I can’t seem to update my Twitter list?
I created my Twitter account long before lists were developed. Now that it exists I’m not able to over come the huge task of organizing all of my connections. You’d think I would at least be able to add new followers to list I created over a year ago, it’s embarrassing.
Social Media: PLN 7.4
I don’t know what it is about getting caught up on organizing my Twitter List. Maybe I feel a rant coming on because the WiFi I’m on in the public library is so slow right now. But honestly, the issue of staying current with my list may cause me to hire one of my young cousins to work it out, because the benefits far out way the challenge.
Out source on a small budget
The way I look at it is that I’m going to spend valuable time learning how Twitter works, sharing newly discovered content, and creating personal leaning networks I should at least use my time wisely by following the lists feature. Otherwise the challenge of following those with shared interest become closer to resembling a needle in a haystack everyday my small account grows bigger.
Here’s why lists are so valuable:
Brings valuable content to the top
If you’re smart the reason for following people is to connect and learn. Lists allow you to place users into categories of like interest that brings those feeds to the top of all the other noise.
Sends a message I care about your news
You’ll rarely see the news feeds of those you care about if you’re not on line when they are posting their content. By clicking on the lists you’ve created of them you will be able to comment replies more often sending a message that you are genuinely following their stuff.
Subscribed to lists feature builds network
Once you subscribe to someone’s list your learning network is exponentially increased and your feeds become more visible as well. Who wouldn’t like more followers for a daily ego rush?
Makes me more Twitter Savvy
I love my social media, but my time is valuable when I’m online. Creating category lists and maintaining it (ouch) is just plain smart use of your time.
Ok. Ok already. I’m committed to naming June, Social Media List Update Month. Being a smart follower is far too important not to.
Stay focused. Stay confident and stay on top of your list for Twitter savvy consciousness.
Your Best Year Teaching: If you have been inspired from this article please consider leaving a comment and subscribing to the RSS feed (top right column) to have future post delivered to your feed reader. Please send your friends to http://laroncarter.com to connect with me or @laroncarter on Twitter.
LiLTweeks: I own it. No one else to blame.
The lesson I learned this week [LiLTweeks] like several of my lessons came from an iTunes podcast. I usually playback archived broadcast of shows I subscribed to while writing blogs or exercising. This time I heard something that made me realize I have a way to go before owning my mistakes without pointing the “finger” at someone else to take the blame for my misfortunes.
Surreal Opportunities
Back in February of 2010, Tavis Smiley interviewed talented actor and comedian Tracy Morgan to promote his new movie. The energy coming off of Tracy was electrifying. From the moment the interview started he was talking about the surrealness of coming up with nothing other than a dream and now being able to walk down the street seeing billboards of him and Bruce Willis in, “Cop Out.”
Three minutes into the conversation Tavis asked, Like Richard Pryor owning his style of comedy, “Have you gotten to a point in your career yet where you think you own anything yet? Where you can say this is Tracy Morgan’s, this is my thing?”
Full Responsibility Disclosure
That’s when Tracy dropped the bombshell that nearly diffused the interview. And would have had Tracy not kept talking after, “Yeah. My mistakes. The mistakes I’ve made in my life are mine. I own them. That’s all I own in this world.”
I tell you, hearing those words makes everything I thought about accusing someone else for, [unattractive]. Over the last six years I’ve taken my fair share of finger pointing and problem blaming way too far. Just bitter about things that I have no one else to blame other than me.
I’m to blame for not having my own lawyers and inspectors present when making those real estate deals. I’m to blame for not monitoring my professional development credit hours for meeting my end of the state board of education contract. There is no one else to blame other than me for allowing my trust in people to go uninspected. People sometimes have a corrupted agenda, that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t fight back when they’re exposed, instead of hiding behind the guise of, “What would Jesus do?”
Learn From Everything Around You
Morgan said, “When I was young my father taught me how to learn.” Somewhere on that very same journey we forget what we’ve already learned, because we let our guard down, or either we just quit learning all together. For me, I passed on the blame as a substitute for not getting wise counsel and allowing the mind chatter to drown out the voice of God in me.
Well Tracy, I was listening when you said, “The key to longevity is to approach everything you do like it’s the last time you’re going to do it.” From now on I’ll be alert, paying attention to life as it pertains to the many lessons I’ve learned along the way. And you better believe from now on, “I own my mistakes, they’re all mine. No more Christian nice guy, beginning with myself.”
Stay focused. Stay confident and appreciate the art of learning.
LiLTweeks (Lessons I Learned This Week) is a weekly observation of some problems I’ve encountered and possible actions for resolve. If you have been inspired from this article please leave a comment and consider subscribing to the RSS (top right column) to have future post delivered to your feed reader [look for Weekend Post].
The most valuable ingredient to give your child’s business.
Goal setting and planning are very high on my list of standards for running anything successful. Yet, all of my dreams and desires weigh priceless without adding one particular ingredient to grow my success. Without this additive to your kidpreneur’s toolbox of business weapons they may never fully understand how to take off from the starter blocks. But with this one nourishing supplement they can travel further than the competition in one single leap.
Teach you child to take action.
Kids have a huge advantage over adults for many reasons. They “should” have more energy, not be prone to life failures that have suffocated our resiliency, and they just do things without thinking through what might go wrong.
OK, that last one can keep us from making some rather big mistakes. But it can also hinder a business owner from taking needed action to get out ahead of the competition or start something that can cause a revolution before someone else thinks it into action first.
In my eBook, A Guide to Your Best Year Teaching, I cover a section on Action Based Goals (SCR V2.6) that uniquely looks at how the teacher can be a change agent in their community by using social media clients that are designed to make taking action an event without excuse.
Teaching your kid CEO to take action is probably the least expensive deterrent for them developing procrastinating behaviors.
Children learn on individual learning curves, but one thing we know for sure is that procrastination is developed out of fear and the best way to teach them differently is to teach taking fearless action without delay.
Stay focused, stay confident, and teach yours to take action.
Kids Mind Your Own Business is loaded with tips of how parents can assist their children in growing their character and business with new school strategies and old school values. If you have been inspired from this article please leave a comment and consider subscribing to the RSS (top right column) to have future post delivered to your feed reader [look for Weekend Post].
5 Reasons Why You Need To Schedule Tweets
You maybe thinking, “Why in the world would I need to schedule tweets?” Someone told me, “Twitter wasn’t deep enough for all of that.” Maybe it isn’t, but once you jump into the wave of PLN’s (personal learning networks) and all of the conversations happening on the Internet, it becomes a World Wide Web discussion with different tweet patterns and time zones.
Social Media: PLN 7.3
Twitter operates on a community model. Think about it. Don’t you use social media around your availability and the stuff that happens throughout the day? Scheduling tweets allows me to make sure others see my content on their schedule rather than when it’s convenient for me to post information live. Scheduling creates flexibility to schedule the same or similar tweets more than once for increased visibility. Here are a few ideas for how to best use scheduled tweets:
Reason 1: Eliminate forgetting to tweet. If you you’re into #followfriday, #teachertuesday, or some other hash tag, schedule them when you think of it throughout the week. You’ll eliminate forgetting about it or missing the opportunity because something came up after you ran out in a hurry to do your Friday banking.
Reason 2: Tweet on “their” schedule. Have you logged on and realized that others mentioned you in tweets several hours earlier? Schedule your reply around the time of day they tweeted you. Of course you want to have real time conversations whenever possible. So, check their profile to see if they are tweeting live at the moment, if not online, schedule your reply comment. It’s not an exact science, but it works.
(Keep in mind others may also schedule their tweets or they’ve stepped away if they don’t respond within minutes of your reply.)
Reason 3: Free up time for live chatting. If joining Twitter hash tag conversations is your thing, the amount of incoming tweets can upload the search grid so fast that just following the thread takes up all your energy. A remedy is to schedule well thought out comments [including hash tags] so that you can focus on a few tweets while the continuity of your update thread remains fluid in the discussion.
Reason 4: Make yourself visible in other time zone rush hours. Twitter users from the opposite end of the country or on the other side of the world may never see your live tweets if they only watch their home feeds to follow what you’re saying on Twitter. This is a good time to schedule content links, Re-Tweets, and Replies.
Reason 5: Spread out your non-reply links. The majority of my tweets were links to great blogs, web stories, and websites when I started K12Live: Teachers using Twitter. That kind of tweeting gives your profile the appearance you aren’t socializing with other people. And although you maybe producing fantastic content people like to connect with people for social reasons. Think of it as personal learning networks that interact on a human level. Although you maybe tweeting fantastic content – produce a profile image that actually looks like you’re having real conversations.
Stay focused. Stay confident and schedule in success.
Your Best Year Teaching: If you have been inspired from this article please consider leaving a comment and subscribing to the RSS feed (top right column) to have future post delivered to your feed reader. Please send your friends to http://laroncarter.com to connect with me or @laroncarter on Twitter.
LiLTweeks: Faith, move that mountain!
The lesson I learned this week [LiLTweeks] brings humility in knowing that God is no respecter of man, it is that man’s faith that moves mountains.
Rejoice. Rejoice.
Just a quick message of what it means to know that if you don’t give up and expect that all things are possible to him that believes, you will win.
Being a businessman for more than half of my life makes it both extremely important to have grace in my conduct and to respect that which is owed for products and service. Somewhere on the road I began holding myself extremely accountable for meeting my part of the bargain in transactions. However, from time to time we all need help getting out of the mess we create for ourselves. Say, Amen.
That’s where this story begins. I was not able to pay for services from a vendor that resulted in costing me more for being late on payment in full than from the original bill. I think you get the idea. So, I went to the service provider and let him know that I was financially challenged at the moment and wanted him to know I would make good on the deal, it was just going to take a little longer than expected.
You should know the first time I met with the vendor months earlier he reduced my rather large bill by 25% for no other reason I can imagine than having received favor from him. That’s grace. Now here I am again seeking a solution in faith for settling my debt with dignity and once again that same vendor reduced my balance due by more than 60%. That’s knocking a mountain down to the size of a hill.
I never requested a payment reduction. I continued to stand in faith. I was confident in the results being what I believed instead of what it looked like. What I learned again is that God is no respecter of man. He is a respecter of faith and integrity. That’s perfecting. In the words of My Total Money Makeover author, Dave Ramsey, “I’m doing better than I deserve.”
Stay focused. Stay confident and replace your fears with faith.
LiLTweeks (Lessons I Learned This Week) is a weekly observation of some problems I’ve encountered and possible actions for resolve. If you have been inspired from this article please leave a comment and consider subscribing to the RSS (top right column) to have future post delivered to your feed reader [look for Weekend Post].
Stepping outside the bubble to network your kid’s venture
The Internet brings valuable information and worldwide presence to our doorstep. With the development of web 2.0 an era of abundance was ushered into our computers filled with free stuff. That is what Twitter friend Alejandro Reyes (@alejandroreyes) calls insane content value. Web tools filled with how to information can bake up tasty social media networking opportunities for you and your kidpreneur with little to no money down.
Get familiar with how networking works.
Although there are literally unlimited web tools available to everyone online, those tools are used differently by web learners. And quite frankly, many social media communities afford members networking potential only limited to the users creativity. Provided members of these communities follow appropriate social media etiquette, the popularly used platforms are buzzing with all sorts of people sharing information, products, and services. I recommend starting slow at first. Join kidpreneur groups on Facebook like Raising CEO Kids and Linkedin’s Ypulse Networking For Youth Media & Marketing Professionals. Then connect and engage the discussions. Review this post for tips on how to enter a social media conversation. Although it’s teacher specific you’ll get the idea.
Seek to develop a network of wise counsel for doing big things.
Once settled in as a member on a site spend time adding friends and following their content in forum discussions before jumping into someone’s conversation. Taking time to introduce your self makes for a smoother transition into the community. Feel free to ask any specific questions you may have about using social media for effective networking.
Stay focused, stay confident, and meet-up with social media.
Kids Mind Your Own Business is loaded with tips of how parents can assist their children in growing their character and business with new school strategies and old school values. If you have been inspired from this article please leave a comment and consider subscribing to the RSS (top right column) to have future post delivered to your feed reader [look for Weekend Post].
5 Steps Toward Hootsuite Twitter Search Mastery
Hootsuite is my social media client of choice. Our relationship was began the day my Apple Power Book G4 wouldn’t properly install the Adobe AIR needed to run Tweetdeck and I haven’t looked back since. Hootsuite is also getting a lot of buzz from iPhone users for being the current client application of choice for integrating multiple accounts with ease and flexibility.
Social Media: PLN 7.2
In my blog Social Media: PLN 7.0 and 7.1 I shared a few simple, but valuable tips for jumping into the wave of social media PLN’s (personal learning network). This blog post gets specific with identifying a few subgroups that have been making buzz in the K12 education online community and walking you through a less stressed entrance into their space. Once you have followed the Hootsuite video and read the blog for setting up your account, it’s time to turn up productivity.
Step 1: Create Public or Private Group Twitter List Column
Click the Add Column link off to the right side of the window and create a Twitter List (Conference Speakers, example) or choose one already existing in your account. Once you have done this click Create Column.
Step 2: Search for Usernames to Follow – New or Existing
Type the username right into the search box on the right of window (it’s next to the Add Column slide adjuster).
Step 3: Add People to the Column
Click, drag, and drop the avatar picture you want to follow into the new Twitter List column (Shelly Terrell @ShellTerrell, example). Creating a list column of 10 – 20 people to follow closely will take the hard work out of following. And you can repeat up to 10 new columns per tab.
Step 4: Create Hash Tag Searches of Topics or Terms
Start a search column of the hash tags and topics you’re interested in the same way you created the Twitter List by clicking the Add Column link and typing in whatever you want (Teacher Appreciation Day, example).
Step 5: Follow Someone New While Doing All That Creating
Click on some of those Tweets (Ricki James @RickiSiouxan, example) and Follow a new friend, Reply, Re-Tweet, or Add to List you’ve just created. It’ll be cool growing your PLN.
Stay focused. Stay confident and master those search skills.
Your Best Year Teaching: If you have been inspired from this article please consider leaving a comment and subscribing to the RSS feed (top right column) to have future post delivered to your feed reader. Please send your friends to http://laroncarter.com to connect with me or @laroncarter on Twitter.
