I have written hundreds of computer and internet articles over the years. The monthly royalties are pretty good and so is my stash of cool tricks.
Take a time and pay attention to some easy tricks for your publicity and writer's networking strategy.
Whether you have 20 favorites at OS or 200 favorites all over the web, you can stay in touch and keep up with each other's posts.
Whether OS stays or goes, learn some of the classic web tricks that will enhance your blogging and other experiences.
LEARN TO EMBED LIVE TWITTER FEEDS and RSS FEEDS INTO YOUR BLOG PAGE OR WEBSITE:
WordPress and Blogger are sites that allow you to embed live Twitter feeds. When you post a tweet, it will show in real time. Your retweets will also show up.
When you embed an RSS feed, every post that you or your favorites publish will show up in real time.
Go to the "help" section of your site and find out how to do this.
My HubPages feed is an RSS feed. I could add any RSS feed that amuses me! For some reason, OS RSS does not work, or I would have it at my website.
LEARN TO TWEET
Just sign up and type a TITLE and a LINK to your blogs and posts. Get your friends and favorites to do the same.
LEARN TO USE TWITTER LISTS
When you follow someone, put them in a list. You may have up to 13 custom made lists. When you call up a list, the only tweets that will show up are the ones you choose to see.
USE SAVED SEARCHES AT TWITTER
If you follow topics on a long term basis, search for the topic, then save the search. You will filter another .99999 percent of the crap at Twitter.
SO WHAT?
You have just filtered out 99.9999 percent of the crap at Twitter.
You have created your own custom feed for your blog, website or any other place that allows Twitter or RSS embeds.
Your friends can be posting anywhere on the web and Twitter will bring them all together in one place.
You can keep up on topics where you want the latest and greatest news. Trust me, if it is breaking news, the odds are that it will be on Twitter first.
IF YOU PLAN TO BACK UP YOUR POSTS, GIVE PDF A TRY.
PDF is a good way to compress large files and to manage them. Most people never get into PDF because the program is automatically invoked when a PDF formatted link comes up on the web. Nitro Blog has some pretty good information about various PDF formats and how they work.
Maybe someone will write a post about PDF.
FOLLOW ME ON TWITTER. I FOLLOW MOST PEOPLE BACK AND I RETWEET. YOU DO THE SAME WITH YOUR FAVORITES AND FRIENDS!
IF YOU WANT YOUR OWN WEBSITE, READ THIS ARTICLE.
Why have a website? You may need a website to enhance your professional image.
You may want to put all your web interests and contact information in one place.
You may want to blog without giving up your intellectual property rights.
You may want better features and choices.
You may want control over ads and other content that shows up next to your work.
Give it a try.
SET UP A FACEBOOK PAGE TO SEPARATE YOUR PROFESSIONAL AND PERSONAL SOCIAL NETWORKS.
A Facebook page is easy to do and you have more layout options.
A Facebook page costs not a penny and it offers a way to go public without allowing people to invade your private account.
Why let your book or blog announcement sink to the bottom of a news feed when your links can be fixed and permanent at your Facebook page?
EVERNOTE WILL SAVE YOUR BACON!
Evernote was the first serious cloud storage goodie. You can store and organize anything there without clogging up or infecting your computer.
My manuscripts, notes, photos, sound files, web references and more are up there in a giant file cabinet.
Best of all, if you get the Evernote web clipper, you can clip web articles, whole web pages or URLs with a couple of clicks.
When you do not have time to read, clip it. Then use Evernote to access your web finds when you want to.
Evernote is brilliant for anyone who wants to collect their OS posts. Just clip the article instead of the whole page. Clip the whole page if you want the comments, ads, and other junk.
Evernote works on any device. If the internet is down or a site is kaput, you read your clips offline for a fee!
IF YOU BAIL OUT, TRY
OUR SALON AT NING
Loriane created a social network at NING and she should get a try. The site has some great features and looks like a good place for posting multimedia, text and more.
Try it out.
SPARE ME
I am not interested in hearing about "hate Twitter" "Don't wanna do it and other self defeats.
I have to admit that I am fed up with people who come to my posts to tell me they are not interested in my post. I will delete you.
This information is to help those who have the curiosity and the need.
FEEL FREE TO ADD YOUR SUGGESTIONS AND TIPS FOR STAYING IN TOUCH
The big challenge is finding a way to collect everyone's addresses, facebook monikers and other stuff. It is just too much for too many.
If anyone has any ideas, feel free to put them here or to make your own post.
TIP:
Enter the amount, and click "Tip" to submit!
nilesite
Brie aka Barbara K
Gerald Andersen
Brazen Princess
Ben Sen
Alan Nothnagle
Salon.com
Comments
http://jgiecek.wix.com/midnight-scribbler
teehee.
Some good stuff in this post!!!
The rumor of the last few days has been a warning.
I really hope I can save the stuff important to me.
Actually,I wish OS to continue but your insider advice is of great help.
~r~
I have found Linkedin to be extremely useful, it has so many grouρ οne can join and many more. I have joined Ning, and I want to dearly thank you for this insight. It is so needed work for all of us, who want our work to be ρublic, noticed, criticised and make a living with it. Everynote, seems so useful to me.
Bravo, Zumalicious, this is so useful and needed for all of us here!!!I have just saved your writing.
So many rates, come with many more thank you for the insight!!!
thanks for the plug for the Ning site. there are lots more great features that i will unlock by upgrading if people go there. and it also has a simple database for member emails & the ability to mass message.
R
Go easy on us Luddites, though. This stuff is not intuitive for everyone, and can be downright intimidating. Some of us are reclusive introverts, when we're not busy being attention whores. The "always connected" idea has an aura of menace. I'm curious how much of your time has to be dedicated to your connections. I appreciate that you mention filtering. We've come along way from the days of venturing into the usenet without a kill file.
Once again, may I say Damn?
For me, Twitter-No; Facebook-HELL NO (strictly from a privacy and security perspective).
Everyone seems to have forgotten, but Spudman setup aWordpress site 2 years ago during the last panic.
http://oskeepintouch.wordpress.com/
Sirenita: I get the "luddite" part! But a lot of sites have made things much easier than in the past. I use only a fraction of the features at most sites, but find that the help pages get me through when I try a new trick.
Loriane: You did great work there. I still have to get over there, but will work on it next week.
Thanks all!
And for you newsies out there, who like to report on stuff as it's occurring -- Twitter. Zuma's right, if it's happening right now, it's probably on twitter first even before the newswires.
Admittedly, I am a contentious technophile. I love technology and I love new gadgetry, while at the same time, have issues with finding it's value and use to me, personally. Even so, while carping away at most of it and not really liking it, I still do my best to learn to employ it.
The simple truth is that if there's an audience (and FB and Twitter are just HUGE with audiences) then any writing person, any blogging person, any artistically minded person -- and especially you aspiring political pundits, journalists and newsies NEED to be able to at least plug in, hook up and connect with that audience.
I hate FaceBook. Because I hate it, though, I use it. I hate Microsoft Word, but I use it. I hate Excel, but I use it. I hate smartphones, but I use them. Do you see a trend here?
I don't hate these things because they're new, or trendy or useless. I hate them, because most of them don't offer me an intuitive easy learning curve to allow me to use them for MY purposes the way I see fit. That said, I am not a programmer and if I were, would I still feel the same way?
Even with those things we don't like, we must learn to embrace them, use them and bend them to our puposes, otherwise we risk ending up in the same boat as buggy whip manufacturers at the turn of the last century -- outdated, unsellable and virtually forgotten.
I have a slide rule somewhere around the house, too, but I have my calculator as my primary. I can do those maths in longhand, too, but why? Anything that saves you time, ultimately, is worth the investment of your time now, to save even more later. This is the same reason that I have learned the basics of 3D modeling, even though I can draw fairly well.
As always, your mileage may vary, but learning to be as savvy as you can about the ability to promote your work and reach out to a wider audience is going to be time well spent.
And, like me, you can quietly hate all those tools as much as you like and still utilize them for your own benefit.
Great post, Zuma, even if I am a hater in general of Twitter and FB. I'll continue to use them, learn to use them better, and now I have to go out and try those other things you mentioned I hadn't heard of yet.
--r--
So far 23 have signed up... I'm also double posting at Wordpress.com: http://calitexan1949.wordpress.com/
I can't imagine if OS goes dark that we won't be able to stay in touch.
dunniteowl: That was a brilliant comment. You could write a post and give us some more!
I will say that I hate Facebook like the plague, too because of the privacy issues and the time consuming technical changes. I like
Google Plus as a niche network: the artists go to town over there. The photography, science and news is out of this world.
I need to clean up my Twitter lists, but primarily tweet and retweet between fellow writers.
https://twitter.com/#!/TwitCleaner
I'm going to explore PDF.
tweeting's for the birds.
you're looking fine, however....
r