As I explain in this video, it's nothing to do with paying and trials - it's all to do with the Compose Post view which that guest author sees and she can make the necessary changes herself really easily as shown here:
 

I DO send auto-DMs (using TweetLater), but if you read the comments there and view the results of the poll, you'll see that I'm very much in the minority; it seems most people really dislike it. I left a (rather long) comment to balance things out a bit. Here's an extract:

So - that's my view. But you should be aware that it will really upset some people, so if you are going to use TweetLater to send automated direct messages in Twitter, then spend a little time thinking about what your objective is and word it/them accordingly. I'd better go off and reword mine... [shuffles off]

Quick post to let you know that despite everything looking fine at my end, people are reporting that emails sent to claire@ "businessblogangel.com" are being rejected. I knew this was an issue a few weeks back, but thought it was now fully resolved. I thought wrong!

I am on the case, but in the meantime, if you have emailed me within the last month or so, and not had a response, please can I ask you to resend it to hello@claireraikes.com. A bit of a pain I know, but the only way forward right now.

Thanks for your patience. :o)

Regular readers will know that I can be erratic with my 'posting frequency'. It's usually because I'm so busy with other peoples' blogs, but sometimes its because I'm in a fug of some kind. It always passes - eventually - and I've learnt over my 3 4+ years providing business blogging help and advice that the best way to get back in the blogging saddle is to 'just do it'.

Having said that, I often feel the need to explain myself. This isn't an entirely self-indulgent or cathartic need, it's also because when I blog, I aim to address each and every reader as an individual or a friend - rather than a group - and so there's a sense of 'owing' you an explanation out of respect. So, here goes...

Since my last post I have been through some major upheavals. I've moved house, ended my relationship of 2 years and given up 'custody' of my gorgeous canine 'son' Tallis. Oh - and launched a new venture Universal Growth - a kind of alternative to Alternatives in Cardiff!

As Denis Campbell of @UKProgressive commented,

"Other than that Mrs. Kennedy how was your trip to Dallas?"

Moving house can be stressful enough - particularly when self-employed, but this move involved the added complication of a forced deadline to vacate my rented flat (due to repossession) whilst the house I bought a year ago thinking we'd move straight in, was still unfinished due to the 'surprise*' total renovation it had actually required. *Read: "not budgeted for".

And the end of any serious relationship brings with it all sorts of emotional upset - even when, as ours did, it ends compassionately and respectfully, but nothing had quite prepared me for the physical pain of letting Tallis go with his 'Daddy'. Ah - look - there I go again - spontaneous weeping at the thought of 'abandoning' my baby boy - not a great look!. (Deep breath.)

Anyway. The extraordinary support and kindness of friends and family has been both humbling and affirming (out damn tears!) and if you share my Universal faith, you'll understand how I've been able to move through this transition relatively quickly. Still a way to go, but growing stronger by the day.

@lucyannp, my dear friend and biz partner in www.DailyBread365.com, gave me a beautiful, empowering analogy which may help you if you're in a similar place (it seems that many are): Think of a catapult. As you pull back the elastic band, the stress increases. But the greater the pressure, when you're ready to release, the greater the energy and the further you fly forwards. She explained it much better than that, but you get the gist. And based on how long I'd been pulling back on that elastic, I'm very excited about what my future holds.

So nothing left to do for now than to say a huge, public THANK YOU to everyone who's helped me through one way or another: Dad, Mum, Neil, Janet, Loobs, Beryl, Shilpa, Jason, Adrian, Donal, Noni, Rach, Denis, Steve R, Steve T, Vikki, Vicky, Lynne, Judith, Gwyneth, Chris O. I'm sure I've missed some names out - apologies if it's yours.

And a huge public I'M SORRY to anyone who I've been out of touch with, which regretfully includes valued clients and colleagues, and you - as a reader of this blog.

I am now officially un-tongue-tied. :) Onwards and upwards!

One of the things that continually delights me about 'doing business online' is the rather more 'abundant' mindset which tends to go with it - compared with the 'scarcity' attitude so typical of 'old school', 'bricks and mortar' business where typically your competitors are 'The Enemy'. I used to watch what they were up to with derision or 'professional envy'. The thought behind that was something to do with there not being enough business to go round - hence 'scarcity'.  Doing business online however, is a totally different ball game. Your competitors can be very useful to you in all sorts of ways, the most basic being 'watching and learning'.

Last week, I came across a guy on Twitter called TimboReid, who describes himself as "Dad. Marketing Ideas Guy. Podcaster. Blogger. Closet Rock Star." I can't remember now why I started to follow him, but follow him I did and it was what happened next that I want to share with you, because to my mind, it was a thing of business beauty...

Like me, Tim has set up an automated Direct Message which goes out immediately to anyone who follows him. But unlike me, Tim has absolutely maximised the impact of that message. Here's what his message looks like (using Power Twitter)

Now I have to admit, that my very first reaction to his first line was a bit "icky" - not sure why exactly, but given that we don't yet know each other, and this message is automated, his respect for my decision to follow him comes across as a little insincere perhaps? Not sure - and it's probably 'my stuff'... anyway, the next sentence blew whatever that emotion was clean away... "Here's what you can expect in return." Wow - he's immediately managing my expectations, setting a foundation for our relationship and to an extent, taking the lead. THAT is impressive. And then there's the link... to his TwitWall.... now,  I'm rather ashamed to say, that until I followed Tim, I had no idea TwitWall existed.

What's a TwitWall? Here's their explanation: http://twitwall.com/about/, but that really doesn't get me excited... unlike how Tim's using it, which to me is so simple and so effective that it's genius... basically, he's using it like an about page, an overview, a taster, an intro. As he says,

He goes on to explain what kind of tweets you'll get from him - and what you won't - and finishes off by throwing a question out there to start a conversation. He leaves the promotion of his new book Cha-Ching as a 'last thing' PS. which is totally congruent with his outlining statements. Check out Tim's TwitWall

I know it's not rocket science - it's either plain old 'common sense' or social media marketing excellence depending on your enthusiasm for these things.  One thing's for sure, he has a new fan in me and I will be following his example - and now I've written this post, I shall have no shame in doing so!

Nothing to do with social media per se... other than how I heard about this (saw Kick-Ass Karen Skidmore's tweet):

There's a new TeleForum which many of you will want to know about...

In How to Promote Your TeleSeminars Using Joint Ventures, Karen will be sharing, "What you need to know about using other business’ databases so you can get more clients registered for your own teleseminars."

Full information and registration can be found here:
http://www.kick-assteleclasses.com/how_to_promote_teleseminars.php

Had a very interesting question come in yesterday in this comment from DesignGuy. He asks,

"In your Twitter-experienced opinion, do you think it would be a good place for a newsletter drive?"

As I said in response to the comment, my answer would be 'yes' and'no'...  it depends... and I promised to elaborate in a post, so here goes..

Social networks are all about building relationships - most people use them to network and make new connections and keep in touch with existing 'real-life' friends. So ordinarily, I'd be saying that using Twitter for purely 'self-promotion' purposes is a bit of a bad idea - unless you are socially adept enough to do it in such a way that you don't abuse the trust people have placed in you and ultimately alienate people.

But this question is about a newsletter drive for an online magazine, so right there we're in a different space...

Now whilst many commentators would rather 'big business' kept out of social media, just as many (as far as I can tell) people, myself included, like to follow companies - and in particular, news services - so they can get the latest news as it happens. I'm not looking to build a personal relationship with them, so provided they tweet what I'm looking for - I'm happy.

So, whilst I wouldn't recommend getting started on Twitter with a short 'campaign' burst - there are other better tools and strategies for that - there's no question Twitter could work for you, provided you take a long term view.

The key thing to think about here is "Whose Twitter account is it?"  If it's in your name DesignGuy, then I'd be wanting to see interesting, fun and useful tweets most of the time, with no more than a light sprinkling of promotional tweets. If you do nothing but promote your company, ie. never engage with anyone and never show any personality, you're likely to attract similar 'followers' who auto-followed you and probably aren't actually 'listening'.

On the other hand, if the account was set up as San Diego Metro, I'd fully expect a steady stream of headlines and links to the full article. And, personally, I'd have no problem with regular promotional messages into the mix. In this scenario, I think it's reasonably safe to assume that your followers are receptive and 'listening' for some of the time - despite the fact that its a fairly one-sided relationship. You also have the option of naming the 'voice(s)' behind the tweets. This can add personality and improve engagement and interaction.

Look at this screen grab (click to enlarge) of CNET UK on Twitter (using Power Twitter).

To me, this is the perfect blend of useful information, engagement and fun - loads of personality, very 'on brand'. This picture doesn't show it, but they do @reply.

And finally... you mentioned 'time'... I think you need to be disciplined here, but I'm the worst person to comment on that. I tend to stay away (from Twitter) if time is stretched, but that's not the greatest of strategies. Better would be to create a routine of sorts. That may mean setting aside an hour a week, or 10 minutes a day etc. and it will almost certainly mean automating the bulk of the work. Notice that CNET UK's tweets are coming from different sources - Twitterfeed and Twhirl. Twitterfeed is just one of many ways you can tweet automatically as soon as you publish a post - ie. no extra work involved. The Twhirl ones are the only manually generated tweets - and this particular page shows a higher % of these (of all tweets) than their average.

So - there it is - that's my answer, but you can bet your life that there'll be plenty of other "Twitter-experienced opinions" that will differ from mine. Perhaps I can persuade some of them to add theirs here.

Let me know what you decide to do DesignGuy - and thanks for asking. :o)

I just spotted some new green spots on my Feedjit Live Traffic Map in areas where I've been wishing there were green spots, so I clicked through and guess what? BusinessBlogAngel just had its first visitors from South Africa, Mexico, Brazil, Paraguay and China! Yay!

Welcome! Bienvenidos! Bem-Vindo! Huan Ying!
Thanks for dropping by. You've made me very happy. :o)

William Maybanks is a talented, British table tennis player with an Olympian goal; to compete for his country at London 2012. Table tennis has had it's funding for 2012 drastically reduced, so if Will is to realise his dream and compete on the world stage at London 2012, he will have to raise the necessary £300k himself. Given the current economic climate, securing a large sponsorship deal from any one business or individual is no longer a realistic proposition... and so the idea for WillMeOn was born! 

I know nothing about Table Tennis, but my 'entrepreneurial spirit', thirst for all things 'personal development' and professional obsession with social media and personal branding meant that from the minute Chris Ogle told me about Will Maybanks and the WIllMeOn idea he was hatching, I was on board.

The recent election of Barack Obama and how his campaign team used social media to engage, inspire and 'mobilize' people at 'grassroots' level - to give their support both emotionally and financially - has been an invaluable lesson for me as a professional personal brand builder. Will's "can do" attitude, drive, ambition and talent are qualities I admire hugely, so he's got my vote! 

The technology tools that exist today, and what they can do at such little cost, are hugely exciting to me. My vision for the WillMeOn campaign is that come competition day at London 2012, all British hearts, minds and eyes are on Will Maybanks, willing him on to personal and team victory - and when I say 'team', I''m talking about every single individual who has stuck their hand in their pocket and/or spread the word. How powerful is that?

I am particularly proud of WillMeOn.com, do head over there and take a look and please consider making a donationand/or helping us promote Will's cause by placing a supporter's badge on your blog

So Twitter Gold, my random series of Twitter-related posts... here we go... Was in Twitter yesterday for all of 3 tweets, but just happened to see my dear friend Rory Reid tweet that provocative headline from a post on his blog at CNET UK.  Naturally, I had to respond, but their comment function doesn't recognise page breaks so reading my response over there is a bit of an ordeal - hence I thought I'd reproduce it here as a post. Before you go on, read his "Twitter sucks..." article and then come back here.

"Too many stalkers. You have those stalkers anyway. They come and watch you and read your words every day on your website. You have no idea who they are. Twitter gives you the opportunity of actually engaging with those people who value what you have to say.

Most Twitter users are disturbed. Not much to say on this one. My dog is on Twitter but who am I to tell him he can't join in the fun. :)

Mostly spam. There's been a trend lately of people piling in and following 100's of people simply to get a huge following. But they are missing the point. Likewise, those people who do nothing but tweet "New blog post: shorturl/xyz" will find that no-one, not even their followers, are listening. You have to be valued or useful in some way to get them listen and that comes down to engagement. And 140-character tweets from businesses are great - they respect my time and mean I can unsubscribe from their email list and only deal with them when its convenient to me!

It's eating your brain. Following stars on Twitter is completely and utterly different from reading gossip rags. For a start, it's from the horse's mouth. Doesn't mean something's true necessarily, but it is free. Not only that, but you can actually converse with them, the main reason perhaps why the tabloids are knocking celeb twitterings. They (the publications) are now surplus to requirement in that little menage a trois.

A better argument for this last point might have been 'It's eating your time.' since you can get horribly distracted in there, but a little self-discipline is all that needs and there are plenty of apps and spin off sites that make life easier. 

I'm self-employed and I do think the value of Twitter is more obvious for 'us' than for the employed. For those working for ourselves, it's invaluable. It provides me with a community of like-minds to learn from, bounce ideas off, share resources, knowledge, connections and fun with. It's a chance to share who I am, not just what I do, but what I'm about, my 'personal brand'.

For me it's like a huge party... too many people there to talk to everyone, but I'm guaranteed to find someone interesting each and every time I drop in and because people are there to network, no-one minds if I just sidle up to their little group and join in the conversation.

I'm just gutted you don't share my view. It could have been so beautiful. :)"