Social networking has made it much easier to stay in touch with the ones we love – friends, family and even those online friends that we have never even met IRL (in real life).  Will you get a video valentine this year, or will your best gift still be a box of chocolates?

Valentine’s Day started in the middle ages and is regarded as a celebration of love and affection between lovers. It is celebrated by many countries and is the second largest card-sending holiday of the year behind Christmas.  Of course, now it may become a high Internet traffic day with all the online greetings.

Let me know how you are celebrating Valentine’s Day. I look forward to seeing you on the social networking sites!

Social Media Lab is a six-week program offering the “how to” basics for promoting your business through social networking and blogging. Each week we will cover building a different site in a 3-hour lab. Find out from the experts how to build your business as you build Friends, Fans, and Followers.

Labs will be held on the Floyd Campus on Monday mornings from 9 a.m. until noon. The spring Lab will be held April 12 – May 17.  Classes can be taken separately, but for the best overview and value, register for all six weeks together! Register for individual weeks for $79 each ($158 for 2-week blogging session), or for all six for $349. Register for the complete program and bring a friend, and get $10 off the second registration. Register five or more people together and receive a 5% discount on all registrations! Register at GNTC.

Lab Overview – April 12
What is it? What’s in it for you? How can engaging in social media help your business? Do you know the difference between LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook? And just what in the world is Blogging? In this introductory class you will learn the basics and the purpose of each of these, and how integrating them will give you the greatest ban for your buck. This first week sets the stage for the remaining sessions.

Twitter – April 19
Create a Twitter account and learn proper twittiquette. Tweeting is like text messaging to the world; just don’t say anything you don’t want Grandma to see! Find out what it means to follow and be followed. Although it may sound like it, it’s really not cyber-stalking at all!

LinkedIn – April 26
From building your personal profile to participating in groups, learn the ins and outs for getting the most of this online Rolodex and resume.

Facebook – May 3
Build a Fan Page and find out ways to promote it to your friends and customers. This is one online cocktail party you don’t want to miss.

Blog Building – May 10 & 17
Learn the basics of building a Wordpress blog. Your blog is the foundation of your social media program. A well-built blog will be one of your Website’s Top 10 referral sources. We will spend the first session setting up your site, and the second session actually posting to make you blog come alive.

If you have questions, please contact me. I love to help businesses engage in social media and Internet marketing for a competitive advantage. I just finished teaching social media lab to a fantastic group at the Cartersville Chamber of Commerce.  To schedule me to teach Social Media Lab to your group, contact me.  I look forward to meeting you.

During REtechSouth mRELEVANCE is sponsoring New Homes Camp on Thursday, March 25 from 9:30 a.m. – noon. Bring your tent and we will supply the s’mores, ReTechSouth’s New Homes Camp focuses on how you can use blogging, social media and other tech tools for a competitive advantage. Whether you are a marketing director, new homes sales agent, broker or are simply interested in learning more about the new homes industry, be prepared to leave new homes camp with a notebook or laptop full of ideas. This is one not to miss adventure in new technology. Bring your business card for raffle prizes to be given away throughout New Homes Camp. Check out our All Star line up and make sure to select New Homes Camp on your ReTech Show Planner.

Take Aways include:
•    Positioning your blog as the engine of your social media program
•    How to sell to the savvy dot com consumer
•    Interacting with consumers through Trulia Q&A and your Trulia blog
•    How to position your social media content to show up higher in the search engines
•    How online conversations can lead to building long-term trusted client relationships
•    The most commonly used social media tools for engaging customers

Here is the complete schedule for New Homes Camp:

9:30 – 9:50
Carol Flammer, mRELEVANCE – Forget the Bling: It’s Time to Blog

9:50 – 10:15
Meredith Oliver, Meredith Communications – Selling to Dot Com: Follow Up Until they Buy, Die or Get a Restraining Order

10:15 – 10:35
Tice Burke, Trulia – Beyond Listings: Interact with Consumers on Trulia

10:35 – 11:00
Mitch Levinson, mRELEVANCE – The Intersection of Social and Search

11 – 11:45
Paul Chaney, Author of The Digital Handshake – The Digital Handshake: Proven Strategies to Grow Your Business

11:45 – noon
Q&A

Forget the Bling: It’s Time to Blog
There’s more to social media than Facebook, Twitter, Posterous and Linkedin. While these sites are certainly “hot” today, don’t get distracted by the bling-bling of sites that you don’t own. Find out how to make your blog the engine of your social media program for an effective tried and true strategy that will take you from 0 to 60. Carol Flammer, author of Social Media for Home Builders: It’s Easier Than You Think shows you how your blog will power the social networks and make your entire program easier to manage and get results!

Selling to Dot Com; Follow Up Until they Buy, Die or Get a Restraining Order
It’s five o’clock…do you know where your Web site leads are? How well do you convert your eLeads into eSales? This seminar is for sales agents who want to: 1) Improve follow-up response time and frequency, 2) Set more appointments with eLeads and phone calls and 3) Convert more eLead appointments into eSales. Fast paced, fun and content rich, Meredith will give you six strategies to help you respond better, quicker and faster to your walk-in traffic and Internet leads. Stop sending massive eblasts that get little response and leaving boring voicemail messages! It’s time to put the fun back in follow-up! Learn how from Internet marketing expert, Meredith Oliver!

Beyond Listings: Interact with Consumers on Trulia
You’ve claimed your listings on Trulia, but have you looked beyond that? With 6 million users a month, how can you interact with them so that they know about your homes and communities? Tice Burke, Manager of Strategic Partnerships will show you how to meet buyers on Trulia. Learn how to engage your next buyer through Q&A and launch your Trulia blog – It’s Free!

The Intersection of Social and Search
Google is working to make search more social. What can you do to optimize your social sites to show up higher in both the search results and the social search widget? How do you know where you should be, how to optimize your status and how to know it is working? Mitch Levinson of mRELEVANCE will help you learn how social media sites can help you control what consumers find when they search for your company and communities.

The Digital Handshake: Proven Strategies to Grow Your Business Using Social Media
Even today’s most successful businesses are seeing shrinking returns on their advertising and marketing dollars. The Digital Handshake explains why advertising and marketing are losing their effectiveness and how to solve the problem using social media to corral elusive consumers. It explains the best practical business applications in current use and how you can use them to ramp up your business. Using case studies gleaned from real businesses, author Paul Chaney shows you how companies both large and small can tap social media to mitigate market changes and reap valuable business benefit in the real world.

With this online evolution, it is really no surprise that the practice of social media marketing and its best practices has become the Ultimate Open Source. At conferences like SoCon (which I attended yesterday), Tweet ups and even Twitter chats, those who participate in social media come together to share and learn from one another. Promoting the discipline of social media and creating a set of best practices, while sharing knowledge and educating one another is the ultimate goal. Whether you striving to learn more about social media to network with friends, promote your boutique business or help your agency’s clients achieve online success with engagement and optimization, conferences and other gatherings of social media experts, gurus, divas, mavens and consultants have become the norm for shared learning.

These conferences are much more interactive than the marketing conferences of the past. Speakers certainly share case studies and successes, but in more of an open source, open dialogue. The audience participates during the conference by asking questions as they come to mind, creating an ongoing conversation and helping to shape the course and outcome of the actual presentation. Most presenters learn during the presentation as well, or are challenged to think about the solution differently.

Another huge difference is the level of engagement of the audience. Social media, which is often deemed interruptive by professors and lecturers, becomes interactive at conferences. Tweeting during conferences has certainly become a norm. For those who learn by active participation, tweeting provides a way to digest the information faster and to use it as a jumping off point for the next great idea. Often the best take aways and ideas that I get  from conferences aren’t presented from the main stage, but they are sparked by the conversations taking place on Twitter or launched off a speaker’s statement that was just tweeted.

Whether you are looking to network, learn about specific tools or find your next great idea, social media conferences and events may just provide the answer. I say “may” because you have to come with the right attitude – an attitude of learning and sharing.  Engage – Share – Learn.

I enjoyed engaging, sharing and learning alongside many of my friends at SoCon. The spirit of shared learning is contagious, let’s all embrace it.  Please add your comments, I’d love to know your thoughts and connect with you online.

Hot off the press!  I don’t even have a copy of it yet, but “Social Media for Home Builders: It’s Easier Than You Think” is HOT off the press and will be available at BuilderBooks at the International Builders Show.

Stop by the BuilderBooks Store during “Ask The Experts” on Wednesday January 20th from 1 – 2 p.m. to meet me and ask your social media questions.   The BuilderBooks Store is located on the Grand Concourse in the Central Hall. Open Daily.

Social media marketing doesn’t have to be a mystery. My new book will walk you step-by-step through how to build an effective program. Please come by BuilderBooks during IBS to meet me! #IBS2010

52% of Americans send test messages.

A recent study on Wireless Internet use by Pew discovered that more than 50% of American adults use their mobile phones for non-voice data each day. Non-voice data includes using smart phones and cell phones for texting, taking photos, playing games, surfing the Web and sending email.

And here is a scary statistic:  25% of Americans admit that they text while driving.

Lucky for us, companies like Vlingo have invented “voice user interface” technology that allows people to control their cell phones by talking to the phone.  “We often like to say 26 percent of people admit to driving while texting. We are sure that underestimates the problem,” said Dave Grannan, of Vlingo.  Click here for more results of the Vlingo survey. Let’s all pledge to text only while parked.

The Pew study says, “Sending text messages remains the mainstay activity for cell phone users.” As companies seek ways to engage buyers through permission-based mediums, texting will no doubt continue to be hot.

Text messaging can provide you with ways to send specials to your buyers (consider the Moe’s example where they send two specials a month and pack the restaurant) and it also can provide buyers with the instant gratification they seek (Brock Built includes text for information messaging on their signs at for sale homes).  When you include texting options on signs and ads, buyers can text you for information on your product, specials or upcoming event.

Of interest to retail business is a  Research Brief from The Center for Media Research  reports on a new survey commissioned by 1020 Placement and conducted by Harris Interactive. It finds that American consumers will accept opt-in mobile marketing messages from retail business. 42% percent of 18–34-year-olds and 33% of 35–44-year-olds with cell phones were interested in receiving alerts on their cell phones from places they frequent.

Have you effectively engaged your target audience via text messaging? Do you have a digital marketing strategy in place? Ask me, I can help!

If you like the content on my site, please comment, tweet or bookmark.  Thanks!

1. Stuff costs money and that money doesn’t grow on trees – you have to earn it, save it and work for it.
2. How to balance a bank account. How to both add and subtract money. AND that checking your balance doesn’t account for checks that you have written but that have not cleared the bank.
3. Having a debit or credit card should not give you feeling that you can charge, charge, charge. At some point you have to pay for it!
4. Saving money and investing is the key to financial freedom and potential future retirement. Saving just 20 cents of every dollar earned can amount to a lot over a lifetime.

Hopefully we can help him learn these lessons as a child. As an aside, I know a lot of children who have cell phones but don’t have a bank account.  Which does your child have and why?

My friend, Ilyce Glink recently wrote a great post titled Top Three Financial Resolutions for the New Year. I encourage you to read it and set goals for your own financial freedom! And if you like my blog, please subscribe or link to it.

This is a photo of Tux. He is one of out 10 cats. I was a “kitty foster mama” for a number of years and while fostering hundreds of kittens, I ended up with a few of my own. Luckily we live on a farm, so there is plenty of room.  Here are the stories of my 10 cats and how they ended up at Thistledown.

Josie – If you follow me on Facebook, you will see a lot of photos of Josie. She is our oldest and by far most spoiled cat. I adopted her in 2001 from a pet shop in Marietta for $20. She was born on a construction site and rescued as a stray.  At 6 weeks old she weighed about 6 ounces and was flea infested. Now she is a fat, sassy house cat who lives like a queen.

Daisy & Inky – These sisters were part of a litter of 9 that were dumped on our road along with their mother. The rest of the litter we fostered, vaccinated and adopted  out to friends.  They live happily in the barn and prowl for mice.

Whiskers & Patches – The twins, as my son likes to call them, were dumped on our road on my birthday. My husband arrived just in time to see kittens scampering all over the road. He and another driver scooped them up and home they came. These two love to follow us around the farm when we take the horses in and out of the pastures. Whiskers is especially fond of working in the garden during the summer.

Bo – He is a large grey tabby that I adopted from the Etowah Valley Humane Society. His owner was “allergic” to him. My best guess is that she didn’t like the fact that he marks his territory. He is a great mouser and an awesome barn cat. Rather a Tom cat, even though he is fixed, he likes to go on days long hunting expeditions and can often be found hanging out at the neighbors house.

Charlie – An awesome mouser, Charlie just hated going back and forth to PetsMart for adoption. She stressed out over the drive and hated changing foster homes. Eventually we just decided she could stay. Charlie loves the feed room in the barn. She likes to sleep on the horse blankets and is sometimes found siting on the saddles.

Demon – This lovely stripped tabby was part of a huge litter and the boys decided they really liked him. Besides his best friend is and was Charlie – how could we separate them? Demon likes to curl up in a ball with Charlie and sleep.

Shadow – This little bitty kitty fell down in a wall at a local feed store. Bill heard her mewing and opened the wall to rescue her. Unfortunately he was too late for the rest of the litter. We fed her with a syringe for weeks and she is now an extremely overweight house cat who eats everything in sight. She typically can be found in the office and she boasts her own Facebook page.

Tux – Pictured above, Tux was the 10th cat to join the family. He was rescued by a graduate student at Emory University. I fostered him for months driving him to and from PetsMart to be adopted. He was always terrified at PetsMart hissing and clawing at anyone who tried to touch him. He is absolutely the sweetest cat in the world.

If you have room in your life for a pet, please adopt one. Some of my favorite people are pets.

Places to adopt:

Etowah Valley Humane Society

PAWS Atlanta

Mostly Mutts

Dog Pack Rescue

Good Mews

And of course, your local PetsMart most likely has several rescue groups on-site on weekends.

For low-cost spay and neuter, contact Santa

Women influence 91% of homebuying decisions, and at the International Builders Show (IBS) Karen Dry, Dina Gundersen, Tammie Smoot and I will show you how to engage them through social media. Find out how social networking sites can help you spread your messages virally through the social media grapevine, build advocacy, create top of mind awareness, listen and engage.

Sell to Women through the Social Media Grapevine is sponsored by Professional Women in Building. Join us on Tuesday, January 19 from 1:30 to 3 p.m. at the Las Vegas Convention Center South 221.

Join the NAHB Professional Women in Building and Whirlpool Corporation for the 2010 Leadership Circle Reception on Wednesday, January 20, 2010 from 6:30 – 8 p.m. at Casear’s Palace Hotel in the Roman Ballroom One-Three. Best of all, you can bring a guest! I’m going to see if Mitch Levinson wants to go (after all, he is also a member of Professional Women in Building).