Puzzling development

Checking my feed stats and am surprised to see that I now have 94 readers. That's great you say. What's the puzzle? Well, I haven't published anything on here since May 26, and nearly ALL of my subscribers signed up after that time.

A recent post alerted people that I was going to be spending most of my time on my business marketing blog. This one will be mostly dormant.

I've heard that killer content brings you traffic and subscribers, but I'm puzzled why announcing this blog will be quiet brings a rush of subscribers. Is it a fluke? Are people sending me a message that they want to hear less from me? Or did is there some content on this blog people really want to hear?

Let me know! Who are you 75 people who signed up for my feed in the last month? And why are you subscribed?

Social Media Marketing Webinar -- Thur, May 28, 10 a.m.

There's still time to sign up for the social media marketing webinar:

Social Media Marketing Webinar
Thursday, May 28, 2009
10 a.m. pacific/ 1 p.m. eastern

Here’s a link to sign up: http://sn.im/ht0ty
And here’s an outline of what we’ll be covering: http://sn.im/i11g3 Including:

• How to integrate your blog with your social media presence
• Twitter & Facebook metrics and tools that help you measure your return on investment (ROI) Establishing Facebook objectives and metrics for your business
• Tools, techniques and applications that beef up your LinkedIn engagement opportunities
  

RSS Subscribers

Imagine my surprise when I went to burn a new feed and found that FreeRangeMom has 7 RSS subscribers. Now I know my Mom doesn't know how to use RSS, so who's subscribing?

Glad to know that I've provided interesting enough content to make you want to know more.

If you subscribed because you liked the posts I've been doing about Twitter. You should know that I'm now posting marketing and social media related content over at my business blog: http://www.provientmarketing.com/blog. This blog will be devoted to more personal musings -- which perhaps someone is interested in beyond me, but I'm not sure why.

Anyway, thanks for subscribing. I welcome you to listen in on either blog. I don't write often, but I promise that when I do, I'll do my best to craft blogs worthy of your time.

Tweet LIVE about Digg & other social bookmarking sites 2/25

Join three avid social media users on Twitter (Feb 22, 5- 6 pm PT) as they discuss how to best use Digg and other social bookmarking sites. Use hashtag #sbn to join the conversation.

read more | digg story

Tweet LIVE about Digg & other social bookmarking sites 2/25

Join three avid social media users on Twitter (Feb 22, 5- 6 pm PT) as they discuss how to best use Digg and other social bookmarking sites. Use hashtag #sbn to join the conversation.

read more | digg story

A new day and a new avatar

Okay, my new avatar doesn't have anything to do with Inauguration Day 2009, but I couldn't pass on the excuse to tie in my announcement with the biggest national event in my lifetime. What better day to put a new face on my on-line presence?

Big props go to Sabrina Dalman who helped me create my new look. What a pleasure to find her on Twitter!

Why say goodbye to A woman with red hair, by Modigliani?

My on-line look has come a long way since I first displayed my teeth as a way of revealing a bit of my real self to my on-line community. I continue to remain dedicated to keeping my photo off line. But I know that the tide is heading toward everyone having our faces on-line.

I hope that this vibrant portriate Sabrina created for me (at right) will walk the balance between maintaining my privacy and allowing for public transparency.

So as our country steps forward into a new era, I take one more small step into Web 2.0. Hope you like the result.

How open are you on social media?

Last week on Twitter, @linkedinexpert, @marismith and myself hosted #lion: a tweet-in that asked the question: How open a networker are you on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter?. #lion came from LinkedIn Open Networker -- a person who grows their network as broadly as possible.

This week we thought we'd continue the #lion conversation with the question:

Are there limits of what you share about yourself on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn?

To get the conversation started, here's some food for thought:

• Lisa Nova poked fun at the over-tweeters among us in her YouTube satire Twitter Whore (viewed by over 730,000 to date.) None of us want to be that person, do we?
• Smart businesses know that a real person tweeting will win you more loyal followers. Just ask Scott Monty at Ford, @Zappos' CEO, or @TypeAMom, Kelby Carr who wrote a great post about this issue last summer.
• On a more serious note, Canadian child protection authorities were contacted by Twitter recently when a mother made comments about how she might get her children to go to sleep.

There are lots of things I might Tweet about, but choose not to. Does your tweeting have any limits? Do you save more personal information for FaceBook and keep LinkedIn strictly business?

Hope you'll join me the #lion discussion, Wednesday, January 22, 5:00 p.m. Pacific, 8:00 p.m. Eastern.

(here's the link to @linkedinexpert's blog on the same topic: http://twurl.nl/0wlfy0)