I am delighted to be taking part in The Edinburgh Twestival, which will be held on Thursday 12 February 2009 at 7pm at Hawke and Hunter, 12 Picardy Place, Edinburgh EH1 3JT.

1.      £10 Virgin Vie At Home Voucher   - skincare, cosmetics, jewellery and homeware.

2.      £10 Barefoot Books Voucher – beautiful children’s books.

3.      $25 (£15 approx) Send Out Cards Gift Account – personalised greetings cards for business or pleasure.

·         Twitter profile ‘makeover‘ from Digital Biographer

·         A whole year of Ad space on Third Sector Forums

·         Space on a Second Life island from Virtual-E

·        Personality profiling from People Maps

Please leave a comment here if you are attending one of the Twestivals next week, and leave your Twitter username so that we can tweet about it later!..

 

*McTwitterati (coined by @jimwolffman?) – collective term for top Scottish Twitterers

If you find yourself in a position that you need to understand your target customer as well as keep up with various ways of marketing to those potential customers, Twitter is one of the most powerful and popular tools out there right now!  This new type of network communication has been taken up by companies and individuals alike in recent months and for good reason.

To get a better understanding of Twitter, let’s first take a look at the format.  Essentially, Twitter is a program that allows you to make very small, public posts.  Because these posts are so limited (they max out at 140 characters) they can easily be sent to a number of different locations all at once.  When you have written a Twitter, it can appear on the twitter website, on short message services, instant messaging sites or even on third-party applications like Facebook or Twitterific.  Folks can even add a script to their blog or website to show their most recent posts and the posts of others!  Your Twitter messages, also known tweets, will appear to anyone who has chosen to follow your updates.

There are several advantages to this type of communication.  The first thing that you will discover is that it allows for a much more immediate relay of information.  The shortness of the message forces you to be very brief, and this alone can create interest in those reading.  Because tweets are so short, they often lead to frequent posting, which is excellent when you are looking to communicate with people and to get to know them.  While Twitter is, by default, public, you can restrict the people who see your material with the ease of checking a box in your profile.

You will find that not only can you post tweets, you can also receive them.  Once again, the immediate nature of this service lends greatly to its appeal.  Want to follow someone’s updates and see what they are up to with their business or life in general? Simply sign into your Twitter account, type in their Twitter address or username and click the “Follow” button.  That’s all there is to it.

The amount of time that spent reading the messages is very short, and you can be in contact with people a great deal more than you otherwise might be. In essence, you can get to know each other much more quickly than if you were just reading each others blogs or profiles.  The look and feel of an instant messaging service helps add to this ability.  Think about it for a minute, do you feel more connected to those on your messenger list than the blogs you read? Twitter is the same way. 

For many, whether they are looking for friends, clients, or someone to help them out with a problem or workload, getting in touch with others is important.  With Twitter it has never been easier!

Follow me on Twitter at: www.twitter.com/annttkerr

Thanks for visiting!

Happy New Year!  I hope, like me, you had a great holiday season.

What are your goals for 2009?

One of my main business goals this year is to blog more frequently.  Last year I started quite a few blogs with the best of intentions, but I’m afraid to say that I did not manage to keep them as up-to-date as I would have liked.  What with corporate job stresses, illness and family commitments, I was unable to find my ‘blogging groove’.  This year will be different.  I know that I need to plan and to focus, but I fully intend to get into my ‘blogging groove’ and update my blog portfolio on a very regular basis.

The advantages of achieving my blog goals include:

• I will create more content on my sites to help SEO.
• It will improve my communication with readers (old & new).
• It will create more opportunities for comments and feedback from readers.
• It will help to build relationships with readers & customers.
• It will develop my writing skills.
• I will create potential content for articles and eBooks.

Please, please feel free to contact me if you feel that I am not updating this blog as often as you think I should!!

Thanks for reading and come back real soon!!…