FREE SPECIAL REPORT REQUEST: Untangling Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and More | Distinctive Coaching

FREE SPECIAL REPORT REQUEST: Untangling Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and More | Distinctive Coaching

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BlackBerry Curve 8520 Will Be Only $50 at Walmart

If you're willing to swallow your crippling elitism and buy your gadgets from Walmart, you can pick up the trackball-less BlackBerry Curve 8520 for $48.88, which is $100 less than it'll cost you at a T-Mobile store. [RIM]

The 4 Types of Branded Facebook Campaigns

The 4 Types of Branded Facebook Campaigns

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4 Constant Twitter Mistakes You Should Avoid

Twitter is a great tool that can benefit you. But there are some mistakes that people make on twitter. To be a better twitter, it is best to avoid these mistakes, which is what I am going to share with you. Here is the list of the constant twitter mistakes.
1. Pride and Putting yourself First

What would you do if you got a direct message from someone you followed, and it says,

“Thanks for the follow! Be sure to check out my site, [site URL here] and see how cool I am!”?

You would probably feel like un-following that person, because of his ego and pride. So, be humble and think about other people first.

Spamming people with your links is putting yourself first. Would you like to follow that kind of person?

Think about what you would like to receive before sending a tweet or direct message on twitter. Pride comes before an un-follow.

2. Not Connecting With People

What do you feel if you talk to someone who doesn’t respond? Unnoticed. Come on, connect with people. One way of doing this is by asking questions. This shows that you want to connect with them. Be sure to appreciate the answers you have been given, or your answerers would feel quite ignored.

Also, do not ask the same question repeatedly. Be patient. If you think he/she has forgotten about your question, send him/her a direct message. If you don’t get answered, let it be, or not it would be like harassing people. Pushing people is one of the reasons people un-follows you and blocks you. So, be patient and do not disturbingly push people. Also, when asking questions, be polite.

Another way of connecting with people is by answering questions. People will appreciate you and would probably answer your questions in the future.

Retweeting is also another way to connect with people on twitter. Retweeting simply means tweeting again what other people have tweeted. When retweeting, you must give credit to the original person who tweeted it. Only retweet information you find relevant or interesting.

The way you should retweet is “RT @(Original tweeter) (Original tweet)”

3. Auto Responding

Seriously, get rid of those auto responders. Auto responders are impersonal.

Some auto responder services, such as tweetlater, offers to tweet a welcome message to your new followers for you; “Welcome: @follower, @anotherfollower, @another_follower, @Justanotherfollower” until all your followers are ‘welcomed’.

Do you actually feel ‘welcomed’ if you know that the welcome messages are automated? It is impersonal!

If you want to welcome a follower, be genuine and original. Send them a message they know is genuine.
4. Bringing no Value to your Followers

Although you don’t harass or offend our followers, do you think they still want to follow you if you don’t bring any value to them? Do you bring value to your followers? Do you think your followers would like to read your tweets? If you don’t bring any value to your followers, and do not do anything offending, you’re like just between good and bad.

Come on, be a value to your followers, do not just tweet what you are doing.

One way of doing this is to share links you find interesting. Ever came across a wonderful article? Share it! To make it easier to share articles and stuff, visit www.twitthat.com. They will provide you a button which you can drag to your browser. If you are on an article and you click the button, a window will pop up and will let you modify the tweet. Then, you click ‘Twit!’. And when the article is tweeted, the pop up window will automatically close.

You can also share inspiring quotes, answer your friends’ (the people whom you follow) questions, share a picture on twitpic, or even share a joke or two. You can also be funny in your tweets; “Going to sleep. Eyelids weighing 1 pound each! Good night/day everyone.”

Conclusion

To be a good twitter user, you should avoid all those 4 mistakes, think about what you would like to receive before tweeting. You could help your twitter friends to break a barrier. You could also answer their questions, or offer them suggestions or tips.

HOSPITAL EXECUTIVE JOBS ANNOUNCES FREE JOB POSTING PROMOTION

For Release on July 17, 2009
Media Contact: Laurie DesAutels
Phone: 281-213-0522
Email: sales@hospitalexecutivejobs.com

HOSPITAL EXECUTIVE JOBS ANNOUNCES FREE JOB POSTING PROMOTION EXCLUSIVELY FOR HEALTHCARE EXECUTIVE SEARCH FIRMS TO LEVERAGE THE POWER OF TARGETED, NICHE RECRUITING

July 17, 2009 – Hospital Executive Jobs, a leader in director and c-level search advertising solutions, announced today the launch of an “introductory” promotion to give Healthcare Executive Search Recruiters free access to post an unlimited number of healthcare executive job postings on their niche recruitment website www.HospitalExecutiveJobs.com as well as an opportunity to be featured in their corresponding HealthcareExecutive.us groups on several major social media websites including Linkedin.com, Twitter.com, Facebook.com, and many others. In an effort to introduce Healthcare Executive Search Recruiters to highly effective, targeted exposure for their available healthcare executive jobs, the company will continue the promotion through the remainder of 2009.

Also effective July 15th, Hospital Executive Jobs announced that job postings and access to resumes on the site will be available exclusively to Executive Search Firms. Healthcare Executives who visit the site are able to search job postings without registering, however many executives have opted to register and post their resumes on the site since their information will only be seen by the recruiters and job postings that they select.

“As a executive job website focused on director and c-level executive positions in the healthcare industry, we believe it is vital to do our part to provide beneficial, value-added advertising avenues that increase awareness of job opportunities; particularly in this challenging economy,” said Laurie DesAutels, Vice President of Marketing with Hospital Executive Jobs. “Specialized recruitment advertising solutions are more necessary than ever, and will help both employers and job-seekers succeed in 2009.”

In an effort to help more healthcare executive search firms to take advantage of their posting service, Hospital Executive Jobs will waive both the single and unlimited posting fee for all direct hire listings between now and the end of the year.

Hospital Executive Jobs is also offering executive search firms who specialize in working in the healthcare discipline will be eligible for a free company listing on their Employer/Agencies directory page, in addition to a variety of cost-effective, job posting pricing plans with single job postings starting at $99 per month. Because the website is highly trafficked and ranked in the top 10 ranked sites on major search engines including Google, Bing, and Yahoo for the keyword “hospital executive jobs”, listing on the site provides a unique opportunity for companies to directly connect with highly-specialized job-seekers.

Executives searching for jobs can continue to post their resumes for free on the site where they are viewed by employers and other decision-makers within the industry who have posted hospital executive jobs on the website. Through its sister sites, www.recruithospitalexecutives.com and www.healthcareexecutive.us, they also provide complimentary professional email addresses, updated industry news, and a regularly published newsletter to help job-seekers achieve their career goals.

Hospital Executive Jobs has also recently started to develop website solutions for mobile as well with its new mobile web address, www.hospitalexecutivejobs.mobi. Work has already begun in adding various connectivity and functionality similar to the .com address. More information will be forthcoming on these developments.

About Hospital Executive Jobs
Hospital Executive Jobs is a leader in director and c-level search advertising solutions for the healthcare industry. Our healthcare leadership website and online tools help jobseekers find new positions and assist recruiting agencies, and executive search firms in retaining the most qualified healthcare executive candidates available. For more information, go to www.HospitalExecutiveJobs.com/partners.

Making Twitter #FollowFriday Effective

Follow Friday was developed as a way to let people know that
they are valued and appreciated.
#followfriday: Verb. Action is done each friday come rain or shine.

A good number of people on Twitter do not know how to post
a follow Friday effectively.
Before we get into how to use follow Friday effectively,
let’s talk about how not to follow Friday.

A lot of people tend to just post a whole bunch of people to follow, with no real reason as to why. If you see a huge list of people you know little or nothing about, would you actually want to find out more about the people that are mentioned? It’s unlikely that I would actually take action by following a bunch of random people on Twitter whom I know nothing about.

This is how I make Twitter #FollowFriday effective:
Simply recommend one person at a time to #followfriday. Then write a reason why people should follow this person on Twitter. Here is an example, “#followfriday April Braswell @AprilBraswell she provides the best of the best tips for finding the love of your life.

People who are interested in finding love will most likely follow April. If you are effective (by providing value) with #followfriday, your followers will appreciate your act of kindness and likely return the favor back to you.

You can checkout TopFollowFriday it’s one of a number of twitter 3rd party tools that displays the most endorsed people of the week and how many people have endorsed you.

Never Stop Networking

.

It is commonly said that most employment is won through personal contacts rather
than responding to job ads. I find that to be very true. As a
many-time CFO/COO I have been a member and infrequent attendee of a number of
business and finance organizations through the years, and I am as guilty as the
rest of not "owning" my personal network for both short and long-term personal
advantage. Once I got a handle on it, however, I was better connected and more
in control of my career. Don't be the person who says, "I wish I had been
networking all along…" because by then it is too late.
Finding a new job means relying on others whether we like it or notFew people
get into finance and accounting (or a number of other functions) because they
seek the spotlight. On the contrary, I believe these two professions attract a
disproportionate number of folks who prefer avoiding fame and social situations
where we don't know many people. We are generally proud of our self-sufficiency
and resourcefulness and prefer relying on ourselves rather than others when it
comes to our work. Well, finding a new job means relying on others whether we
like it or not. And this means thinking about and acting on behalf of our own
best interests, even if we are not always comfortable doing so.
There are any number of groups and organizations to be found in most areas of
specialization. Finding them, joining them and making their meetings requires
sustained effort and planning. Your career should have a goal (subject of a
future posting) and your networking should support that goal. For example, if
you want to be a finance or accounting executive, join FEI and FENG (please add
other groups like this in the comments section to this blog entry). Go to the
meetings. Go to the pre-meeting mixers to meet like-minded professionals and
build your network of contacts. You will meet CFOs, Controllers, Treasurers and
others and those seeking to serve this group through professional services.
Walking in to a room full of people you don't know is painful, but it need only
be painful once. If you jump in and walk over to that group you don't know and
introduce yourself, you have begun to make it better. If you don't know what to
say, then start by asking questions about them (job, role, history, etc.). They
will appreciate your interest and the conversation will naturally lead back to
you.
Always bring, distribute and get business cards from those you meet. Follow-up
with everyone via email and invite them to coffee or lunch. Yes, everyone is
busy, but most people will not refuse a one-to-one meeting because unlike the
group events, these are typically enjoyable and most people appreciate the
attention you are showing them by inviting them to meet. In this fashion, one at
a time, you are building your professional network. Don't forget the service
providers - if you run in to an audit partner or recruiter at these meetings
then all the better. These people have vast networks and can be very helpful
whether you are employed or not. When you go to the group meeting next month you
will now know four or five people by their face and first name. Now walking up
to them is easy and enjoyable and they will introduce you to the people they are
talking to and so on. Congratulations. You are building your professional
network. Now do this every month for your entire career and you will know and be
known by all the lights in your chosen industry.
It takes one night a month...to be well connectedIt takes one night a month for
a few years in order to be incredibly well connected. This will bring you many
friends with like interests, jobs that no one hears about, board opportunities
that no one knows about, and all of the wonderful things that a network can do
for you (support, contacts, etc.). But you have to take that first step and go.
Once you make the connections, put a "tickler" on your calendar to call them at
least twice a year. Relationships need to be cultivated and managed to bear
fruit.
Recruiters are an exceptional group and I will give them a bit more focus
because when it comes to getting a job it is networking with them that can help
you the most. The fact is most senior jobs and many junior positions are never
posted to the big (or any other) job boards. They are given to either contingent
or retained recruiters and they reach out to their database and network to find
candidates. Thus the most interesting jobs tend to be very much about who you
know. You should research who the recruiters are for your function and
geography, reach out to them and get to know them. Send them your resume and try
to arrange for a breakfast, lunch or coffee. Keep in touch in-between needing
jobs so they feel like they are part of your network all the time, not only when
you need them. They may send you jobs when you don't need them. Instead of just
saying "no", point them to a friend or colleague who may be right for the
position. This will not be forgotten. If you leave a job and have ten or fifteen
recruiters on your side, you will spend a lot less time on the sidelines and
more time looking at interesting offers.
Networking may seem like work, but done right it should become less like work
and more like fun. Colleagues become friends and friends help each other out.
Done right, your networking can improve your personal and professional life a
great deal and lead to less concern and more opportunity between jobs.

The Top Social Networks to Promote Your Business On

I've discovered that general social networks can be complete waste of time for business. It's that simple. Facebook is a gaming gimmick that wastes office time.

I've therefore decided that I'm only spending time with the "Big 4" business social networking sites SUp.biz, Plaxo, LinkedIn, and Ecademy.

These four are without a doubt the top 4 social networks to promote your business on.

I'll focus on the social network Fbook here real quick to prove that the four above are the best place to spend your time.

Let's just look at 3 popular applications on Fbook:

1: Top Friends
Add a box of up to 32 of your BFFs to your profile.
2,658,733 daily active users

2: FunWall
Videos, Photos, Graffiti, Greeting Cards, Embeds and more!
2,603,946 daily active users

3: Movies
Test your movie knowledge with the Never-Ending Movie Quiz.
2,373,887 daily active users

A very impressive list by daily active users, you must agree. Is there anything there that jumps out at you as a compelling reason to spend time online at work 'networking'? Indeed. I could go down the list of the top 20 apps and continue showing you things that have nothing to do with networking.

Now let us break down the big 4 social networks and where to spend most of your time on each of them...

SUp.biz

Yes, we are placing this site #1 out of the business social networks because it is simple to use and easy to get rolling as soon as you sign up.

Key Places to Spend Social Network Time In:

New Members Area - Each day their are hundres of new members looking to make connections. Come up with a nice introduction and welcome comment and post it on every new member's profile page.

Biz Forum, Blogs, and MarketPlace - The most recent posts get placed on the home page. So everytime you make a post in any of these three areas, you are getting great exposure.

Best Advice:

Upgrade to Diamond Membership - You get to promote your business freely, have your blog in featured, send a message to the entire membership once a month, and you are going to be constantly getting friend requests from your top listing in the membership area (Each friend request is an opt in to your own personal email marketing list).

LinkedIn

Although this is the largest, most members are there to find a better job. It is a great social networking site, but be prepared to have to spend a few months learning the ropes.

Key Places to Spend Social Network Time In:

The Answers Section - Find the area that you have the most experience in and start answering questions. You will rack up points and after awhile get a featured listing in that section.

Groups Directory - Use the search function to find groups that have members that might be interested in your product. Then identify the ones that are most active. Post one good discussion every couple of days.

Best Advice:

Upgrade to Business - This will give you a little bit more freedom in messaging, but the biggest benefit is being able to ask 10 questions per month in the Answers area. Stategically ask questions to get help and promote your business at the same time.

Ecademy

This is another great social network exclusive to businesses like SUp.biz. They have a nice base of members, but most areas are pay only. It is largely made up of UK and European members.

Key Places to Spend Social Network Time In:

Blogs - The active members spend their time posting blogs and making comments. Try and post once a day. Keep it short and simple. Ask questions about the network to get the most comments.

Top 100 Social Networkers - You can identify the top 100 social networkers for each country by reputation or by total connections. This is the best place to start when making connections because these people know the ropes.

Best Advice:

Upgrade to Power Networker - You will be able post blogs and message other members freely. Without the upgrade you are pretty much in read only mode, so this is essential.

Plaxo

This is the a business card contact style network that was bought by Comcast in May 2008. It has a large international member base.

Key Places to Spend Social Network Time In:

Plaxo Address Book - This is the big feature of the site that allows you to sync up every email account you have.

Plaxo Pulse - This is the social networking side of Plaxo. On your profile you can stream your rss feeds for everything you are involved with from photo sharing sites to microblogs.

Best Advice:

Have a Presence Only - You need to have a profile set up here that is sharp and interesting. Check in once a week and make a couple of changes to your profile.

More Social Networking Essentials
Posted by Kanika W

New methods for marketing your business are popping up everywhere, and online communities are no exception. So, exactly what is an online community and what does it have to do with growing your business? The truth is, you won’t know how it affects your business until you try it, but there are three key tips that can help you use them to effectively grow your business over time.

What is an online community anyway?

First let’s be clear about what an online community is and how it can be beneficial.

Online communities are like local networking events, only they take place online. They provide a way for businesses to interact with their customers, for customers to interact with a business, and perhaps most importantly, for customers to interact with each other. Online communities are a form of social media and can often work well when mixed with other forms of social media including blogging, email newsletters, podcasts, rss feeds, and others. So how can online communities help you grow your business?

Social Networking TIP #1: Be Consistent

No matter how you look at it, participating in online communities is a long term investment. If you stick with it and stay consistent, the pay-off can be rewarding. Frequent your favorite areas of the community, post a blog, post threads, but just like your local networking event, once you introduce yourself, you have to keep coming back so that people remember who you are. People do business with people they know and trust.

Social Networking TIP #2: Be Realistic

Just because you joined the community, doesn’t mean all of a sudden sales will come flooding through your door (if this has happened to anyone, please send an email to my inbox and let me know your secret). Online communities can be like any other form of advertising-- you try it, you test it, you see if it works, and if it does, you stick with it, if it doesn’t; well, you move to the next thing, but you have to remember that all social media is about building relationship based business. It’s a long term investment and it takes people time to get to know you.

In addition, understand why you joined the community. Growing your business should not be the only reason. There’s significant value in gaining free insight from experts who know the challenges small businesses face better than anyone else, and that’s your fellow business owners. Tapping into the knowledge base of a good online business community, can be just as rewarding as finding a new customer.

REBlOG from LANjackal

I found this fascinating quote today:

I read and share a lot of news on FriendFeed. It seems that every other day someone posts to one group or the other about new ways of reading and sharing items, so here’s how I do it. I’m not advocating anyone else do the same, just showing how I take care of things on my end:LANjackal, Eigenmind, Jun 2009

You should read the whole article by clicking on the Header link.

10 Ways to Find People on Twitter

10 Ways to Find People on Twitter:
by Josh Catone (via Mashable.com)

1. Twitter People Search – Twitter’s built in people search isn’t the greatest way to find people on Twitter, but it’s probably where you should start. Twitter searches the “real names” people enter in their bio fields, but because there isn’t much accompanying bio information and because Twitter doesn’t have any sort of requirement to use your actual name, that can make it a bit difficult to find people, especially those with common names. It also makes it hard to verify that the people you find are actually who you’re looking for. Still, it’s a good place to begin your search.

2. Tweepz – Because the biographical information Twitter collects is minimal, no Twitter people search engine can improve on Twitter’s that much. Third-party site Tweepz does an admirable job, though. Tweepz lets you limit searches to specific parts of Twitter’s user information (like name, bio, and location), filter results by follower/following numbers, location, and other extracted terms, and greatly improves on the layout of the search results.

3. TweepSearch – TweepSearch lets you search by Twitter name or location, or search a specific username to get a list of all friends and followers. However, if the “indexing” number listed on their main page is accurate, they’re crawling about 600,000 less Twitter user profiles than Tweepz.

4. TwitDir – TwitDir is another search engine, but if the crawling stats are accurate, it’s well behind the curve, searching about 3 million fewer users than Tweepz. Still, it’s not a bad people search engine, and has some helpful “top” lists if you’re concerned with who the most popular or prolific people on Twitter are (then again, they’re also not that up-to-date — the site doesn’t seem to know who @aplusk is, for example).

5. Twellow (Twellow) – Your best bet for finding like-minded Twitter users might be to use a directory, and Twellow is certainly one of the most complete. Nearly 6 million Twitter user profiles are indexed in Twellow and placed into a huge number of categories. You can search the entire lot of profiles, or confine searches to a single category. Twellow also operates a local directory called the “Twellowhood.”

6. WeFollow (WeFollow) – Created by Digg (Digg) founder Kevin Rose, WeFollow is a Twitter user directory that organizes people by hashtags. WeFollow is user-generated and anyone can add themselves by tweeting @wefollow with three #hashtags that describe them.

7. Just Tweet It – Just Tweet It is another user created Twitter directory. It’s not quite as well organized or easy-to-use as Twellow or WeFollow, but it is certainly large enough that you should give it a browse when trying to locate people in your interest areas to follow.
8. Twubble – Twubble recommends people to follow by spidering the people you’re already following and recommending users that they’re following. The idea is that the people you’re following are interesting to you, so if more than one of them are also following another person, that person might also be interesting. Of course, that means that Twubble can’t be your first stop when finding people to follow — you already need to be following some people for the service to work.

9. Twitterel – Twitterel attempts to find people you might be interested in following by doing keyword searches of tweets. The service can update you by email, direct message, or @reply when it finds new people it thinks you might be interested in following. It’s kind of like Google Alerts for Twitter follow recommendations.

10. Who Should i Follow? – Enter you Twitter username into Who Should i Follow? and the service finds users who are similar to those you’re already following. The site doesn’t disclose information about how it works, but in my experience it is pretty accurate at finding users whose tweets are similar in content to your followers. The results can be filtered by how popular the people are, and how close they are to a specific location.

BONUS: Mr. Tweet – Mr. Tweet is a very popular Twitter app that lets you give and receive recommendations about Twitter users. The app also provides more helpful statistics about users, such as tweets per day or the percentage of tweets containing links. To get the most out of Mr. Tweet, consider installing the Firefox plugin, which gives you access to statistics and user recommendations while you’re browsing Twitter.

Top 10 Twitter Tips for Beginners

Ready to jump into Twitter, but don’t know how to get started? Follow these 10 tips and you’ll fit right in.

Is it finally time to take the Twitter plunge? The free service that lets users micro-blog 140 characters at a time had accumulated around 1.9 million users as of December 2008, according to comScore. If you are just now jumping on the Twitter bandwagon, or are intimidated by your inexperience with Twitter etiquette and acronyms, allow us to share some Twittery tips that will make your experience easier and more enjoyable.

1. Shrink Your Url's

One of the most common uses of Twitter is sharing links. But you only have 140 characters to work with, so instead of sharing a long URL, use one of several URL-shortening services to shrink that link. Some of our favorites include tinyurl.com, and bit.ly.


2. RETWEET or RT

If you want to copy and paste someone else’s tweet, that’s totally accepted and appreciated, as long as you give the original tweeter credit for it. Just put “RT @name” in front of their tweet and post it yourself.

3. Direct Messaging

With Twitter’s direct-messaging (DM) function, you can send a private 140-character message to another user, kind of like abbreviated e-mail. However, you can only direct message Twitter users that are following you.

4. Use the @ sign

To create a reply or to give someone props on Twitter, simply place an @ sign in front of their Twitter name. If it is a reply, the @ sign must be the first character of the tweet. To see replies to your own tweets, click on @Replies from your profile page.


5. Search For Your Friends

Search.twitter.com works well for finding your friends, celebrities, or organizations, or for searching for specific topics you’re interested in.

6. Categorize Your Tweets for Added
Visibility

If you’re tweeting about a popular subject (Obama, Lost, etc) putting a # in front of the subject makes it easy for others to find your tweet, and perhaps they will want to follow you. For example, when the plane crashed into the Hudson River in January, #flight1549 became a popular tag and search term.

7. Share Pictures

People love sharing their photos with the world, and some even break news with them, like Janis Krums, who used TwitPic to post one of the first up-close photos of Flight 1549 on his Twitter feed. Services like TwitPic let users easily upload their photos and post them directly to Twitter.


8. Tweet From Your Phone

Twitter allows you to update your status and receive updates via text message. Under Settings, go to the Devices tab and enter your phone number to start sending and receiving mobile tweets. If your incoming tweets/texts are overwhelming you, disable this option by going back to the same panel and following the instructions. You can also post, reply, RT and send DM's from many applications. My favorite is Ubertwitter. You can use this link and download it directly from your Blackberry.

9. Pick a Good Desktop Client

With desktop clients such as TweetDWith desktop clients such as TweetDeck, Twhirl, and TwitterFox, you can receive tweets in a much more manageable fashion, especially if you follow a lot of people, respond often, and use direct messages a lot. TweetDeck, for example, allows you to create specific groups, if you want to split your feed into individual columns.


10. Engage in the day's hottest hashtags #

If you are using Firefox - You can download the add on power twitter. Do not over participate but show an interest and tweet about the topic (If it is something that truly interests you).