Hash

Cocaine

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Screw Driver

Hammer

Advertising Agency: Hook, Charleston, USA
Creative Director: Brady Waggoner
Art Director: Jason Johnson
Copywriter: Tom Jeffrey
Published: August 2008

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Waterfall

Fire

Advertising Agency: Memac Ogilvy and Mather, Dubai, UAE
Executive Creative Director: Till Hohmann
Creative Director: Dalbir Singh
Art Director / Copywriter: Satyen Adhikari
Photographer: Neil Corder and istockphoto.com
Published: February 2009

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I find new excuses to create Excel worksheets. I lament the lost art of the cover letter and other forms of traditional business correspondence. I read books such as Peter Bowerman’s The Well-Fed Writer and Allison Hemming’s Work It!, which preach against lazy, Internet-based business practices.

Yet I have been thoroughly charmed by the Twitter phenomenon, and am an out-and-out evangelist in support of using it as a means to further your career.

I didn’t know quite what to do with Twitter until I read a post on Problogger that advised setting Twitter goals. My mind immediately grasped upon the possibilities for promoting my multiple blogs and, since then, I have (I hope) maintained that focus. (Just ignore those tweets that mention Xanax, wine, and my three cats…) It was a happy surprise when it became clear just how much Twitter could help my career in other ways.

Read on for tips on how to use Twitter to take networking from online to in-the-flesh.

1. Use Your Twitter Profile As You Would a Business Card:

Those cards I had done up at VistaPrint are so perfect. They include my name, title, phone number, e-mail address, and website URL and, best of all, they even match my site’s background! I love how they represent the brand I’ve created for myself. Your Twitter profile should operate in a similar manner. Pimp that URL of yours in the appropriate space. Craft a well-written professional description in the spot meant for your bio. Personalize the background also! It will help you stand out from the pack. And then include a link to your Twitter account on every last social networking site you belong to, and in your e-mail signature as well. (Bonus tip: If you want to go all out — and frighten friends and family! — order a T-shirt with your Twitter ID.)

2. Let Your Twitter Feed Be Your (Ongoing) Portolfio:

While I maintain a portfolio on my professional site, I often suspect that no one actually goes there. Even when I include a link in my cover letters. This makes me sad. But nothing beats the immediacy of a tweeted link! I tend to tweet the links to my latest clips, and also point my followers toward the blog posts I’m most proud of. This way, people don’t become overwhelmed by how amazingly prolific I am, or mistake me for a spammer. If this is not a worry, there are Twitter applications — such as twitterfeed — that automatically feed your post titles and links straight to Twitter. Not only will you get a nice bump in traffic from your own tweeple, but followers might find your work so gosh-darn awesome that they retweet it, placing it in front of a constantly growing number of eyes. Who knows what could happen then! I’ve actually received additional writing assignments from those impressed with my already-existing work.

3. Grow Your Twitter Network:

If you’re doing everything right — posting helpful and interesting tweets, maintaining a healthy level of back-and-forth, and seeking out other Twitter users worth following — your network will grow organically. Once you have them there, it’s time to harness their remarkable power…

4. Get the Lowdown:

…by getting the lowdown on things like professional organizations, conferences, and other events. In musing — via tweet — about the pros and cons of joining the EFA, the NWU, or Freelance Success, I received immediate feedback of others’ personal experiences with each. Being able to determine the effectiveness of real-work events and networking groups before paying an arm and a leg, based upon the firsthand experiences of others, can be invaluable.

5. Tweet Yourself Up:

…by advertising your wares. I tweet about the blog posts I’m working on. I tweet about the manuscripts I’m copy editing. I tweet about the articles I’m researching. It makes me sound way productive. Plus, it gives others an idea of where my skills and talents lie. If you happen to tweet a lot about your amazing grasp of the behavioral sciences, or of medical writing, you’ll be the first person people think of when they need a medical copywriter. Or a shrink.

6. Ask for Help:

…by sending out an SOS. It’s been known to happen. People have acquired employment by simplyletting others know they were looking for work. But you can start smaller. Ask for input on that blog post you’re working on. Search for interview subjects for that next article (I use Twellow orTwitter Search). Ask all of the tens of thousands of web developers out there why that plugin didn’t work when you did the whatchamacallit to the thingamabobber. There is a world of wisdom out there, just waiting for your call.

7. And Help Others:

Is there a way to measure Twitter karma? Or is it wrong to quantify the ways in which you help others? Either way, I believe karma exists, and the more you help others, the more others are willing to help you. This can mean simply answering others’ queries, making suggestions, or offering your help when a fellow Twitter user appears in distress. Some twitterers go a step further, and create accounts meant solely for charitable purposes. Twestival — which “brings together Twitter communities for an evening of fun and to raise money and awareness for charity” — is just one example (more information can be found here). Another one I’ve recently come across is JobAngels. They define themselves as a movement, in which they ask followers to help one person find a job. Several of the people I’m following have already retweeted their request.

8. Plan a Tweetup:

All of the above has referenced the real world only indirectly, by mentioning actions you can do in the Twitterverse in order to affect your non-virtual life. For my last point, I’d like to mention Tweetups, the happy and inevitable cousin of the Meetup. Rather than waiting for an event to happen, why not plan your own meeting of the (Twitter-based) minds? You can follow tweetup to learn about happenings in your area, or just send a shout-out to your own followers, asking if anyone would be game for taking things offline. While online networking can be amazing in its influence, I often find that nothing beats a face-to-face meeting. Placing a face to a name…being able to talk at length with more than 140 characters…bonding over a glass (or five) of wine or the healing powers of a cup of coffee…all of these things can help you to develop a more concrete connection with someone you’ve only been conversing with online. In marveling over the powers of the Internet, don’t discredit the traditional tactics.

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The first 31^st days of 2009 were amazing, and so it is time to have a small review for January for this blog and things happened.

As promised I will be back Blogging with lot of new blog posts, and here we go with 27 blog posts in January with various topics (how to make money online, photography, technology, etc…) . New page add “Gallery”.

January Posts:

1. 19 Ways To Monetize your Photos
2. Apple Revolutionary MacBook With No Keyboard
3. Macworld 2009 Review
4. Beirut From The Sky
5. World’s First Camera You Can Surf the Web On “Sony Cybershot G3″
6. How To Make Money Using Twitter, YouTube & Your Blog!
7. History of the Internet
8. Introducing ElectroBins- The Sensor Operated Waste Bin.
9. The 2008 Crunchies Winners
10. Chris Brogan & His 50 Ways to Take Your Blog to the Next Level
11. Tomorrow Never Dies
12. Obama’s Official Portrait Photo “First Ever With A Digital Camera”
13. Dubai Mall “Biggest Mall On The Globe”
14. Windows 7 “10 Tips, Tweaks and Secrets”
15. Life Behind The Screen, “Backstage”
16. Saida Soap Museum “Blog Photo of the Week”
17. All About Twitter
18. Advertising Around The World “Lego”
19. Shared Post: Why 99% of Entrepreneurs Fail “Because they don’t do anything”
20. Macintosh 25th Anniversary
21. The Giant “Google” Fourth Quarter And Fiscal Year 2008 Results
22. Shared Post: Arab ad markets post 24% growth in 2008
23. Drummer Hand “Photo Blog Post”
24. Did Twitter Overpass Digg?
25. Shared Post: 10 Ways To Increase Your Twitter Followers
26. Time Breakdown of a Lebanese Employee
27. Your Notebook Power

January was a busy month for me focusing on the advertising business at BobnBab Ltd. trying to keep up the company on the level it was running during 2008 in these hard moments where the world is living a full depression, and the results were in wining one new account and entering four big Pitches which we are working on and hoping for the good always. Also had a special trip to Lebanon at the end of the month, to attend a best friend wedding “Anthony” where we enjoyed 3 days & nights of celebrations, which kept me away from blogging and business for a while, some of the photos are now available and a full movie that I started editing will be coming soon.

Well it was a great month; good start for the year where things are on track as planned for it. A lot to come in the rest 11 months and hoping the best to come.

339 blog posts yet to come, January was a record month for Jean Ghalo Blog, and so 2009 will be.

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This shared post is written by Kevin Rose, the founder of Digg and the cofounder of Revision3 and Pownce. Kevin, who has over 88,000 followers on Twitter,  is an investor in Twitter.
Ten Ways To Increase Your Twitter Followers:

1. Explain to your followers what retweeting is and encourage them to retweet your links. Retweeting pushes your @username into foreign social graphs, resulting in clicks back to your profile. Track your retweets using retweetist.
2. Fill out your bio. Your latest tweets and @replies don’t mean much to someone that doesn’t know you. Your bio is the only place you have to tell people who you are. Also, your bio is displayed on Twitter’s Suggested Users page. Leaving it blank or non-descriptive doesn’t encourage people to add you.
3. As @garyvee says, “link it up.” Put links to your Twitter profile everywhere. Link it on your Digg, LinkedIn, Facebook, blog, email signature, and everywhere else you live online. Also, check out the great feedburner-like badges from TwitterCounter for your blog.
4. Tweet about your passions in life and #hash tag them. Quality content coupled with an easy way to find it never fails. If others enjoy your content, they’ll add you. Learn more about #hash tagging here.
5. Bring your twitter account into the physical world. Every time I give a talk, speak on a panel, shoot a podcast, present slides, or hand out business cards, I figure out a way to broadcast or display my twitter account.
6. Take pictures. Pictures are heavily retweeted/spread around. This one from US Airways Flight 1549 has been viewed 350,000+ times. For mobile pics use iPhone apps such as Tweetieor Twitterific, both which support on the go uploading.
7. Start a contest. @jasoncalcanis offered a free macbook air if he reached the #1 most followed spot. That never happened, but Jason added thousands of followers…brilliant.
8. Follow the top twitter users and watch what they tweet. Pay attention to the type of content they sent out and how they address their audiences.
9. Reply to/get involved in #hash tag memes. search.twitter.com lists the hot ‘trending topics. Look for the #hash topics and jump in on the conversation (see #4 for links to #hash instructions).
10. Track your results. TwitterCounter will show you how many new users you’re adding per day and Qwitter will email you when someone unfollows you after a tweet.

If you enjoy this content, add me at twitter.com/kevinrose, thank you.

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