I am woman, hear me roar!

It isn't women's history month (that's March), but I thought a post about the power of women was in order today because Danielle, Sarah and I have started a women's networking group here in Vancouver, BC. Our first event is quickly approaching (Dec. 3rd - mark your calendars, female Vancouverites!) and it'll be a great night for anyone looking for a little inspiration and motivation during these uncertain economic times. Our speaker is Sue Paish, CEO of Pharmasave and former corporate lawyer. She will be speaking about her new role as CEO of Phasmasave and the process of deciding to leave her job as one of the most powerful corporate lawyers in Canada to pursue her next goal. If you are a "woman on the rise" in your industry, or a woman who already knows what it's like to work your way up the ranks, this event will certainly be of interest to you.

I live in 2 worlds

Lately I've been thinking about the dichotomy of my life - my existence on the cloud (the internet, in case you didn't know) and my existence in the real world. Since I began actively participating in the social media world, I have found that my online network has increased exponentially, yet the spillage over into my physical, real world has been minimal to say the least. Interestingly, my internet world knows (in much detail most of the time) a lot about my real world, but the same can not be said of the opposite. Most of my real life friends don't know about twitter, wouldn't know what to do on FriendFeed, wouldn't have the time to StumbleUpon, Digg, or bookmark on delicious. Heck, most of them don't even know about this blog!

So what is it that makes me so eager to share my entire life with my online community, and yet be less forthcoming with my real world peeps? I mean, it's not like I intentionally hide my online life from my real world friends - for instance, almost everyone on my Facebook page (until very recently) are my real world friends, people I actually know and added on FB AFTER knowing them for some time in the real world. And my Facebook page has links to my business website, which has a link to my blog, which has a link to my etsy and twitter accounts, so while I have not actively marketed my world wide web endeavours to my real life friends, they can certainly stumble onto it easily without me having to tell them to "check it out!" In the end, I guess it's more about the online opportunity to share - I can always fire off a tweet to say whatever fleeting thought is in my head or share whatever random experience I just had - than it is about hiding anything from the people in my real world.

What got me started thinking about all of this is an article I read on Jeremiah Owyang's blog titled "How I use Twitter, and you?" I'd been following jowyang on twitter for a while, and when he tweeted about his twitter method, it got me thinking about my own. Jeremiah's method differs greatly from mine, and that, I believe, is because of the difference in our ultimate goals for using twitter. Jeremiah, being a web strategist who blogs about how companies can use web tools to connect with their customers, uses twitter the "value added" way, staying far away from posting "personal minutia" and carrying on "excessive personal conversations." This makes sense for Jeremiah and I respect that. However, I use twitter in a different way, choosing to share what some would consider "personal minutia" with my tweeple and I follow a lot of people that do the same. While I do often include links to articles I find interesting or comment on various real world issues that interest me and might therefore interest my followers, for the most part my use of twitter is to share my daily experiences with the people that follow my tweets, minutia and all. Perhaps this is part of my "personal branding" if it must be called something; I aim to let people, whether they are potential customers or not, know the real me, the full version of the real Lara, and that inevitably means sharing "personal minutia" on twitter. The good news is that it is obviously working, since most of the @laravarona tweets I receive are in response to personal things I've shared. So, in the end, there are obviously different ways to utilize an online service like twitter and each way has its own merit.

How do you choose to use Twitter?

Flock this!

So I've heard several people mention Flock so today I tried it for the first time. And OH MY GOD does it make my life a lot easier!! If you've never heard of Flock, it's a social media browser, perfect for those of us who are tired of logging into facebook, twitter, gmail, blogger, digg, del.icio.us, Flickr, YouTube, etc, etc separately and having to update each individual account/service one at a time. Read: no more wondering if you've missed a million tweets while you were on Facebook commenting on so-and-so's latest video. With Flock, you can see the realtime updates on all of your fave social media accounts on the sidebar while you are doing whatever it is you're doing on your main browser tab (see screen shot for example). Now, admittedly I am new to the Flock thing, hell I'm new to all social media/web2.0, but I can tell that it's going to be a timesaver for me as well as a necessity in the long run. So far, during my tenure (read: 30 mins) as a bonafide Flock enthusiast, I've managed to check my gmail account, tweet a few times, update my FB profile, bookmark a few new pages on del.icio.us and update my blog all from this browser, all the while still witnessing the exact moment that "Mr.X" updated his profile and a dozen different tweeple tweeted "good night" to the rest of us here on the west coast.

The only problem right now is that I'm tired, the caffeine from my 3 cups of coffee today have worn off and now I'll either have to go to bed super early or have another cup (but then I won't be able to sleep in a few hours when I actually want to), so I'll just end this blog entry with an apology: to anyone reading this, and especially to anyone working for/related to/using Flock, I'm sorry for my (basically incoherent) description of what it can do. Once again, I'm tired and probably shouldn't have tried to blog in this state of mind=P I promise I will blog about Flock again at a later date when I can speak eloquently of its many wonderful uses, and do Flock some justice!

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Ignorance is(n't) bliss

"Admission of ignorance is often the first step in our education." - Stephen Covey, Daily Reflections for Highly Effective People: Living the Seven Habits

Current mood: Reflective
Currently listening to: Erykah Badu - Baduizm
Currently reading: A Beginner's Guide to Starting a Shop on Etsy

I'm ignorant. There, I said it. And as business guru Stephen Covey states, this is the first step in my education. This is not really a revelation for me, I've always known that I don't know enough (ha!). Today, though, I am speaking specifically about the various aspects of social media marketing/web2.0. I don't know enough and in realizing that I don't know enough I have now embarked on my social media education. A while back, I attended a seminar about social media marketing/web 2.0 and was fascinated by all of the marketing opportunities out there, but I didn't actually make a move to implement any of the strategies at that time. Of course, I've had a facebook page for personal use for ages now, but I didn't use it for any business reasons. I wasn't on Twitter, I didn't know what StumbleUpon was, I knew nothing about RSS feeds/readers, I didn't know about social bookmarking, I didn't know what a mashup was; gosh I could go on and on about what I didn't know!

Anyways, the point is now I know what I didn't know. And I am having a blast right now learning about all of the amazingly effective social media marketing tools out there. I'll be sure to regularly update you on anything I find, since I'm sure I can't be the only social media marketing newbie out there! I'm starting with focusing on how to utilize facebook as an effective, no-cost/low-cost way to market Fave Handbags, since I'm already on Facebook. Right now, my favourite resource for facebook strategy is http://whyfacebook.com/. A lot of people don't realize the opportunities that are available on Facebook, and Mari has tons of great articles about the profit generating side of things.

Now, I'm off to work on my Etsy store and work on increasing my interaction with my Facebook and Twitter network. Here's wishing everyone a productive and educational week!