For some reason I awoke at 3:30 this morning. That’s usually not a big deal, I can normally get back to sleep until it’s time to get up. I started thinking about this new feature I am supposed to implement at work. I came up with the general concept and told myself I should remember it for later. Then I started thinking about a new blog post about the 10 top things I like about Twitter. That was enough to get me out of bed and start writing. I’ll do the work thing later.
#1 The Connections
When I started using Twitter just before the start of the year I had no idea what it would bring. Think about all the forums, bulletin boards, social networks, etc. that have existed in the past. I have participated, but usually only when I wanted a question answered. For some reason this 140 character thing that seems so simple is a great way to connect with people. I have honestly never seen anything like it. Young, old, male, female, all cultures, all languages, nothing seems to matter. If you use Tweetdeck, there is even a translate button that will translate the tweet into your native language. So there are really no barriers – you can connect with anyone on the planet that has access to a computer.
#2 Courtesy is Rampant
In the three months I have been using Twitter I have seen an abundance of professionalism and courtesy. I expected to see at least some bashing, arguments, hate language, etc. I have only seen one or two instances where there was a mild altercation between two tweeters, easily remedied by Block button. Even when a person perceives they may have offended an explanation or apology has already been sent. My Twitter stream is always full of retweets. This is another reason that makes the Twitter experience so pleasant. Maybe if every car on the road had the driver’s Twitter ID on their license plate there would be far less road rage. :)
Update: 4/23/09 I also wanted to add how great it is to see all the support that is prevalent on Twitter. As I write this we are in a contest to have our pitch produced as part of a video called “Pitch TV” that will be played on all of Richard Branson’s Virgin Atlantic flights as part of their inflight entertainment. I have found all the encouragement from people on Twitter to be overwhelming and I know I wouldn’t have a chance if it weren’t for you folks. The end result still has to be determined, but I do thank all of you who voted for us, blogged about us, interviewed us and sent us kind and thoughtful words. (Twitter is AWESOME!!) Update: 6/05/09 The results of the pitch contest are in! Thanks to you all we are featured as the first pitch in Richard Branson’s Premiere Pitch TV Show. Check it out here!
#3 Marketing/Blog Promotion
Think about ways that you can market your business or non-profit for free. One way that comes to mind is email. And that isn’t even free because if you are serious about it you have to pay for email lists. What percentage of emails get through and even are read? Twitter on the other hand provides people that have already told you they want to hear what you say just by following you. Once you connect with them they will also market you via their respectful retweets. They might come across someone that could use your services and tell them about it. Twitter is all about each one of us lifting each other up – helping out each other’s causes. Be careful however – Twitter marketing isn’t just about telling everyone how great your product is. You must market yourself first by connecting with people – they will in turn discover your product and will be much more open to consider it and promote it to others. Blogging is another form of marketing. It shows your knowledge of a particular subject. Before Twitter I had very few readers of my blog since I was just out there hanging in the middle of cyberspace somewhere. With a tool like TwitterFeed, I can feed a link to my blog to my Twitter stream. Now I have exposed all of my followers to my blog. I have gotten quite an increase in readership which will only continue to rise as I keep tweeting.
#4 Philanthropy
This is the reason I joined Twitter – to promote Kids Are Heroes. Before I discovered Twitter I was able to get exposure in our local paper and a radio spot or two but that’s about it. Since I joined Twitter we have been featured in the Denver Post, completed one podcast and scheduled another, and invited to be guest speakers at a tweetathon. We are gaining new heroes from around the world because of this new exposure. I believe this is just the beginning. I get so excited when I think about where we will be one year from now or five years down the road. There are many non-profits that are thriving on Twitter. With this economy it is helpful to have another source of revenue.
#5 Global Reach
“The world is your oyster.” Twitter makes it available to you. The URL shortener http://tr.im shows not only how many clicks a link has received, but where they originate as well. When we host our Friday Twitterthons, we usually try and promote them all week, so we use the same link. Here is an example of the reach that Twitter gives you. The link itself has been clicked over 1600 times and the following is the list of where people originated: US, France, Germany, Canada, Ireland, UK, Russian Federation, China, Australia, Republic of Korea, Singapore, New Zealand and Israel. If you use Future Tweets, you can also connect with people while you are sleeping. Now some might think this is an impersonal way of tweeting or it is tweeting by some form of trickery. I disagree. I use it regularly so I can be in front of someone when their time zone makes it convenient for them. I have learned that to get the most out of Twitter you must be active on it. Future Tweets lets me be active in the middle of the night. Currently I have five tweets I have set to run overnight. I space them out enough not to be obnoxious, but hopefully between the times that I tweet during the day and the automated ones at night I have everyone covered. When I looked at my Replies folder this morning I saw I had three responses to my tweets – one being a retweet. How I make that personal is by replying to them in the morning. Now I have connected with more people around the world. There is usually a window somewhere during the day that enables us to tweet live to each other. The “future tweet” made this possible.
#6 Newsworthy
Many people talk about how Twitter informs of all breaking news. Yes that is true, seemingly minutes after a major incident has happened, it ends up in my Twitter stream. The next person will post a video of the same incident. This is a great by-product of Twitter. But what goes along with this is learning about things in general. There are so many different interests and perspectives. You can learn about anything. My friend in Singapore taught me about the origin of numbers. Yesterday I downloaded a Powerpoint presentation that had photographs (not renditions, actual photographs) of our planet by astronaut Sunita Williams. Now you wouldn’t think that was such a big deal because we’ve all seen what the earth looks like haven’t we? We’ve even seen pictures. But this was different. It showed how night falls, what sand storms look like from space – it just gave me a different perspective that I was thrilled to share with my 10-year-old daughter.
#7 What do you Need?
I have a practice of asking people if they need anything. This might sound like a funny rhetorical question, but it’s not. If it’s something I can help with I do. If it’s something I can find for them I try to. If it’s something I cannot accomplish or tell them, I try and find someone who can. Twitter is like that. People are always anxious to help and offer free advice. Many times it comes unsolicited in an informative blog. A newbie recently tweeted to me how she loves the “collegial” atmosphere of Twitter. It was refreshing to her. That’s the way things should be.
#8 Searching for Godot
Google is great for searching. It is so great, there is now an accepted verb in the English language: to google. Sometimes when you google however you get too much back and it becomes hard to sift through the results. There are two ways to search on Twitter. One way is to use a search tool to filter the tweets. That method is powerful enough on its own. The second way is to simply tweet the question. Now you have people from around the world reading your question. The good news is that they understand exactly what you are after. Often times it is simple as posting a question on Twitter to get the answer you need.
#9 Education
Twitter is a great conduit where you can learn from other people. From news to different cultures to simply learning about each other’s passions. I have learned so many things from my colleagues on Twitter it is amazing.
#10 Tweet-Ups
Tweet-ups are when Twitter people get together to socialize in person. Make no mistake about it – Twitter is a social networking platform. It enables people to both forge new and strengthen existing relationships. But nothing can replace face-to-face networking. Twitter is a great way to facilitate these meetings. Thanks to @mjovel for getting one set up in our city. Regretfully I cannot attend this one but eagerly look forward to the next one.
Ok, I bet I missed one or two (or three) great things about Twitter. Please remind me of them in the Comments section. I’m sure I will think of more too. Best post this before another one occurs to me.
This week my Friday connections are a bit different. I usually list those that connect with me and how they did it. It’s hard for people to connect with me if I’m not on Twitter that much. The more you use Twitter, the more connections you can make. This week made it difficult to be on Twitter for long periods of time.
The first connection I list was not spawned from Twitter. I just think it can be used as a learning tool for all you marketers out there. The second connection was made in a similar manner than the previous ones. And since I didn’t want to end with just two, a lesson can be learned from the other pseudo-connections.
If you would like to start this practice, use the #fridayconnect hash tag to let everyone know what new people you have conected with this week. You can also read my previous Friday Connections blog posts.
#1@5within22 This connection is a lesson in salesmanship and marketing. I received an email last Friday from Ed. A Google alert sent him to MaryMargaret’s web site. Not Kids Are Heroes, but her personal web site that is helping her raise funds so she can go to the Junior National Young Leader’s Conference this summer. He is a student entrepreneur that was offering us his product to mark up and sell as a fund raiser. I like the fact that he’s a student, but did not respond to the email as I am skeptical of other people that I perceive may be trying to “cash in” on what we are doing. So I let it go. Sometime during the week I received a phone call from the same gentleman. His manner was very professional, soft spoken and not pushy at all. After he reminded me of who he was I was very frank with him and told him why I did not respond to his email. Since he was a student I gave him a longer rope than I normally would. (I have no patience for unsolicited phone calls or similar such things – right or wrong – in case you haven’t detected that yet.) He explained what his product did and how it worked and how it could help us. As I tell everyone these days I suggested he get on Twitter. “We are on Twitter and we followed you a couple of days ago.”, he said. I asked him if I followed him back to which he said, “No.” Now that was odd, because I do follow back the majority of people that follow me. I asked him his ID and looked up his profile. I saw that he had no @replies in his Twitter stream. He wasn’t being spammy, just didn’t seem to engage with anyone. I told him why I did not follow him. He told me he was new to Twitter and did not know all the ins and outs. I sent him my Twitter Do’s and Dont’s post in hopes that it would help him. After reading the post, he graciously asked the etiquette of reposting to other Twitter friends. “Flattery will get you everywhere” I told him and he shared it with his partner. So the long and short of this is that here is a student who is just starting up his own company. I would not classify him as a typical salesman – he probably wouldn’t have gotten this far with me if I thought he was one. But he was persistent without being obnoxious and even though we haven’t decided yet whether we will try and raise funds with his product, he made a connection – good for him. I now follow him and his partner @aveleroy. I will give him a plug for two reasons: 1) I liked his controlled persistence and 2) MaryMargaret likes his product. These are note cards that can be shared among tween friends that interact with their web site. Their pitch is: “BFF Notes is a notepad that allows girls to pass secret coded notes to their friends. It also serves as the gateway to a secure online social network exclusively for tweens.” Check them out at BFFNotes.com.
#2@inspiringdesign Justin has been hovering just under my radar screen for quite some time now. He has been quietly retweeting some of my posts. Now that I look back at his tweets I’m really not sure why I didn’t mention him sooner. I see that three weeks ago he made a very nice #followfriday tribute to me. This week he retweeted one of my posts and I thanked him. His response to my thank-you was to tell me that he tried to come to our Music for Life! fund raiser but was unable to. That made me realize that maybe my marketing wasn’t falling on deaf ears. We had a decent showing for the 10:30 seating but a sparse turnout for the other two. All in all we raised $600.00 so I the event was indeed a success, but we all know every charity is suffering during this economy. But sometimes I felt alone out there when the response wasn’t what I had hoped. Justin reminded me that maybe people really did want to come but for whatever reason just couldn’t make it. That simply made me feel better. The lesson learned here is to be persistent when trying to connect. Some people (like me) can be slow to react sometimes. Now I am not saying that Justin was trying to get noticed by me this whole time and I ignored him – if that were the case he wouldn’t have gotten through to me. He was just being a good guy and doing what you are supposed to do on Twitter: retweet posts that you like and give tributes to people you enjoy following through the #followfriday tradition. That is a natural way to connect with people.
#3,#4,#5 @homeschoolsegue@DaytonChildrens@ontheirway Maybe one reason this was a slow week for me regarding Twitter was because I hadn’t written a new blog post. I have a “Citizen Blog” I must maintain for the local paper, plus all my other responsibilities. I also have no schedule to keep for my own blog so I only write when I am inspired. I finally had that urge yesterday to write more about Twitter. I wrote a new post about people who don’t use Twitter because they ”Don’t Have Time” for it. I also added to my Do’s and Dont’s post as a few things came up this week that were appropriate. The people mentioned here all @replied to me thanking me for the Do’s and Dont’s post. They are all new to Twitter and were happy to get some insight. I am always happy to help new people get adjusted. Twitter can be an extremely productive environment if you just use it right. I feel so sorry for those who just don’t know any better. I was followed today by a person who was following 2000 people and had zero updates. Such a shame. Anyway, I almost forgot that writing blog posts can help you connect with new people. These folks gave me a very nice reward for blogging: a simple and sincere “thank you”.
So far I have gotten a positive response from these “Friday Connection” posts. I urge you all to try it out. Keeping track inspires you to go out and find new connections. The connections I make are strenghthened in ensuing weeks. That is when it becomes really fun. So let us know about the connections YOU made this week – add your Twitter ID and those of the people you made connections with this week in the Comments section.
I hear this a lot when I tell people about Twitter. They perceive it as a place to waste time, probably because they do not fully understand it. How can I be critical of them when that was exactly how I felt when I first looked at Twitter? Anyway, my response to this objection is the following: “Do you spend any time promoting or marketing your business? If you do then you have time for Twitter.” Twitter is a tool that if used properly can connect you with people you would never have met in your lifetime. It is a gold mine. But like a gold mine, the nuggets just don’t leap into your pocket, you must hunt for them. It is my position that companies that ignore Twitter will be left behind. According to KnowledgeCentre News, more than 6000 firms a day are turning to Twitter to cut costs and boost their marketing efforts.
So where’s the beef? People like to see proof. I would love to hear your success stories in the comments section here so I can direct people to them later. And I know there must be countless success stories, or there would not be so much buzz about Twitter these days. But what about me? How has Twitter helped Kids Are Heroes? Well let’s see. I started tweeting in late December 2008. In three short months I have connected with many people across the country as well as around the world. I have links back to my site from a blog site as far away as Singapore. My main goal is to promote Kids Are Heroes, so I follow moms, dads and teachers. I have seen the web site rise in hits on an average day from under 50 to over 100. (Just three days ago we enjoyed 365 hits with no special promotion.) Kids from all over the country are posting shout-outs to the heroes from their classrooms. Many more people are reading my blogs. We have raised the awareness tenfold of what we are doing. We have gotten new heroes from Twitter. We have been invited to participate in podcasts and as guest speakers in tweet-a-thons. The Denver Post ran their first story (of several) on us just two days ago. We have raised awareness and funds for MaryMargaret’s Music for Life! project. I feel that the fire hose has only been turned on to a trickle at this point. As more people join, more people recommend, more people will hear our message.
I was asked the other day as part of a psychological study, “Where do you see yourself five years from now?” Without thinking I answered this question instead: “Where do you see Kids Are Heroes five years from now?” My answer was that I envision Kids Are Heroes as a global organization that will inspire hundreds of thousands of children to do wonderful things which in turn will help shape many more young leaders. In ten years I hope it will be as well known as the Boy and Girl Scouts of America. Now, is that perceived success all because of Twitter? I would say no but think of this: Do you remember the scene in National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation when Clark Griswold applied the wax to his saucer sled? (If you don’t get that reference, here it is thanks to YouTube.) I see Twitter as the sled wax that will help get us there much faster. It certainly has been good to us so far.
So come on – let’s see how Twitter has helped you using real stories about your business.
Update: 4/24/09 I would think that success on Twitter is measured by what you want to get out of it. My original goal was to get more exposure for Kids Are Heroes. I have indeed accomplished that and then some – I wouldn’t be blogging about Twitter and spending so much time on it if I didn’t feel there was a good reason to do it. Because of Twitter, I discovered Richard Branson’s PitchTV concept where he offers budding entrepreneurs a stage to show their exciting projects. As of this writing our pitch is on his web site in the midst of a competition – the top five pitches will make it through to the PitchTV show which will be broadcast on all Virgin Atlantic flights for one month. Ok I bet you would classify that as a “win” regardless of the outcome. The buzz that has stirred and the newfound exposure is priceless to me. But what has been more important is the support I have received from everyone on Twitter with all their votes, blogs, features, encouragement and retweets. Without them I wouldn’t have stood a chance in this competition. (Must give props to my family and heroes too.) This to me is a bigger sign of success on Twitter than being featured on a blog site somewhere. Either way, both are very cool. Still say you don’t have time for Twitter?
This was an extremely busy week for us and I was noticeably absent from Twitter. I would pop in from time to time but sadly was unable to make as many connections as I would have liked. I did indeed make some and in new ways I might add. But first let me give a quick rundown of what MaryMargaret and I were up to. Last Saturday, a reporter from NBC showed up at our door and taped an interview (see it here) about MaryMargaret being nominated for the Junior National Young Leaders Conference this summer. She had Monday off, so we visited Key 103 radio and taped another interview (listen here) regarding our Music for Life fund raiser coming up on Sunday. Last night she had her first solo presentation in front of the Kiwanis Club of Suburban Frederick updating them about the progress with Kids Are Heroes and detailing her Music for Life project. (This organization is handling all the donated funds for us.) Somewhere in there we were interviewd for a podcast moderated by @tumblondad, one of my earlier Friday connections. And our Twitter activity also got us noticed by the Denver Post, who did a story on us that will be in Tuesday’s paper. Now I am not naive enough to think that this kind of attention will continue. As a matter of fact, I believe it was a fluke occurrence that it all happened the same week because we have no more media events on our immediate schedule. So things should be back to normal and I hope to be making more connections this coming week.
This week I made five connections. I believe three of them were made by different methods than those used in the past.
#1angellr I saw a tweet from Bob asking if anyone knew of a utility that would back up his followers to his local drive. It seemed to me I had seen something like this before during my travels. I assumed that someone would have given him the answer right away, so I told him if he didn’t get the answer within a few minutes I could see if I could find the link for him. Well, no one else reading his note had the answer so I googled. I came up with a utility that sort of did what he wanted. I sent that to him. A few minutes past, and it was bugging me that I didn’t really solve his problem so I googled some more. I found Tweetake, a third party utility that did exactly what he wanted it to. You can save all your followers to a text file on your hard drive. I felt very satisfied to send it to him. Bob was very excited and gracious to get this information. So much so that he put me on his #followfriday list last week. That wasn’t necessary but was appreciated very much. This is one way of making a connection that I have talked about before. A great way to connect with someone is to solve a problem for them.
#2 and #3@MissBlondie919and @Annagain66 Last Friday night’s Twitterthon was a blast. I put these two tweeps together in my connections list because they were both in attendance. There was a lot of participation last week and right at the very end I was going to announce to all to join our “after party” on Ustream. Sadly right at that point I had used up all my allotted tweets for the hour and got booted. This was even after taking the precaution of having @TeamCharlie send out the songs. I DM’ed a few people about the after party (note when you run out of tweets you can still DM) and @MissBlondie919 and @Annagain66 came along with @jonkurozawa who got a Friday connection mention last week. MaryMargaret read all the questions and it was more great fun. @MissBlondie919 was getting many of the answers right. When that happens I try and change things up a bit and ask something I think is difficult from another subject. The question was this: “On what vegetable did an ancient Egyptian place his right hand on when taking an oath?” I asked this question with a smug smirk on my face thinking, “They’ll never get this one!” Miss Blondie quickly typed: “An onion.” I’m thinking, “No way!!! How did she know that??” So I asked her. It turns out her grandfather was an historian and she would sit on his knee and listen to story after story when she was young. What a cool fact to know about someone! Even in a silly little trivia game you can make a connection.
#4 @rmolden This is a good one. One of my previous Friday connections, @hiannie, lives in Singapore. She recently told me she put the Kids Are Heroes web site on her blogroll. How cool is that? Kids Are Heroes and Twitter are a perfect match because they are both global applications. Being included in Annie’s blogroll made me think of ways I could reach other parts of the world more effectively. The answer I came up with was to tweet about Kids Are Heroes during their day. I googled for a utility that would tweet at a scheduled time. The best one I found was FutureTweets, because it allows you to tweet at a scheduled time recurringly for free. Not wanting to be obnoxious about it I scheduled it to tweet the Kids Are Heroes link just twice throughout the night. Well the first night I did it I saw that it had been retweeted by @rmolden who lives in Sydney. That was cool so I sent him a belated thank you. Turns out he was still up. He liked the link so much he asked for it again so he could retweet again! Who would ever think you could make a connection on Twitter while you are sleeping?
#5 @OKE_Menachem Menachem is simply a nice man. He has retweeted my tweets on several occasions. He participated in our Twitterthon last week. I made his #followfriday list this week. He even donated to MaryMargaret’s Music for Life cause last week, as that is why we do our Twitterthons. Thanks so much Menachem. Now I’m not saying you have to donate to the Music for Life program to get a mention here, but it sure doesn’t hurt. :)
This is so much fun tracking all these new people that I meet on Twitter. Remember if you want to do the same, use the #fridayconnect hash tag and mention the people you have connected with throughout the week. It’s also fun to progress with the same folks each week. If you have any #fridayconnect stories, please share them with us in the Comments section.
Every time we go to Norristown to visit my 98-year-old Aunt Mary I get the urge to write about it. During the course of my travels with Wags for Hope, I have met a lot of people that live in nursing homes and have watched many of them deteriorate over time. Some who have been Charlie’s biggest fans in the past shun our visits now due to their constant state of discomfort. I called Aunt Mary Saturday night to announce our planned trip to see her. She is hard of hearing so it took me a few times for her to recognize my voice and to understand what was going on. She didn’t seem to know who was calling her. She finally recognized my name and with her very slow speech asked me when we would be there. ”It’s happening.” I thought to myself. She is going fast. I prepared myself for the worst and thought sadly that this might be our last trip.
My wife had the forethought to bring MaryMargaret’s violin. Such a great idea. We packed up all our stuff and loaded Charlie in the back and off to Norristown we went. When we arrived, as we got off the elevator there she was waiting for us. She looked great. When we spoke to her I was so relieved because she really hadn’t lost much since the last time we saw her. Her speech is slow and she is hard of hearing, but she understood everything we talked about. We even got her laughing a few times. She is such a pleasant person to visit. And I was so happy we had the violin. MaryMargaret played a private “concert” for her and then she played again for all the folks in the day room. Aunt Mary was a star. “This is your family?” they asked her. When she nodded yes the woman said “Congratulations!” They were all taken with MaryMargaret and Charlie. Even though Aunt Mary had never seemed to pay that much attention to Charlie when we brought him in the past, you could tell she got a kick out of him licking my face and bringing joy to others. She asked us to send a picture of him for her bulletin board. You bet we will.
We took a video of MaryMargaret playing at the nursing home. You can clearly hear Charlie panting during the first piece as he was right next to me. I think he approved as well.
I really had fun making new connections this week. I was under pressure to make ten more because I promised to blog about it. I came up with six. I learned something. There are some days when it is difficult to connect for whatever reason. Some days are better than others for connecting. I found one day that I was reading the tweets, ready to jump in at any time, but nothing was reaching out to me. Other days I could barely keep up.
For those of you who didn’t read last week’s blog post this is all about Friday Connections (use #fridayconnect on Twitter). These are now weekly blogs where I recount the connections I have made during the week. Twitter is all about connecting with people, so I make every effort to do so. I hope to start a trend on Twitter where everyone makes a better effort to actually connect with (as opposed to sell to) people.
How it works is that you keep track of the NEW people you feel you have connected to or they you during the week. It doesn’t have to be dramatic, just enough so that you know a bit more about that person when you see their tweets. This will breed some sort of familiarity between these new connections. As a side effect this is how you will develop followers in a natural way. I have a goal of getting 10 new connections per week. This week as of this writing I have 6. I don’t force them. I will also say that the connections grew stronger with some of the people I listed last week.
#1@UBUIBME Eric seems to like my posts. He retweets them often. He added me to his #followfriday list last week. This is without really engaging with me. I recommend doing this, but only if it is done naturally. The tweets you retweet must reach out to you. This is a great way to connect with people. Thanks Eric.
#2 @DarleneVictoria Darlene reached out to me last Friday night just after my Twitterthon. I was really frustrated at the time because Twitter booted me for some reason and I couldn’t tell people why I went silent all of a sudden. Once I was let back in and settled a bit she did what no other person has done since I have been on Twitter. It was so cool I was embarrassed that I hadn’t used the same approach with other people. She asked me a simple question. “Why did you start Kids Are Heroes?” Now if that’s not a way to connect with someone I don’t know what is. Find out a bit of what people are doing and ask them how they became involved in it. So simple yet I hadn’t thought of it. Well at least up until then I didn’t. I now try to do this at every appropriate opportunity. Darlene plans to have MaryMargaret and I do a podcast for her blog and we are happy to oblige.
#3 @AJaneChambers Sometimes it takes a few nudges to make a good connection. Jane responded to one of my tweets. Her response interested me so I looked at her profile. Turns out she is from Ellicott City, about 30 miles down Rte 70. “Drove past you on Wednesday!” she quipped one day. On another occasion it was “Hello from Ellicott City.” The answer here is to keep at it. Now I will know exactly who it is when I see her tweets and also know where to go if I need a lawyer!
#4 @ItzaBitza This is a good one. I read a tweet from @JesseNewhart about using Tweetdeck for following large numbers. This definitely interested me so I saved it. I finally got a chance to watch the video and liked it so I retweeted it. Margaret liked it as well so she responded back to me thanking me for posting the link, even though I had nothing to do with it. We continued on and discussed our children and the challenges of our families. I very much look forward to tweeting with her again. This is all because I retweeted someone else’s post!
#5 @jonkurozawa As many of you know, every Friday night MaryMargaret and I put on a Twitterthon from 8-10PM. Last week we spiced things up a bit by adding a trivia game. Jon was a frequent answerer. He was also fun to have in the audience. Now I’m not saying you have to put on a Twitterthon to connect with people. But if someone is trying to engage in an unique way then feel free to jump in and support them.
#6 @ShaneJohnston This connection points to why I joined Twitter in the first place. I joined Twitter to promote Kids Are Heroes. Period. (It doesn’t hurt that it’s also lots of fun.) Shane had retweeted one of my posts. Usually if I have time that alone will cause me to look at someone’s profile. I noticed he was from Brampton. This is a town in Ontario Canada. It just so happens it is also where my sister (@moelib) lives. I put that in the back of my mind somewhere. On another occasion I noticed something about his avatar. He appeared to be at home speaking into a studio quality microphone. This was interesting to me so I asked him about it. Now that little nudge got him to think about nominating his own kids for the Kids Are Heroes web site. He also discovered the forms on the web site weren’t working and I spent most of the day scrambling to fix them – thanks Shane for the heads up! Turns out his kids are doing amazing things creating sleeping bags for children in Haiti. Due to the similarities of what they are doing and what my brother is involved with (he lives about an hour away from Shane) I connected them up as well. This type of connection is what I am really seeking because it benefits our web site which inspires other kids to become involved. This to me is the equivalent of a signed contract to all you business people. Success happens on Twitter, believe me.
I know there are a couple more but I forgot to write their names down. I’m sure I will run into them again and will post them for future Friday Connections. Let’s hear about how you make your connections, so we can all learn from you. That is what is so neat about Twitter – we are all lifting each other up.
One lady on Twitter did. I won’t “out” her here, but that was a tweet that stuck in my head: “I just ate a Twix bar with a fork.” After pondering the inanity of this quip I thought I should put it away for future reference. And now it rises. This is the common complaint about Twitter. People are so busy with their oh so important lives that they cannot be bothered with time-wasting tweets such as this, thus Twitter is a waste of time in their eyes. I must admit I was one of those naysayers. The first time I tried Twitter I told myself it was a bunch of people wasting time talking about nothing. I know different now. I find it an extremely useful tool to connect with people. But what about those tweets? Do I care about them more now that I like Twitter? Actually for the most part, no. That is until I get to know that person. Then these kinds of tweets can be endearing.
So let’s try an experiment. The next time you see a tweet that you think is totally vapid, try and make something out of it. Try and engage that person just to see what happens. For example: “I just ate a Twix bar with a fork.” could be replied with, “Did it taste any better?” See where that takes you – try and make an actual connection with that person that you did not know before. Leave a comment here with your results, and I will also try it and see what comes of it. There must be some reason why Twitter asks, “What are you doing?”
This is the first of my planned weekly blogs where I recount the connections I have made during the week. Twitter is all about connecting with people, so I make every effort to do so. I hope to start a trend on Twitter where everyone makes a better effort to actually connect with (as opposed to sell to) people. I have reserved the hash tag #fridayconnect for just this purpose. I would love to see it put to use.
How it works is that you keep track of the NEW people you feel you have connected to or they you during the week. It doesn’t have to be dramatic, just enough so that you know a bit more about that person when you see their tweets. This will breed some sort of familiarity between these new connections. As a side effect this is how you will develop followers in a natural way. So here goes. In no special order, this is my top 10 connections for this past week.
#1 @GreetingsthtGro Anne brought her daughters to our Twitterthon last Friday and donated to MaryMargaret’s cause. I’m not saying that one has to give us money to make a connection but it sure helps! :)
#2 @Fox5NewsEdge Other stations should pay attention to what Fox 5 is doing. Not sure who is behind the curtain on this one – sometimes I think it’s the producer and other times it is Brian the news guy but either way, they reach out with their personalities and they pay attention to what people say to them. They engage on Twitter which makes me more interested in their news show. They broadcasted two of my tweets last week! Now I’m not saying that you have to put my tweets on the air to make a connection, but it sure helps! :)
#3 @BrianBolter This is definitely manned by the Fox 5 News guy. News anchors never get to show their personalities on the air so we think they just don’t have one. Well Brian sure does and he proudly displays it. He also responds if you @ him which is a classy move. Also makes me want to watch their program. To coin a phrase from the Guiness commercial: Brilliant!
#4 @BetsyCollings This one is a bit different. I have known Betsy for a while in person. To be honest I do not know her that well besides our bantering at our local Chamber of Commerce events. She connected with me by saying nice things about my blog posts. Don’t try this at home unless you are genuine, but that was very nice of her to reach out like she did.
#5 @RobCollings This one is a related to #4 as you might guess. Rob is a Twitter “newbie” and Betsy recommended that he connect with me. He did it in a very professional yet personal way which I greatly appreciated. He simply @replied to me introducing himself. Again, I don’t recommend you start @replying people at random for no reason, but if someone tweets something you like I think this is a great way to make a deeper connection with them.
#6 @Hiannie The other day when it snowed I posted a innocuous tweet about how my daughter MaryMargaret enjoyed the snow falling outside. I got a response from someone I had never noticed: “@KidsAreHeroes If it was snowing outside I’d jump for joy!” It turns out this responder was from Singapore and was in the middle of a sweltering heat wave. Now I read her posts whenever I see them thinking about what the weather might be like in Singapore. That’s how you connect on Twitter – respond to people!
#7 @AlexKaris Alex is an “uber-twit” that has close to 19,000 followers! I retweeted one of his posts and soon after that he followed me. He always responds to my @replies which is amazing considering how many followers he has. I have adopted his habit of following people that retweet my posts. The logic is if they feel the post is worthy of retweeting then we have at least that much in common.
#8 @BirthSource I received a very nice direct message after I posted one of my blogs. Tracey made a very nice comment and thanked me for posting it. Since my reason for writing about Twitter is to be helpful I was glad to know it helped at least one person. Very nice way to make a personal connection.
#9 @tumblondad, @marianmerritt I cheated a bit here and added two for the price of one. Both these folks made very nice comments on one of my blogs. Whether it be mine or anyone else’s blog posts, if they help you or if you appreciate them please make an effort to comment on them.
#10 @DFS_Ellen Ellen runs an online pet supplies store. She actually @replied to my @TeamCharlie moniker, which I periodically use to announce things related to Wags for Hope. Ellen took the time to look up my bio and make a nice comment about Wags for Hope. That’s how to connect with people.
So here you see several examples of how to get people’s attention on Twitter. This to me is putting Twitter to its best use. Look for all of these folks on my #followfriday list, and I hope you all start trying out the #fridayconnect practice.
Ok, call me nuts but this post is about one of our dogs. His name is Charlie and he turns 5 years old today. As we speak my wife is out buying him a present or two. She’ll throw in some doggie ice cream for both he and Lily to celebrate with this evening. From what I gather many if not most people treat their dogs this way, as part of the family. We are no exception.
In February of 2004, my wife Michelle happened to take MaryMargaret to a local dog event. It was the Potomac Valley Bernese Mountain Dog show. She was so impressed with these animals she called me right away and insisted I come down. I arrived shortly thereafter to witness a sea of gorgeous dogs just relaxing and all getting along. This made quite an impression on us. Sadly and coincidentally our family dog Nikki passed away very shortly thereafter. Nikki had lived for 16 years with my wife and naturally she was devastated. However she really wanted another dog right away, so in May Charlie arrived.
I had known Nikki for about ten years and all I know is that dog hated me. She would ignore everything I said unless I had a “snausage” in my hand. The only other dog I had lived with was Heidi the St. Bernard when I was about ten years old. So Charlie in fact was the first dog I ever really felt connected to as an adult. I became deeply attached to him early on, so when he was just four months old I started taking him to a nursing home. I wanted to share him and show him off, so what better place to do it than a place that will always provide a captive audience? We continued this practice for about two years until the nursing home turned us away on several occasions. Sometimes when there is an airborne virus they have to close down all the wings. I was curious to see how he would do in a different place so I took him next door to the assisted living facility. They immediately fell in love with him. “When are you coming back?” they asked me. Charlie was such a natural at doing this. He just sat there in the middle of a collection of walkers and wheelchairs and looked up at me as if to say, “Don’t worry, I’ll handle this!” It was that very second I realized there was a huge thirst for this activity in Frederick County.
That was the very day that Wags for Hope started. I don’t know how many non-profit organizations have been founded by dogs, but Wags is one of them. If it weren’t for Charlie, Wags for Hope would never have been formed. We now have over 120 teams in four counties visiting over 25 facilities. We also visit schools and libraries under the R.E.A.D.® program which uses therapy dogs to improve literacy skills in our children. We are about to make our first official visit to Frederick Memorial Hospital, which for the first time is allowing therapy dogs inside. This is all thanks to Charlie.
So the next time you see Charlie walking downtown Frederick, or out and about on a speaking engagement (as he is often asked to do) please tip your hat to him. He is one special dog. (Happy birthday, Charlie!)
One thing that always amazes me about the kids on the Kids Are Heroes web site is that each dream they have is different. These young minds are usually sparked by something dear to them that touches them. This is no different with our newest hero, Mark Rinkel. He is a 13-year-old boy who has already accomplished so much in such a short while. His younger brother has type 1 diabetes. Through lemonade stands, Mark made $17,000.00 to get his younger brother a diabetic alert dog. Unfortunately he was scammed by the company that sold him the dog and lost all his money. Most kids would have been devastated and given up as a result. Mark pressed on to try to establish standards and to help other families get a reliable diabetic alert dog.
There is more, Mark needs our help. In helping other families acquire and train alert dogs certain situations come up. Mark has tasked himself to help solve these problems which requires him to think on his feet. Some issues arise which are difficult for anyone to solve, let alone a 13-year-old boy. Please read these stories and forward to anyone who you might think can help or would know of someone who can help.
Five-year-old Ayla is from Oregon. She has Type 1 diabetes. She and her family are being evicted from their apartment because of their service dog. (See the TV News report here.) To add insult to injury, the puppy is suffering from cancer and I’m told she won’t make it. Now this will have been the second dog this little girl has lost in her short term. What Mark’s mother is asking for is that someone donate a golden retriever puppy to replace the other dog. She can ask pointed questions to determine if the animal would be susceptible to this type of service work. If you know of anyone who can help with this, please leave a comment here.
There is a separate situation that needs equal attention. There is a 13-year-old girl named Katie-Jane who lives in Denton, TX. She has a wonderful German Shepherd named Dot that is also a diabetic alert dog. This dog is a natural when it comes to this activity. Unfortunately, it has a severe case of hip displaysia and needs an operation desperately. I won’t go into the hardships of the family to explain why they cannot afford it, suffice it to say they have fallen on hard times. What they are looking for is someone to perform the operation for free. They claim that the dog be flown to wherever is necessary.
5 Comments to Read 
For some reason I awoke at 3:30 this morning. That’s usually not a big deal, I can normally get back to sleep until it’s time to get up. I started thinking about this new feature I am supposed to implement at work. I came up with the general concept and told myself I should remember it for later. Then I started thinking about a new blog post about the 10 top things I like about Twitter. That was enough to get me out of bed and start writing. I’ll do the work thing later.
This week my Friday connections are a bit different. I usually list those that connect with me and how they did it. It’s hard for people to connect with me if I’m not on Twitter that much. The more you use Twitter, the more connections you can make. This week made it difficult to be on Twitter for long periods of time.
I hear this a lot when I tell people about Twitter. They perceive it as a place to waste time, probably because they do not fully understand it. How can I be critical of them when that was exactly how I felt when I first looked at Twitter? Anyway, my response to this objection is the following: “Do you spend any time promoting or marketing your business? If you do then you have time for Twitter.” Twitter is a tool that if used properly can connect you with people you would never have met in your lifetime. It is a gold mine. But like a gold mine, the nuggets just don’t leap into your pocket, you must hunt for them. It is my position that companies that ignore Twitter will be left behind. According to 
One lady on Twitter did. I won’t “out” her here, but that was a tweet that stuck in my head: “I just ate a Twix bar with a fork.” After pondering the inanity of this quip I thought I should put it away for future reference. And now it rises. This is the common complaint about Twitter. People are so busy with their oh so important lives that they cannot be bothered with time-wasting tweets such as this, thus Twitter is a waste of time in their eyes. I must admit I was one of those naysayers. The first time I tried Twitter I told myself it was a bunch of people wasting time talking about nothing. I know different now. I find it an extremely useful tool to connect with people. But what about those tweets? Do I care about them more now that I like Twitter? Actually for the most part, no. That is until I get to know that person. Then these kinds of tweets can be endearing.
