Sparkatopia

Lisa and Tommy discuss a photograph he took while having breakfast at a local fast food restaurant. A group of senior’s having coffee. Could this be the origin of the first tweet-up? Social media really isn’t all that new now is it…just ask your grandpa who went to the corner store for a cup of coffee and some chat time with a bunch of old friends.

Red Shoes Speaks No. 32 The Origins of the Tweetup from Lisa Cruz on Vimeo.

Jess shares her insights from the Ungeeked Conference that was held last week in Milwaukee. The group also discusses knowing and understanding your audiences online, strategies and intermingling posts on different social media platforms.

Red Shoes Speaks No. 28 Ungeeked Conference from Lisa Cruz on Vimeo.

The best part of spring time is the ability to open the windows and clean out the closets. While you are taking care of your home, why not look at your social media home, too. Are you getting endless email newsletters and alerts? Are you friends with people who you don’t engage with? Lisa & Tommy discuss the need to take some time to do some social media “digital” spring cleaning.

Red Shoes Speaks No. 27 Digital Spring Cleaning from Lisa Cruz on Vimeo.

So this is so weird. This afternoon, I was given an update for the iPhone Hootsuite app. The updates said “just bug fixes,” but its so much more!!!

This update has some great new features, geotagging, Reply to all… it keeps track of your last users in a contact page for easy reference… sort of like tweetdeck. There is a translate tweet function also. This new version, version 1.1.0, allows you to integrate facebook also. Very slick.

Here are screen shots to prove it. Whats odd, is at 9:00 PM CST, I seem to be the only person talking about this… well @rosslarocco and I are talking about it.  But no hootsuite blog activity, no talk about it on twitter. The hootsuite paid app has been pulled from the itunes app store, the lite version is still available 1.0.6.

Whats going on? Am I an unsuspecting beta tester?

This post is in response to a fellow N.E. Wisconsin, Kate Unger , who was looking for feedback on her recent blog post titled: Twilebrities, Comets and Tweets.

It’s just funny how good things happen. Everything seems to happen for a purpose and  the old adage that my father used to say, “Good things happen to great people” fits here- I’m not sure exactly how, but it does. Thank you so much for giving me this opportunity to take a look, a good look, inside myself to see why I do the things I do and where I find the time to do them.  Before I can help you understand why I handle myself the way I do in social media, I think it’s important to have some background information.

I’m the oldest of 7 kids. To this day I have the best parents anyone could ask for. My mom and dad spent so much time showing me how to love, teaching respect for others and to appreciate the things around me. Sometimes it was hard to do those things due to the fact I got picked on so much in school. There were days it was so hard to go at all. But I rarely, if ever, showed that negative side of life. I never wanted to be the one to make a wave or cause issues. I didn’t try to hide it; I just kind of became oblivious to it. Kids at the elementary age can be so cruel. I too had a hand in that. It seemed that every jab that came my way; I sent two or three more out back at others.

This was not how I wanted to live my life. There had to be a better way to deal with my frustrations. Slowly over time I became to see the error in my ways. I’m not sure whether it was, 7^th or 8^th grade, but my outlook started to change. I started to see that comic relief was one way of coping. I have always laughed since I was young, but in high school things started to evolve and in college I took my love of laughter to a different level.  From that point, making people happy has been an end goal of mine. I look at it as one key for my “meaning of life.”

How do you make people happy? Well, what do people desire and crave? We all want attention, to be listened to, and for someone to find interest in us, even if only for a moment. Whether it’s a technology problem someone is having or simply wanting to celebrate success- everyone wants to be acknowledged and heard.

Fast forward to our social media discussion… Social media is the perfect place to be heard and recognized.  It is an ideal way to be “part of the conversation”.    I want to be part of the conversation, but how do I do it? I have made social media part of my daily tasks. With tools like tweetdeck, pluggio, foursquare,  hootsuite on my iphone, and a simple Kodak Zi8 video camera, I can create videos and keep others informed on where I am,  what I’m doing, and to chat with others. I have made social media an integral part of my daily routine. I imagine social media is just like a huge party. You can’t chat with everyone all at the same time, but you can jump in here and there and add to the conversion at a moments notice. Twitter fits that bill perfectly. I have over 28,000 followers and very few are online at any given time, but I can jump into any conversation, add my 2 cents and then just keep on going. I make sure to reply to comments of tidbits that hit my timeline and DM’s. I keep my tech following up to speed on the latest happenings along the way and it just works for me.

Like Lisa Cruz said, there isn’t moderation in all things… but I need mrstommytrc to know she’s #1. I try to work my social media efforts around her and the family. It is important to be considerate of sacred dinner times and weekly date night. I know this may not always happen as planned.  I know that every so often I need a reality check, but I try. I try hard to keep things in check. My family is very tolerant of me and my social media habits… it’s a balancing act I’ll always be working on to be better- for my followers and for my family.

Today I had one of those experiences that you always dream about but rarely get to be a part of. I met the most amazing twitter gal. Rewind a few months ago. @lisaredshoespr and @jessdennis were at SXSW and tweeted about meeting @cathybrowne. The talked about what a doll she was… When I tweeted that I would be coming to Vancouver for business, she immediately tweeted back that she wanted to meet me. Of course Lisa & Jess said that I MUST meet her, so the bar was set high.

Cathy traveled half hour to my hotel to meet me, what a sacrifice. Its hard to put into the words how great the 60 minutes I spent with her. I’m really not sure what it is or why I feel this way, but I’m so humbled being able to meet her. What an inspiration to have chatted and traded social media war stories. This is exactly what social media is all about and taking engagement to the highest level. THANK YOU @cathybrowne for leaving a mark on my Vancouver trip and a mark on my life. You Rock!

Jess Dennis and Tommytrc discuss the 2010 Winter Olympics and how social media is negatively affecting tape delays in programming. Can networks like NBC continue to control when live events are aired and whether participants can discuss the proceedings in their social networks? Are the big networks acting as gatekeepers and trying to control the message? Control freaks or not, discuss on Twitter using the hashtag #redshoesspeak.

Red Shoes Speak No. 16: Olympic Tape Delays from Jessica Dennis on Vimeo.

For this week Online with Erin Davisson, I was asked about a new social media craze called FourSquare. FourSquare is a geo-location tool to tell your friends where you. Kinda like geo-tagging in the big city. You get points for going to different places and can see how many points your friends have.  See what Ross LaRocco and myself have to say to Erin. Thanks Erin and WFRV for having me on the show again!

Are you a digital hoarder? Tommy and Jess discuss how Gmail and cloud computing have changed the way we store and search for information. Is Google changing the way individuals will file information forever? Let us know your thoughts on Twitter using the hash tag #redshoesspeak.

Red Shoes Speaks No. 15 Digital Hoarding from Jessica Dennis on Vimeo.

Kevin Smith (@thatkevinsmith) was asked to step off a Southwest Airlines (@SouthwestAir) flight on Feb. 13, 2010 due to his size. With over 1.6 million followers, Smith’s Tweets about the situation quickly hit mainstream media and blew up in social media. The Southwest Twitter account responded very quickly and appropriately with multiple apologies. As companies continue to engage in social media, how do they prevent or respond to crisis situations such as this? Join the conversation on Twitter using the hash tag #redshoesspeak.

Red Shoes Speak No. 14 Kevin Smith & Soutwest Air Crisis Communication from Jessica Dennis on Vimeo.