365 Day Girl

I have a sinus infection…again! But thanks to facebook one of my very informed and well meaning friends just told me about a product I can use to kick this infection to the curb. Here’s the process:

1. I tweet about my misery via my facebook and twitter account
2. Friends leave well wishing comments and condolences
3. One friend in particular recommends a product she’s had awesome experience
4. I jump on Google to find the product, read ingredients, instructions, other customer reviews, and get a price.
5. I search engine where to find it in the REAL world.

while I was checking out all the specs for this amazing nasal flushing product I read one of the best reviews ever. I mean, this guy was fantastic! Funny, lyrical, illustrative…just a joy to read. He even wrote a haiku about an instant brownie mix! Freakin awesome.

God I love the Internet.

So, this hot guy is Curtis. Curtis Mock, Guru in the Business of Fitness (Summer, bookmark his site! You’re hot personal trainer boyfriend could learn a LOT from this guy). I am using him, or rather the “brand” of him as an example of awesome social media “practice”. It is an art form and a science, one of which every business owner and professional today is wise to put into habit. Get that? TODAY. Not yesterday, like your good ole dad’s day of cold calling.

Apart from his rockstar “personal brand” Curtis is real and genuine about interacting with his audience, his fellow business colleagues, and I’m sure his clients. Do you notice how his authentic concern for YOUR success effortlessly comes through? You just want to eat this guy up don’t you? He’s informative, takes time to explain something, and he’s damn funny to watch and listen to. He shares his realness, his story, and his desire to help YOU be awesome. You WANT to leave a comment because he wants to read it! He wants you to share YOUR story. You WANT to ask him a question – cause you see him answer others questions. He is actually taking the time and interest to “interface” with you via the media at all our fingertips.

I don’t know how many times I’ve been on a blog and wanted to be part of the discussion, be heard and answered and then get nothin. Or even a youtube video. The “I don’t have time to respond” is not an excuse if you want to build a business or be a personality on the web. In fact it’s total bullshit. Social media is there to facilitate conversation and hopefully start the foundation of a relationship, be it friend or business partner (actually it’s usually both!). The beauty of it is you can use it to reach customers, business partners, and real friends, across miles and miles of land.

Curtis does not live anywhere near me, which could have been considered unfortunate a little while ago (and perhaps a little now since I can’t like pat his butt or anything physically flirty *nudge* *nudge* *wink* *wink*). But thanks to the internet I get the pleasure of both receiving his awesomeness as well as sharing my own in the form of actual real communication. This is both because we are awesome at employing these tools and networks.

He is a perfect example of why it pays to jump into this whole social media ocean. In in we will either sink or swim. For those who have said there are not real connections to be made in this day and age, in business or personal, I say you are letting yourself sink. For the rest of us, we are happily learning how to dog paddle ;)

Exhibit A: amusing spam comment this very blog! Click on the photo for the full size.

Click play on the video below to “lemme esplain”:

Meanwhile in other social media adventures….
my facebook and unused @catthegirlguru twitter profile was gettin spammed by my auto news tweets. *sigh* I turned them sh*ts off for now… They were putting like stock quotes on my facebook…*sigh* that’s not very friendly.

I am really enjoying twitter now! Thanks in part to this chick and @silran666 aka “The Magical Mexican”. We are going to have a pow wow at her lovely little cookie shop next week! I’m so excited!

-Happy real life and web-ness!
Aprylcat

Numbers…data…numbers…letters…comments…posts…tags…spam…tweets…email…letters…numbers…Oh. My. God! There’s that fried brain feeling again :P

So I’ve been learning a ton about social media, personal branding, even tweeting! It’s fantastic! But…still a lot of work.

My flickr account has fallen by the wayside recently as I answer emails and make comments, upload my videos on youtube for 5 hours, record videos for my dragon boss and my “working projects”, and sleep.

And then today, I check my blog and lo and behold I’ve got 83 new comments! 90% of which are total gibberish. Into the trash with you! Perhaps there is a better spam filter out there but I don’t know where to find it. Recommendations?

It’s been AWESOME talking with REAL people on the web. Especially women on the web. Right here in town too! Such as Summer and Stacy and @Ghennipher and Tami. As well as getting questions about my 365daygirl adventures from real folks in interent biz.

Meanwhile the Magical Mexican and the Russian Photo Babe are still super fans and keep poking me to see if I am okay and still producing content for them to ingest ;) Love you guys!

I’m curious, how do ya’ll keep up with all this stuff? I’d love to hear your blogging/posting/tweeting/vlogging/facebooking strategies and how you keep it all in check with your real work!

-Aprylcat

“I heard someone once say that we’re only as sick as our secrets.” -Carrie Fisher’s Wishful Drinking

I have begun reading about Carrie Fisher’s crazy up and down life with delighted interest. After watching all the youtube videos of her I could find starting with the one below, and then reading a slew of articles and interviews I boogied on over to the library for a copy of her totally candid live-and-in-wacky-first-person autobiography Wishful Drinking.

My mother, whom I currently chaperon asks innocently “do you think you are bipolar?” then,
“all the people I’ve heard about being bipolar are really hard to live with.”

She’s so wonderful and seems blithely forgetful of the often emotionally torturous years her and my father have survived in raising me. That or she took a good measure of peace in her office miles away while I raged home alone with my brother. No matter, she has always taken my intensity in stride…as best she can anyway.

Alright…gotta get back to the book. Here’s that vid I was talkin about an excerpt from the amazing documentary hosted by Stephen Fry “The Secret Life of a Manic Depressive”:

By the way, did you notice how I totally posted this out of sequence? Yeah, it’s been a weird…project.

Ever the rebel girl I decided to spend New Years Eve with my very mellow, non-drinking, non-partying parents. There was an odd sense of “rightness” in blowing off the alcohol saturated parties for “family night” at the movies and then microwaveable pot roast dinner at home. Were I to choose the “eve” parties I would find plenty of new and old friends to blithely welcome in 2010 with. But this night…it was just mom and dad and a comfy couch to watch a Cary Grant movie while the fireworks went off outside.

Mom.
Dad.
My cat.

Later on, Anomaly Boy and I cuddling comfortably in his bed and an audio book.

This is my Real life at times.
No pretension.
Little fanfare.
Occasionally quiet.
Plenty loving.
Absolutely Real.

I’m ready for you 2010, bring it on.

photo credits:

notice that I skipped a few days? yeah, I’ve just discovered “scheduled” posting and am playing with it. worry ye not boys and girls, I will post those other 5 days with what was involved in them. I just….you know…gotta take care of some real world stuff at the moment :P like work.

No time to tweet huh? Bullshit! I mean…Sure ya do! Just set the way back to FORWARD by using a handy little tool from Socialoomph.com and send wonderfully original and unique tweets on schedule while you nap, shop, or otherwise attend to that REAL life of yours :)

And, in case you haven’t noticed you can also time your blog posts…a damn convenient option I just recently discovered.

Hey! I’m learning here!

Holy CRAP! Twitter makes me. just. a. touch. CRAZY! I don’t get it really. I mean, I’ll tweet and all…when I remember…that’s fine – I just can’t keep up with most of the twittersphere’s constant stream of bullshit! Half of the twits out there are internet marketing fiends the other, about 30% are pornbots, and the other 20% are saccharine sounding life coaches…

Finding the real people sometimes feels like looking for a needle in a haystack…a haystack that a dying elephant just managed to take the last shit of it’s life on.