What is RT? (I’ll give you the answer now: it’s Re-Tweet! More on Twitter in future posts)
Upcoming in Highland Park: The Highland Park Public Library is once again having a book sale! (and my neighbors put a lot of energy into putting this together, so three cheers for them. You’ve seen their red bud, magnolia and dogwood trees on my blog). It’s the same weekend as the Annual Street Fair, which is on May 17. If you live in Central New Jersey, you can donate books from May 11 to 14.
Some of you get paid to speak; others hope to get paid one day. One thing that we all face as paid speakers is the issue of payment vs. exposure. That is, we will be invited to speak pro bono, or will be offered less than our usual rate, and we’ll have to decide if it’s worth it to take less money in order to get exposure or visibility…only a few of my pro bono speaking engagements have paid off in clients or future speaking engagements. Read the rest.
Last Sunday we went to Sandy Hook, a lovely beach with dunes at the top of the New Jersey Shore. There is a bay side and an ocean side to Sandy Hook.
Ocean, beach, and sky at Sandy Hook, New Jersey
In contrast to the golden sunset above, the sky was blue at the beach a few hours earlier.
Sky Watch Friday is a photo meme with photos of sunrises, sunsets, blue skies, gray skies, pink skies, dark skies and any other kind of sky posted by bloggers all over the planet.
Playing in the April water at Sandy Hook, New Jersey
We had exceptionally warm weather on Sunday, and so we traveled with the traffic to the top of the New Jersey shore to a wonderful beach called Sandy Hook. More Sandy Hook photos coming on Thursday, as part of Sky Watch.
Have you ever been to the Jersey Shore? Where did you go?
Three Thursdays at Three Libraries in Central New Jersey
Eva Abreu introduces presenter Jessica Levin (standing), Adam Wolf (at laptop)
Last night was the “inaugural” presentation of our Social Media Networking Talks with Eva Abreu as our “Social Media Tour Guide.” Annie Boccio talked about the many friends she has made via social networking. We had a presentation by Paul Grzella about Getting Published in Daily and Weekly Newspapers and MyCentralJersey.com. I presented “Twitter, Blogs and Websites” — more about my presentation in a separate post. Adam Wolf showed ways to target audiences in Facebook; he used his wife’s business, Places Everyone, as an example of how one can attract attention to your site using Twitter and other social media. Jessica Levin taught us how celebrities used traditional media like television and magazines to brand themselves; one can now use social media as a way to brand one’s business or organization.
Thank you to Graham Gudgin for his important role in arranging last night’s talk at the Edison Public Library.
One woman asked a question about poor spellers. Can one advertise one’s business via social media (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, blogs) and misspell words? If it’s a small business, what do you do? Suggestions?
My daughter and I visited the circus in New York City last week. Here are four photos (of the 108 photos I took that day) that have some red. All can be enlarged by clicking. What is this person doing with his body?
My favorite part of the whole Barnum and Bailey Ringling Brothers Circus was the elephants.
These acrobats had dim lighting, but the reds attracted my eye.
One can understand why they call this the Greatest Show on Earth. Everywhere you look on stage, there is some action. One act is starting when the previous finishes its presentation. The dancers with the swinging skirts were marvelous.
For more posts with a lot or a little red, visit Ruby Tuesday:
Yesterday my daughter and I (and her friend and her friend’s sister and her friend’s mom, who arranged the whole trip) went to New York City. When you are six years old, this is a real adventure. I enjoy when my daughter is inspired, awed, and thrilled with a trip. The top photo was taken outside Macy’s; to me, it says “Spring in New York City.”
Our first stop after riding a double-decker New Jersey transit car (we rode on the top level) and venturing through Penn Station, a sight in itself if you don’t have to go there every day was Macy’s, for the Macy’s Flower Show. As you may be able to see above, the flowers were situated above the stations that sell jewelry. Tours were going round every half hour explaining the different flowers on display. My daughter took a photo of one of the three flowered flamingos (I’ll save that photo for a future post, as it needs a bit of Photoshop work to cut off someone’s head that shouldn’t have been in the composition). I didn’t care for the noise inside Macy’s, but I did enjoy when the perfume ladies gave their scented cards to my curious and inquisitive daughter (she learn to ask for a card with a perfume scent after the first two were handed to her).
Here is a hint of the Barnum Bailey Circus at Madison Square Garden; more about the circus in a future post (or two or three).
As a follow-up to my post on Twitter for Local Business, here are some ideas on how a chiropractor can use Twitter to connect with potential new clients.
Step One: Sign up and pick a username. It can just be your first or last name with an initial, or you can choose an alias like this one: DrMommy. As you are working at present yourself as a health professional, you will want to add a photograph of yourself, to show you are a real person. You can poke around on Twitter to see what others are using to get some ideas. You can change the user pic easily later, if you like.
Step Two: Add a few sentences to your bio on Twitter. This is important. Why should people follow you back? You need to provide them some kind of idea of who you are and of your interests. If you have a professional blog, website, page on LinkedIn or Facebook, add the URL.
Step Three: Write your first tweet. Tweets must be 140 characters or less. An example:
“I am so glad I have been able to help my new client with her back pain after her accident.”
You can even phrase it as a question:
How can find others on Twitter who might need chiropractic services?”
Or:
“I’m a newbie on Twitter, but I’m not new to health services. I know a lot about” (fill in with x y and z).
Step Four: Write a tweet with a link to an article. It can be any article, but why not choose one that will show your knowledge of your health profession? To write a tweet with a link to an article, first put in the title of the article. That will help get others attention. Then paste in the URL. If your tweet is now more than 140 characters, and your Twitter application does not automatically shorten it, you can use a URL-shortening service to get a shorter URL.
Step Five: Find others to follow. If you already have a few friends on Twitter, follow them (and ask them to follow you back). That way when you click on new followers, you have at least a few people following you already.
digitalchiro (social media training for chiropractors)
Updated: Digital Chiropractor (digitalchiro) trains chiropractors on how to use social media as a marketing tool for their practices.
For learning more about Twitter, I highly recommend following clydeboom.
Step Six: Follow people in your area. Chiropractors need to have clients that are in their own geographical area. Here are some tools to help you find local people:
You can also look in http://wefollow.com/ for Twitter users in your area. I am listed in the New Jersey section (search for newjersey).
Step Seven: Talk to the people you have followed. You can reply (@username) to their tweets. Or you can RT (re-Tweet) what someone said. Retweeting is an excellent way to show you enjoyed what the person had to say, and you want to pass the valuable information or inspirational thought unto others. I often reTweet good articles.
Step Eight: Learn how to search. Twitter is a great tool for research on anything current. You can try searching for ‘health’ or ‘back pain’ or ‘chiropractic’ or any other keyword. Some search tools:
Twitter application TweetDeck has search tools built-in.
Question: Do you need to have a blog to go on Twitter?
Answer: No. However, the more web presence you have, the more professional you will appear to potential clients. LinkedIn, Facebook and blogs on WordPress.com or on Blogger are all free ways one can market oneself. A professional website or a professional blog can be aides in marketing your services to these potential clients.
If you live in New Jersey, attend a talk by Eva Abreu about Social Media. She will be at the Highland Park Public Library on April 30 speaking about Social Media Marketing. I will be there, too!
If anyone has more ideas about how a health professional can use Twitter to reach potential clients and market their business, please feel free to leave a comment. Questions are also most welcome.
My son (the middle son, the filmmaker) went on a field trip last week with his class to the Rutgers Agricultural Museum in New Brunswick. Here is an old-fashioned firetruck that he photographed. (I didn’t go on the trip; he took his own camera).
Part of the reason for the trip was the boys have been studying the 39 Melachot, the 39 acts of work that a Jew is not allowed to do on the Sabbath. All of these Melachot are agriculturally-based, so their teacher used the museum as a way to show them threshing, winnowing, grinding sheaves (I have no idea what those are; I took those words off Wikipedia). Each boy had been assigned one Melacha to study in detail.
My son’s Melacha was weaving. He had already presented to the class, and his teacher told me later that he gave my son weaving because it was a more difficult one, but he knew my son could handle it. He did an origami basket project with his class. Yes, I am proud of him!
Raritan Avenue last fall, near PJ's Coffee where BNCJ meets
On Tuesday I attended my first meeting of a local networking group, BNCJ. I found the other attendees friendly and informative, and I look forward to joining the organization. There was a lawyer, a home inspector, a contractor, a travel agent, a financial services representative and an stock broker. And me, the web designer! Or web builder, as I sometimes call it. Design is only a small part.
At one point I mentioned Twitter, and some of other people had never heard of it. “Twitter? Is that like Facebook?” Actually, it’s much easier to use, I responded. Instead of connecting with people you already know, it’s easy to meet new people. I cautioned them not to use Twitter for direct sales (you will get unfollowed fast if you are too pushy). The people I follow want to have intelligent discussions on a variety of topics.
Yesterday I posed the following question on Twitter:
"Question: can local biz (ex. contractor, plumber, doc, even hair dresser) use Twitter to grow biz? Thoughts?"
Shimon responded: “answer (IMO): yes if they have tips and promotions (like make up tips for women or computer coupons). Women oriented should b better”
liajen (aka Jennifer Fong) responded: “I believe it can. You just build your targeted niche through local searches (such as with twellow) & build relationships.”
What do you think? How can a local business use Twitter?
Public History Partners is a site I worked on last spring and finished up in the late fall. If you are familiar with New Jersey, you may enjoy seeing the beach at Asbury Park and the Delaware and Raritan Canal. The 1777 map in the header shows the City of New Brunswick, from a Rutgers collection of historical maps.
There is also a photo of a Passover seder on the site. Can anyone tell me where that seder took place?
As a follow-up to my post on 
