Click here to view the embedded video.

All I can say is WOW. These two best friends are so ridiculously inspiring I just had to share them with you. Dartanyon Crockett and Leroy Sutton show us that even the most difficult obstacles can be overcome with a positive attitude and amazing friends.

How darn inspiring are they?!! Did it make you cry like it did me? It doesn’t take much to set me off to be honest but this was totally worthy of my tears.

Video credit: KarmaTube.org

So… when you market online there seem to be a lot of rules telling you to do things a particular way. And then you come across someone telling you that you definitely shouldn’t be doing it like that! How the hell are you supposed to know what you should or shouldn’t be doing when everyone has different opinions about what is right or wrong?

Photo credit: mcarth

To automate or not to automate? Do you have to be on all 29,000 social media sites??? Is it a crime to switch off comments on your blog?! It’s a crazy maze of different opinions and views out there and it’s a minefield trying to match what you want to do with what you think you should do….

….So, here’s my opinion on a few things that cause debate. Of course this is only MY OPINION! If you think I’m completely wrong (wait, what? I’m alwaaays right!), then that’s fine and you should do it your own way – BE A REBEL!

• Auto-DM’s (Direct Messages) on Twitter – Shock horror! People automate direct messages?!? You mean, they didn’t personally send me that lovely message?!??!! Erm, no they probably didn’t. And by the way… I didn’t either!!! Ok, this is a widely debated hot topic on Twitter. I think it is a great way to say hello to all your new followers individually and often starts up conversations that wouldn’t have happened otherwise. There is no way I would have the time or truthfully the inclination to welcome each and every one of my new followers. But I do want to give them a welcome somehow and I do this using Socialoomph and setting up a DM that just says “Hey, thanks for the follow! Hope you enjoy my tweets ”

I don’t put a link in it because I find them annoying to receive, but I know some people who do and find they work quite well (it’s just not for me).

On the other side of the spectrum there are those who think an automated DM is terrible and nothing about social media should be automated. However, I’m not tricking people, if they asked I would tell them, and it saves me time and initiates conversations I wouldn’t have had chance to start so I like ‘em!

• Automating Social Media – By this I mean setting up tweets or status updates to go out at a later time. I kinda think this depends. You can do this the right way or the wrong way. I think setting up updates to go out at a later time can be very useful if you are going to be away for a few days or busy all day and you want to tweet your new blog post later on or at a time when Twitter is busier. Hootsuite and Socialoomph are both great for this. You still need to show up at these places yourself though. It’s all about building relationships and interacting with people, and if the majority of your updates are automated then you really can’t do that.

• Switching Comments Off on Your Blog – Most people say that you have to have comments on your blog to have conversations, build relationships with your readers and potentially start debates within the comments that can lead to more traffic to your blog. However, if you feel that you don’t want to have comments on your blog or that you’re terrible at replying to them (something I’m working on) then if you want to have comments turned off then you can! It is YOUR blog and you are free to run it however you choose.

Some might say you are making a mistake, but you probably don’t entirely agree with everything they do anyway. It’s fine to be different. I like to get comments on my posts and getting to see who is reading and how people feel about what I said but that’s just a personal decision.

Photo credit: theyearwas1989

• You Have to Be on Every Social Media Site – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Youtube, Foursqure, Plaxo, Myspace, and the rest… No you don’t! You should do what works for you and your business. Yes, if you want maximum exposure you should probably be on the big 3 – Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, because for most people that’s where their customers are, but you don’t have to be. I don’t like Myspace, so I’m not on it, I LOVE Twitter so I’m on it a lot (some might say too much) and I find that I get the most from it. You’ll probably get most from what you enjoy, so show up on those sites and get interacting baby!

• You Have to Use Video – Again, no you don’t. It totally depends on your biz and what you want to do. Video is great, your message has the potential to go viral and people love to watch videos, but if you’re sh*t scared of getting in front of the camera, then you really don’t have to. A great way to get around this is to do screen captures, (A screenshot or screen capture, is an image or video taken by the computer to record the visible items displayed on the monitor). You can make an instructional video for example where your screen is recorded using something like Jing and you can talk through what you are doing. They are really easy to make and people seem to love them.

• To Follow Or Not To Follow Back On Twitter – Some do and some don’t, it is entirely up to you. And luckily neither option will really be frowned upon because there are so many ‘gurus’ doing it each way. In my opinion, I follow back out of courtesy and so we can build a better relationship with each other. Utilising the ‘list’ function on Twitter means that I can put people into groups so I don’t miss out on different people’s tweets or those who I communicate with regularly. Hootsuite also really helps with this because you can set it to show your lists in separate columns rather than just having your main Twitter feed of all your followers swooping past at an unreadable rate.

• You Should Post Every Week/Day/Hour/Millisecond – A lot of established bloggers post new content every single day. And that’s great if you can do it but it’s just not for me. I aim to post once a week, this doesn’t always happen, and it’s something I want to be more consistent with, but I have no desire to try and create new content to post every day. I just know that I wouldn’t be able to keep it up and I’d rather spend more time on my one post a week than putting out diluted content (I’m not saying other people’s content is diluted – just that mine would be).

I do think it’s good to be consistent in your blogging so your readers know what they’re getting, but I don’t think it’s a huge deal to get off track occasionally. Life just sometimes gets in the way. And really, with the blogs that I read I don’t really notice how often it is they’re posting, unless they haven’t added anything new for ages, time just moves too fast to be aware of it.



In summary, some say do this, others say do that, even many experts disagree, you need to make your own rules for what you do. Don’t feel guilty if you don’t follow what everyone else is doing because there will always be people who agree with you and like the way you do things. It’s fine to take the bits you like from all different people.

Of course there are some things that are always wrong and will always portray you badly online, like spamming for example!

Whatcha think? Leave a comment and let us know. And I’d love it if you spread the love and shared it with your friends.

Lots of rebel love,
Louise

2011 is 13 days old already… jeez Louise!!! Where did 2010 go??? Am I really half way through my 26th year already?!! Apparently so. No offence to all the over 26 year olds out there (oh wait, I am one) but 27 sounds like an adults age to me, but I still feel like a child who needs my Momma. (As a side note – my Mum’s gone travelling this year in her gigantic motorhome so I’m not going to see her as often as I’m used to – and I’m kinda scared!!! Is there ever a time when we stop needing our parents?!)

Anyhoo, back to the point of this post… my intentions for the new year. Kris Carr (who I heard about through Marie Forleo, both awesome and inspiring ladies you should check out), talks in one of her recent blog posts about making intentions for the year ahead instead of a long list of resolutions that she probably won’t even stick to or even remember for the next year.

I like that idea, of thinking about a few specific things that you intend to do rather than resolutions that traditionally you probably won’t bother about or worry about sticking to.

So here are my 5 intentions:

1. To live a healthier life: I want to exercise more consistently (I tend to do it for a few days and then stop). I intend to make a conscious effort to eat more healthily. I eat pretty well most of the time, but I know I don’t really eat enough fruit and veg.

Photo credit: amp’ed

2. To blog more and establish better and more meaningful relationships with my subscribers – ok, it’s confession time – I don’t email my subscribers very often! I want us to get to know each other better. I want to share with them interesting articles I have found, things that have inspired me, and whilst I don’t want to email them every other day and bug them (I hate that), I’d like to be in contact with them at least once a week.

3. To take more pictures – I’ve always loved taking pictures and I simply want to take more this year!

Photo credit: CubaGallery

4. To laugh more – sometimes life gets overwhelming and we become stressed out and worry over the little things, and we forget the most important things in our life – the people in it. I think we sometimes need to make a concerted effort to laugh more: watch funny TV shows or films, have a tickling session with your loverrr, spend more time with friends who make you laugh. Or just burst out laughing – it really does make you feel better!

5. To travel more/ meet more people I’ve met online – I’ve met some wonderful people and made some great relationships online but it’s easy to make friends whilst hiding behind a computer. This year I would love to meet some of these people in real life.

What do you think? Do you have some of the same intentions as me? Please share your intentions for 2011 with us, I’d love to hear them.

With passion and good intentions,
Louise

Sometimes it takes a life-threatening illness or losing a loved one to make changes to our lives. And sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes something bad almost happens and we think about changing our life for the better and grabbing life by the balls… and then we go back to normal, forgetting the close encounter and forgetting how we thought for a minute there that life is short.

Sometimes something so awful happens that we are shaken to the core and are never the same person again. But what if it doesn’t? Does something bad always have to happen for us to decide to lead a better, healthier and more fulfilling life?

Or can the start of a new year do the same thing for us?? I’ve decided this year is going to amazing. I have a feeling of hope I don’t think I’ve ever had before. Waking up on January 1st 2011 has given me a positivity and an optimism that this year is going to be different for me and some of my dreams are finally going to come true, and if not then I’m going to make them come true.

Four years ago I had one of those moments that you think will change your life if you make it through it. I had a small operation that turned into a big operation when they found a tumour on one of my ovaries and the whole ovary and tube had to be removed. Not only was there a cancer in my body but my ability to have children was at threat and I was only 22.

It was a type of cancer but once the bad bits were removed I didn’t have it any more. I know how lucky I was, that it wasn’t a more dangerous or terminal form of cancer, and of course I don’t wish I had a more serious and scarier type, I am so grateful that I didn’t have to go through Chemotherapy and go through months of suffering, but, I wonder, if I had to go through a cancer battle (and won), would my life being turned upside down have made me grab life by the balls and live life to the full each and every day?

In the Introduction to Kris Carr’s new book ‘Crazy Sexy Diet: Eat Your Veggies, Ignite Your Spark, and Live Like You Mean It!‘ Dr Dean Ornish writes “Many patients have told me, “Being diagnosed with cancer was the best thing that ever happened to me.” A skeptic might reply, “What are you, crazy?” To which they might hear, “That’s what it took to get my attention to begin changing my life in ways that have made it so much more joyful and meaningful.”

I wonder if a new year can do a similar kind of thing for us, if we can really embrace life and make the changes to let us live our best possible lives, without going through something so horrific that there is no going back. I think it’s possible… I think people do make massive changes to their lives, but I know despite the things I’ve been through I’ve never managed to really do it before. But I’m hoping that 2011 is my time to do that, in fact, I’m determined that it will be. And I hope you’ll join me. Let’s not wait until something awful happens. It’s up to us to go out there and do it.

A new year brings a new optimism, a new lust for life, a feeling of starting afresh, a chance to make your life better, start exercising, eating more healthily, spending more time with loved one’s. And I plan to do all of these things – not as resolutions, but as permanent changes to my life.

“Why, when we are challenged to survive, do we give ourselves permission to truly live?”

Live, Laugh, Love.

Louise xoxo

Untweeps is another Twitter tool that allows you to quickly find and unfollow people who haven’t tweeted for ages or, as the site itself says ‘unfollow stale tweeple’. You can use it for free 3 times per month. Here’s a short video explaining how to use it:

Have you used Untweeps before? Do you think it looks like a useful tool for managing Twitter? Thanks for watching, and if you found this video useful I’d love you to share it with your tweeps!

If you’re in the Internet Marketing world chances are you’re on a lot of people’s email lists, and chances are you receive many emails each week with a link for you to purchase the Next Big Thing – be it a course, a new ebook, or a product.

Quite often you’ll have heard loads about this new launch already and will be receiving emails daily from many different people all promoting the same thing with their own bonuses added on to make it even harder to resist.

The trouble is, what might be right for one person might not be right for you or for your business at that stage. But with all the talk about a particular product and when it seems everybody else has already bought it, it can be hard to ignore and you are made to feel like you are missing out, like everybody else will be ahead of the game if you don’t buy it too.

What makes it even harder, is that all of the people who are promoting the product will be affiliates for it, and so it’s difficult to know whether they have really purchased the product themselves and really believe in it (whether their well written email says so or not), or whether they are just trying to make a quick buck with something that they know everyone else will be promoting and they don’t want to miss out on. This can be especially hard when the people doing the promoting are people or ‘guru’s’ you like and respect and can’t help believing that what they say goes.

With all the hype it can be hard not to just jump on the bandwagon and spend another $97 or even $997 even though you’re flat broke. I know, I’ve been there. But it’s important to remember that this one product will not change your business overnight and there is no ‘turn-key’ system or magic button that will be making you thousands of dollars in a few short weeks with no effort. If you had the money to buy loads of different courses on all sorts of different things then there would probably be small things from each of those courses that you could take away that would help you grow your business over time. But realistically, most of us don’t have the kind of money or the time to try out every new course.

I find it even harder to ignore the type’s of emails that I get every single day that are recommending a course that only costs around the $37 mark and promises to only take an hour of your time to set up. It’s so easy to fall for the claims that this one is not like all the others and it really works.

However, you have to remember that these guys have hired master copywriters who employ all of the psychological means necessary to get you to click on the ‘buy’ button. They know what works, and we have to keep that in our head when reading the long persuasive sales page, getting more and more excited the further we get that this really could be the one to make us rich (like I said I’ve been there!).

And even though it can seem harmless trying a new course out when it only costs $37 and there’s a money back guarantee, most of these courses will require you to purchase a domain name (because you’ll probably be creating at least one new website even if that isn’t mentioned) and hosting. And will you really bother (or remember) to get your money back when you realise it IS just like all the other courses you’ve bought before and it does take work to set it all up?

I dread to think how many thousands of dollars are wasted every week from people buying these courses and never doing anything with them.

Of course some of the big launches are for great products and they do deserve the hype. However, there is no magic button and no one product is going to make your business successful without hard work and dedication from you, and if you haven’t got the money – don’t even think about it!

Utilise free webinars as tools to grow your business for free. Many big names in the industry have regular free webinars that can help you grow your business and give you real, actionable tips that you can implement straight away. Get on their lists so you find out when they are but don’t forget to ignore most of the launches they email you about! What I tend to do is if I know an email is about a particular launch is to just delete the email straight away without even reading it.

Other great ways to get help and to learn about the industry for free are ebooks that people give away for signing up to their blog; other people’s blogs can also be an awesome tool for learning. Sites like Mashable are really useful for keeping up with what is happening in the industry and with social media. And check out free networking events in your area to learn from industry leaders.

One more tip – Unsubscribe! – If someone is sending out emails a few times a week with a new course or product just get off their list! If the last course was as good as they said, why would we need another (very similar) one?!

Anyway, I’ve got to go, I believe I have a few $37 to get back……

Thanks for reading,

Louise

P.S If you enjoyed this article please do me a favour and share it on Facebook or Twitter or leave a comment below. And if you haven’t signed up to be on my email list yet then please fill in the form to the right… I promise I won’t spam you with the NEXT BIG THING!!!!

Hey y’all,

So, I’ve been quiet over the past few weeks…  I’ve been going through some personal stuff and I’ve also been taking some much needed unplugged time. I’ve also been working on something new that I can’t tell you about yet. It’s a bit of a different direction from this blog but don’t worry this will still be my main focus .

I’ve kinda been taking a little break from this blog and also from social media which I think has done me the world of good. I haven’t completely ignored it but I’ve just spent waay less time especially on Twitter.

…You see, I think I’d started living my life around Twitter …so I’d try and get a good photo especially to tweet, or I’d be in the middle of a fun time with my friends and I’d be thinking ‘I need to tweet this’ (how sad!?) !!

And really, I don’t want to live my live that way, I want to share things on Twitter but I don’t want to be constantly thinking of my next hilarious tweet (!).

At first I felt really really guilty and like I was missing out, but then I started to realise that if I carried on spending as much time on social media then it was REAL LIFE that I’d be missing out on. And I sure as hell don’t want to do that!

I’m also working on not feeling so guilty about taking some time off. As entrepreneurs (especially women entrepreneurs) who work from home we often feel pressure to keep going even when we really need a break, and honestly, that’s just stupid!

We keep going until we feel completely overwhelmed and we’re never going to be particularly productive if we have a million things on our mind.

“The time to relax is when you don’t have time for it.” Sydney J. Harris

So this is just a reminder to not be afraid to take a break once in a while, it’ll make you feel heaps better and you’ll be all the more productive for it.

As for me.. I’ve had my break and I’m coming back with a vengeance!!!

With passion,

Louise

“Take rest; a field that has rested gives a bountiful crop.” ~Ovid

If you choose to unfollow people who don’t follow you back on Twitter like I do, then you’re probably aware that it can be a pain in the bum to physically unfollow people directly within Twitter.

There are plenty of tools to be found that will do your unfollowing for you, but since the Twitter Gods have made most of these programs remove their ‘bulk unfollow’ buttons many tools can take too much time and effort because you have to unfollow each person separately.

Buzzom enables you to quickly unfollow people who don’t follow you. You still have to click to remove each one but it usually only takes a few seconds.

(If you want to view the video in full screen mode click the bottom right-hand corner icon.)

Let me know what you think – Have you used Buzzom before, or do you have other tools you prefer? Thanks for watching, and if you found this video useful I’d love it if you’d share it for me!

Recently I was asked this question by one of my followers on Twitter and because trying to understand how to use these sites can sometimes be overwhelming, whether you’ve been using them for years or you are a complete newbie to them, I wanted to provide a breakdown of the main three: Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn and why each one is useful and how you can leverage each one.

Key Points on Social Media:

• Social Media is now the number one online activity, beating porn and personal email to the top spot.

• Two thirds of the global internet population visit social networks.

• Online, including social media, has become the most influential source in helping consumers make purchasing decisions.

Personally I would say that I find Twitter most useful. This isn’t because it is necessarily the most useful social networking site, but because I enjoy using it and because it is the easiest to use, I probably see the most benefits from it because of the time spent on it and the relationships I have built there. With Twitter the thing you spend the most time doing is directly communicating with people. Whereas there is a lot more to Facebook and LinkedIn and therefore there is more to learn and understand to use them effectively.

I think Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn can all be super useful for driving traffic to your blog and finding people to network and connect with. They all have their advantages, so it really depends what you are looking for. I recommend using all three, but at the same time it is sometimes hard keeping up with all of them especially when things are changing so fast within them. However, once you have learned the basics, it does get a lot easier to keep up with any new features.

Twitter

Twitter describes itself as, “a service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?” It is used by millions of people, and thousands more are signing up every day. Twitter believes that by 2012 it will have 1 billion users.

It’s no secret that I love Twitter. Once you have taken the time to understand how it works, it is really easy to use. It is a lot more basic than Facebook or LinkedIn, but it still gives you the ability to post valuable information, interact with people, build relationships, drive traffic to your blog, and share other people’s content that you like and find relevant.

Twitter gives you the ability to quickly build up a network of people in your niche. You can easily follow people you are interested in, without waiting for a friendship to be approved by the other person, like on most sites, and it’s really good for finding leaders in your industry to follow and learn from.

Your profile section gives you the option to add one website which means that you can drive traffic to your website automatically. As most people do not have a high number of followers, when someone new follows them, they are likely to click on their website link to see what they are about.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn has over 60 million users and it also has the highest average household income per user over the top social networking sites.

I think one of the reasons people don’t bother with LinkedIn, or sign up and never finish completing their profile, is because it takes a bit of time to learn how to use it efficiently.

I haven’t been using LinkedIn properly for very long but I have quickly built up lots of connections and I am quickly starting to see it’s power. Having given it a chance, I no longer see it as the stuffy social network that I couldn’t see the value in.

Thanks to LinkedIn expert Lewis Howes I’ve learnt that LinkedIn can be incredible for connecting with high-profile people and you can quickly establish yourself as an expert in your niche with some of the features LinkedIn has built in.

Here are some of the reasons why LinkedIn can be so powerful:

• You can have a massive network of millions who can view your profile whilst only being directly connected to a few hundred.

• Groups – LinkedIn allows you to create your own groups, these are targeted connections – allows you to potentially become a thought leader of that group’s niche, build your tribe, create leads, drive traffic to your site, allows you to send a free weekly email.

• Google Love – LinkedIn usually comes up as one of the top results when we search our own name.

• Recommendations – You can get Testimonials from people who have worked with you which provides great social proof and credibility.

• Traffic – You can drive traffic to your site through links in your status updates, links on your profile and the WordPress application that you can add to your profile.

• You can build up a database, export your contacts and email them without paying for an autoresponder.

• If you spend more of your time on Twitter you can add more followers there by having your link on your profile.

• If you run events you can attract a lot of attention via LinkedIn and consequently get a lot more people to attend.

If you want to get serious about LinkedIn I recommend checking out Lewis Howes’ ebook LinkedIn Master Strategies to learn everything you need to know about taking your LinkedIn profile to the next level, helping you build your business, and achieving your professional goals. I didn’t really have a clue about how to use LinkedIn before I came across Lewis on Twitter.

LinkedIn is a powerful platform to help you grow your business and I recommend really taking the time to better understand and use it. It really is too powerful to overlook.

Facebook

If Facebook were a country it would be bigger than the USA and 3rd largest in the world. It added 200 million new users in less than a year, adds half a million users every day and is on target for ½ billion users by December 2010.

5 billion – The number of minutes spent on Facebook each day.

1 billion – The amount of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photos etc.) shared each week on Facebook.

25% of all USA internet page views are on Facebook

54% of all USA internet users are now on Facebook

These are no small numbers. Yet, millions more will join this platform in the coming months and years, and the vast majority will be seeking to use Facebook primarily for business purposes.

Here are some big reasons to use Facebook for business:

• Facebook is no longer just for college kids. Users are typically older and more mature than on some other sites, and there are more affluent and more educated white collar users.

• Finding business contacts – With so many active users, this is where your prospects, your customers, and, of course, your competitors are.

• Building relationships – By engaging in conversations with your prospects and customers, you can better adapt your marketing and business services to meet their needs.

• Raise your visibility – By posting regular status updates and relevant information, and becoming a thought leader, you can increase visibility and credibility as the expert in your niche.

• Targeting your niche – Users volunteer lots of information about themselves that you can readily access. This kind of information would previously have cost fortunes to access.

• Google Love – ’Fan Pages’ are indexed for optimal search engine positioning and viewable to the outside world – so someone doesn‘t have to be on Facebook to view them.

• Targeted ads – With Facebook Social Ads, you can test out extremely targeted advertising for very low costs.

Last week Facebook made some pretty huge announcements. 8 social plugins were released, namely: Like Button, Activity Feed, Recommendations, Like Box, Login with Faces, Facepile, Comments, & Live Stream. Facebook calls them, “the easiest way to add Facebook to your site.” Pretty soon, every site on the web will be Facebook-integrated. Every brand that uses Facebook, and every Facebook user, will be affected by these changes.

One of these new plugins – the ‘Like’ button, enables visitors to ‘Like’ a post on your blog (if you have the plugin installed). When a visitor to your blog clicks the ‘Like’ button it shows up on their Facebook profile – potentially spreading your content to all of their Facebook friends. It’s a simple yet powerful feature, and one that could prove to be really valuable to marketers.

Now I have to admit Facebook had kind of lost it’s sparkle a bit for me. Maybe because I have been on the platform for so many years, and I’ve found that it has become quite spammy via the email inbox and the constant invites to groups and applications. However, I can’t ignore the power that it has, particularly with these new features, and I’m quite excited about the massive potential this platform has.

Conclusion

I think Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn all have their place in the social media world and they each have many positives, it’s up to you to learn how to utilise them so that you can get the maximum potential out of each of them. You can drive a lot of traffic to your website by leveraging these sites and the best thing is it’s all for free! I advise you to join and leverage all three and give them all a chance. The great thing is you don’t have to spend loads of time on each of them to see the benefits, 10-20 minutes a day on each one can be enough to see the benefits of using social media for business.

What do you think – Do you find one of these sites more useful than the others? Do you spend more time on one particular social media site? Are you happy about the new changes to Facebook, or do you wish these sites didn’t change so much? Let me know by leaving a comment below.