and I had no desire to do so.
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Posted in Angelique, Commerce, Culture, Cyberia on Jul 2nd, 2010
Last November I wrote a very popular blog post entitled The Thanksgiving Vacation Twitter Challenge. I knew that over the four-day Thanksgiving vacation many people would be casually poking around the Internet, and I believed that it was a great time for Twitter newbies to find great people to follow and practice their Twitter skills.
Now we’re starting a four-day Independence Day vacation, and it’s time for a new challenge! This time I am publishing the challenge exclusively in my newsletter.
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Posted in Angelique, Arts, Community, Culture, Cyberia on Jun 24th, 2010
Yesterday I posted the article A Warning to Anyone who uses Wordpress.com. I reported the mysterious way in which a multi-author blog, and all of its authors, were suspended without warning by Wordpress.com.
This morning there is news: The Alexandria blog has been restored. It’s not all good news however; the incident has prompted Alexandria’s founder to step down as administrator. He feels that he led his authors “into a trap” set by Wordpress.com, and he doesn’t want to have that responsibility anymore.
Here is the story:
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Posted in Angelique, Community, Culture, Cyberia on Jun 24th, 2010
Wordpress.com seems like a good solution for anyone who wants a free or very-cheap blog. I myself have recommended it. However, be warned: Wordpress.com can turn on you without warning, and you can lose access to your entire account without explanation or any recourse. This can happen even if you do not own the blog in question, but rather simply contribute to it.
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Posted in Angelique, Arts, Cyberia on Jun 2nd, 2010
If you search for methods to remove glare from glasses, you’ll find many tutorials that instruct you in a multi-step process including the burn, dodge and blur tools.
However, I find I like a combination of quick selection, levels, paintbrush, smudge and blur. It’s less frustrating and I have more control.
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Posted in Angelique, Commerce, Culture, Cyberia on May 24th, 2010
Twitter is a bad billboard. I know that to many of my readers — newcomers to Twitter — it truly seems like it should be good. But it just isn’t. I know you’ve met some “experts” who say that you can totally use it to advertise your business in the traditional sense. But you can’t. It just doesn’t work that way. Twitter can be a tool in your marketing arsenal. It’s especially helpful if you want to reach your most loyal customers. I’ll give you an example…. Twitter isn’t just a helpful marketing tool; it’s also a fun and educational community of colleagues, customers and friends. When you climb down from the billboard and really talk to the Twitter community, you will enjoy satisfying results.
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Posted in Angelique, Commerce, Culture, Cyberia on May 17th, 2010
Protecting one’s privacy on Facebook has become very complicated. The New York Times saved me the trouble of counting all of Facebook’s privacy options; there are one hundred and seventy. And yet people don’t want to give up on Facebook. Who can blame them, when they use it daily to keep in touch with a wide variety of people from all over the country or the world?
A few weeks ago, I started to write a blog post about Facebook privacy settings. Between then and now, concerns about the security of personal information on Facebook have exploded. My original post addressed such questions as “Can I make a photo visible to just one person?” Now I am hearing questions like, “Is something I wrote on Facebook going to show up on some website I’ve never heard of?” and “Can someone who wrote software I never even remember using read all of the personal things I’ve put on my “friends-only” Facebook profile?”
I started to put together some instructions and graphics to help people understand how to use Facebook’s 170+ privacy choices, and realized that what I had was the makings of a very timely class. Do you need to take this class?
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Posted in Angelique, Culture on May 5th, 2010
Posted in Angelique, Commerce, Cyberia, Lifestyle on Apr 29th, 2010
Today I’m presenting some current FAQs from my clients:
1. Do I need a Facebook logo-link to my Facebook business page on my homepage?
2. I have a Mac, and I can’t see a list of all my friends.
3. I can no longer see all my Page fans!
4. I love your groovy new logo-links and numbers. Where did you get them?
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Posted in Angelique, Commerce, Cyberia on Apr 6th, 2010
I hear it all the time: “Everyone says I should change my website, but I don’t need to. That costs money. My sales are just fine!” But just because people use your website doesn’t mean they WANT to use it. One change in your market dynamic, and your customers will be gone.
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Posted in Angelique, Commerce, Cyberia on Mar 19th, 2010
I should really follow my own advice about having blog posts in reserve. Also: I discover what the word “exclusive” means. And I ask readers for suggestions about the content of my auxiliary blog.
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Posted in Angelique, Commerce, Culture, Lifestyle on Mar 1st, 2010
Last week I warned you not to star in your own networking disaster film. We specifically discussed card crashes. Today I’m going to highlight some disaster-film characters whom you should not emulate.
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Posted in Angelique, Commerce, Culture on Feb 25th, 2010
I normally give advice about online networking, but after attending Networking Phoenix’s quarterly “Signature Event,” (a massive thousand-plus mixer at the Scottsdale Hilton,) I think I should warn my readers about some networking disasters that they should avoid.
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Posted in Angelique, Commerce, Cyberia on Feb 15th, 2010
On any holiday, even one that doesn’t mean an automatic day off for everyone, there are less people than usual with their minds on business as usual and more people than usual surfing the web — and Twitter — for information and fun.
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Posted in Angelique, Commerce, Media on Dec 14th, 2009
Put simply, personal branding is a method by which individuals can showcase their unique attributes, just as large business brands have done for decades. The question is: Should you really take the time to build a personal brand? My answer…absolutely! Here are three reasons why building your own brand is imperative in 2010 and beyond.
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