Until now I’ve been dabbling in the space posting comments to other peoples blogs and using twitter. Just put my first blog post up and am finally ready to tell people about it. Following people like you gave me the courage to risk being known in a world where even the illusion of control cannot persist.

Thanks for providing me with the inspiration to keep putting myself out there and of the necessity of keeping it real no matter how strong the pull is to try to do it right or prove myself.

I agree with your position on being real.

Years ago, as a young consultant, I tried being “professional.”

Now, decades later, I’m more or less an open book and I’m seeing results from it. Not necessarily in terms of more business or higher income, but certainly in terms of meeting interesting people who share my interests.

As a result, I find it easier to just be me and not to concern myself about how I come across.

There are still things I don’t know about social networking and I probably make my share of gaffes, but I’m enjoying it and trying to learn as I go.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts with us.

Act on your dream!

JD

John Dilbeck’s last blog post..Is Squidoo a part of your marketing mix?

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Rock on.

Mark Dykeman’s last blog post..A traditional way to build authority – write a book

I talk all the time about my family, my feeble attempts at being a musician, my cats and dogs, and all that real stuff that makes up my life, aside from work. As an employer, the FIRST thing I do when i’m going to hire someone nowadays is Google them out, find out if they blog or Twitter or Facebook, then start getting to know who they are. It’s a good thing!

As for the auto-responders, that’s an interesting take with regards to what your Dad wants to do – but perhaps another approach might be to have your Dad converse a bit with people, get to know some, then offer them the coupon because he appreciates the relationship. It might take more time – but it’s ALL about the personal connections in this space.

Thanks for your comment – you have a valuable contribution to make!

Being real has certainly brought me a bunch of regular readers, but as far as hitting those spikes, I have not a clue. (I use Google Analytics, but it doesn’t tell me a thing about reader psychology).

Right on, Ms. Muse.

Fayza’s last blog post..Awesome things? About me? Okay!

Bravo! Well done! Booyah!

I’ve only been blogging for about 8 months and it has done wonders for my ability to tell the truth.

You can hide behind the badly veiled sales pitch but anyone with more than a handful of brain cells can see right through it.

This topic seems to be making its way nicely through the blogosphere – it must be the reason I’ve written about it lately as well.

It was only a matter of time that the spammers would feel it necessary to invade.

You are real – that’s why I read your stuff. Keep it up!!

km

Kneale Mann’s last blog post..Why Do You Follow? Why Are We Friends?

However, if I was out of work and looking for web design work, I would likely be quite a bit less real. If I’m trying to market myself, I don’t think I’m going to be impressing any of my clients by posting my insomniatic reflections to Buffy the Vampire Slayer reruns at 3 AM.

My dad uses twitter for his small business, and he’s only planning on updating it every few days with specials. He runs a small business, and he has only one goal for his twitter account: to get customers into his store.

You’re gonna hate me for this next part…

I didn’t know about the auto-reply feature, but I think it actually makes sense for someone like my dad to use it. I’ve already got this idea of including a link to a coupon that they can bring into his store (or just mention, for that matter) for a discount. After all, anyone who starts following the twitter page of a local business is probably interested in specials, right?

I dunno, I’m really, really new to this whole twitter thing. What do you think? Is he just going to alienate people?

While some think one has to self-promote themesleves and others do not, I find its a bit of a catch-22. If you do not self-promote you could be lost in the blogosphere.Conversely, if you do self-promote you can be viewed as trying to sell yourself and that is frowned upon. I like what you said about being real because I keep it real 100% of the time. I am not out for fame but like you I would not mind getting more followers on twitter lol. I have a business but I do not put that first on my social networking pages. Most people today do not care about being viewed as anti-social or salesy. Its more about how many hits you get or how many followers you have on twitter that creates the illusion of popularity.