I use Twitter to network, build a following and share my ideas. Most importantly, I use it to learn. I love to learn.

But how many of us have ever used Twitter in the midst of a big life changing event? Imagine tweeting as you lay under the rubble from an earthquake, or lose contact with your loved ones after a tsunami.

This is exactly what happened in the early hours of the Japan earthquake, which happened on Friday, March 11. A Tokyo blogger began collecting tweets that originated in Japan beginning seconds after the first tremor.

A translator took them and translated them for the rest of the world to read. Imagine being in a place like Japan, all the phone lines are busy and there is no way to let people know that you are still alive. Twitter became the lifeline for many victims to notify their family and friends that they were alive.

Not only did they communicate their relief in making it through such a devastating event, but many tweets conveyed the beauty of the human soul, though rocked to the core in those early days, yet still caring for others and focusing on the people, like them, who are trying to make sense of the tragedy.

Read some of the most poignant tweets after the jump.

Dan Zarrella gave a great webinar recently about his research findings for when to tweet, when to retweet, when to set up email campaigns to go out and when to post blogs. For those of us in the business, it was riveting!

Let’s cover twitter first.

The highest activity for retweets? Between 2-5 pm. The later in the week, the better.

For Click Thru Rates (CTR)? Highest on the weekends, or on Wednesday, usually between 11-5 pm.

Also, don’t be afraid that you’re tweeting too much. 22 tweets a day is actually optimum. Remember that many of your friend have thousand of followers, so the chances that they will see every tweet is low. Make every tweet informative. t’s fine to retweet the same link out, but you have to change your comment. Twitter won’t let you send a tweet more than once.

On to Facebook.

Posting every other day is optimum. You don’t want to flood your friend’s feed, which is easier to do on FB.

Most post sharing is done on the weekends. Remember that many employers ban social media sites so weekends are pretty active on FB and Twitter.

Believe it or not, 1-3 am is the best time to post to FB.

Finally on to Blogging.

People read blogs mostly in the morning, then it declines steadily throughout the day. More men read blogs at night than women.

Just know your audience. There are no big differences between B2B and B2C businesses because people check their work emails/twitter on the weekends too.

Finally, check your own best Retweet time by going to tweetwhen.com.

Dan said to try different times and see which ones work the best for you and your audience.

Hope this helps, it helped me!

As the internet continues to evolve, many firms are confused about the current ABA advertising guidelines and how it applies to linkedin and other social media sites.

The Lawyerist has a great post on this topic. It should give you some things to think about as you consider your next virtual move. I would anticipate the ABA will continue to set forth guidelines for your online presence as Web 2.0 continues to develop.

OK, I would get the stuff done that I really like to do. That wouldn’t be a problem. So revise it to read I wouldn’t get a lot done without a deadline.

There are some parts of my job that I don’t enjoy a whole lot. Fortunately, it has a firm deadline every week. This week I was wrapping it up 30 minutes before deadline. Yes, I don’t love it, but it has taught me so much, plus it pays well. So what do you do?

I have such a hard time focusing on work for an extended period…say, 15 minutes. I work at home, so I always think that I should throw in a load of laundry real quick, or figure out what’s for dinner. I have serious ADD. My husband thinks its serious, I just think my kids caused it!

Anyway, Chris Brogan has come up with some good ideas on being more productive. They work for me. Unfortunately, I have such a hard time focusing that I’ll use those tips once or twice, then forget all about them.

My biggest time suck is Twitter. I love it. I care deeply about all my followers, even though I don’t have many. I must care deeply because I have to read every tweet!

If I can just shut off the social media sites and open just the one browser that I’m working on, I’ll be more productive.

Do you have any more ideas for being productive? I’ll try them out!

Until now, I have been writing about 18 posts a week. The topic is something that I knew absolutely nothing about, but with some research I was able to find subject matter that would entice readers. So, a little block quoting, some rich text, categories, tags and key words and I had a post.

I was happy with that course of writing and until now, felt like it was a decent way of producing for a high volume agency.

Last week I was asked to beta test some article spinning software. The thought was that if it worked for me and I was able to get a system down, it would shorten my time and I would be able to take on more work.

I don’t like it   Actually, I hate it. I’m putting out a cheap product. I feel like I’m fooling people with it. The software is spinning the article just enough that Google will pick it up and rank instead of ignoring it.

The agency is growing so fast that they need to do this so they can manage the load. Hopefully this will be a temp thing until they hire more folks.

Does anyone out there like article spinners? Or do I just need to throw out the old writers’ ethics and get on with it? Comments please!

I have been a self-employed consultant for 4 years now, doing online marketing since 2007. In the past year the online work has been more than 85% of my business and I love it. I work late into the night almost every night ( my poor hubby) and most nap times too. The hubs sits on the couch, drinks beers and/or crown and surfs on his laptop. He’s ok for now. I’m not there to tell him to change the channel or to talk incessantly while he’s trying to watch the Rangers games. It’s all good!

Much of my work is Facebook and Twitter, some LinkedIn and lots of blogging. I currently do work for ad agencies, PR agencies, attorneys, service companies and professional services firms. I’ve done branding campaigns, online ad buying and soooooo much more. I absolutely love what I do. I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that I am in charge! Right now I have Tuesdays from 9-2 to set up meetings, and get errands run for work while both kids are in school. Six hours! My husband has Mondays off. That’s it.

Needless to say, I am in a delicate balancing act between running a home, taking care of precious children and work. My kids are 2 and 5. My oldest starts kindergarten in the fall and my youngest is signed up to go to Montessori 5 days a week. The big question is: can I continue this crazy pace until August? Can my hubby continue this crazy pace?!

No sweat! It’s easy when you really love what you do.

Fortunately, hubby is a golf pro and his busy season just started. He won’t even notice that I’m continuing this frenetic pace until August! Then once the kids are in school I intend to continue building the business.

Wish me luck!

Great tools!

Jason Falls’ Exploring Social Media and Chris Brogan’s Kitchen Table Companies offer some similar tools but the sites are quite different. Exploring Social Media is there to help small business owners build their online presence and create online relationships. Kitchen Table Companies  is an all encompassing support site for small business owners and future entrepeneurs. The site includes, management, finance and marketing tools. Both of these sites meet a need out there, and what more credibility do you need than Brogan and Falls?

As the economy continues on an upswing, there will be a growth of new business. People that were laid off will try to create their own income and the public will gain more confidence in their spending. The timing for both of these sites is perfect.

But what about the business owner that is a little older, like my dad, who is computer challenged, yet hears from people in his industry that social media marketing is where it’s at? How do you reach those people? Email? Speaking at the local Chamber? How about the mid size business owner that sees the importance of social media but doesn’t have the time to teach himself?

As I mull this over, I see myself morphing into a full-time new business owner from a part-time marketing consultant in 2011. My timeline is drawn and my business plan is near completion. Stand by…!

This was widely published by Mashable a while ago, but I thought it was so cool, it deserves another look. Gatorade, owned by Pepsico, has made the social media sphere the foundation of their marketing efforts and the payoff has been big.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=InrOvEE2v38&feature=player_embedded

This command center is in the heart of their marketing department in their Chicago headquarters. This enables them to monitor the Gatorade brand in real-time and respond or initiate conversations with their customer. Now the brand is no longer static, but is actively involved with their customers and participating in their lives.

Gatorade has figured out that marketing is no longer the act of dictating and advertising, it’s about listening and creating conversations about their brand.

We have a few restaurants, a few clothing and home stores, a couple of Dr. offices, and a couple of financial advisors and insurance businesses. I would venture to say that most people who live here go into the Ft. Worth area to do most of their shopping and eating.

These small business would benefit greatly from using social media. Everyone out here has children. Ok, not EVERYONE, just 90% of everyone. There are MANY stay at home moms that would probably prefer to do their shopping closer to home. And stay at home moms are all over Facebook and Twitter. They would be easy to find.

Women are the decision makers of the home when it comes to spending money. And it is easier than you think to localize twitter and make it work for the small communities.

Here are some good tools to use for finding fellow tweeps in your area:

Use the twittersearch advanced search tool.

Twellow is the yellow pages for Twitter.

Twilert can send you an email of tweets on any keyword that you’d like to use (Ft. Worth, Dallas, etc.)

If you are now beginning to explore the world of social media, and you hope to promote your business and attract clients, you want to ask yourself some important questions. Social media is a great thing, but you want to make sure that you maintain a consistent message in all of your marketing and PR communications.

1. Have you written down some goals? What do you want to achieve with social media?  

2. Have you determined how you intend to convey your primary message? If your primary message is value, how will you convey that on Facebook or Twitter?

3. What type of sentiment do you want to communicate? Sentiment is an important part of social media. Do you want to convey that you are a trusted financial investment professional? Then you don’t want to post any potentially offensive quotes.

4. When do you anticipate a return on your social media efforts and what do you define as an acceptable return? Do you want to have 3 new clients in one weeks time? Most likely, that will not happen.

But what will happen over the course of several months is that your name will get out there, people will become familiar with your services and your name will be on the top of many people’s minds.  People will start commenting on your Facebook posts and you will start some conversations online. Then you will talk to those people a couple of times a week through Facebook or Twitter and that becomes a relationship. The number of Facebook friends and Twitter followers will steadily increase and people will start mentioning that they ‘saw something about you on Facebook’. You may get a few contacts from media for quotes or interviews.

This is how social media can start for you. Social media is here to stay. The sooner you join the conversation the better.