Apologies to the Girl! (TweetStats)

I would like to apologize (even though it's extremely late!) to the Girl for not responding to her @-tweet! I translated her interview in Hungarian once and posted it as a comment on her blog (very good interview btw) and now - thanks to results on TweetStats - I can see she messaged me on Twitter and I have ignored her. I do not ignore people normally, but it's difficult to follow all the tweets if we need to work sometime too:) So I am double-happy that I have found this tool tonight.
I also noticed I use Twitter more nowadays - see above. It's probably due to the fact that I use it for communication more now, than I used to. I used to use Twitter for tips and news on social media or info about my friends. I am more active now, simply because it saves me time. I also got into the habit of updating all my friends with the news earliy int he morning, before I start work or while my Outlook is opening (my dear Vista makes me wait for it aprox. 15 min, grrr...)
Yes, I do like TweetStats, even though I am a linguist - I hate numbers and I hate stats...usually;)

Blog Till You Drop! - interview with Lolly

You will probably think I am crazy - I am interviewing people I know! Yes, but I have a reason to do so, even more than one:
1. I look up to them.
2. I want to know what they think.
3. I want to know if an interview can help me to know them better.
4. I want to share this with my other friends:) and readers:)

I am including in interviews questions I do not know the answer for in our private lives. I am genuinely interested in their reasons to blog, exist on-line and in their every-day life. I am interested, so I ask:)

For the first one, I have asked Lolly, author of two blogs - Blog Till You Drop and Cosmopolitan.
Here it is:

Sylwia:First of all, thank you for giving me the opportunity to ask you few questions, Lolly. Here they are:

Syl: You blog was celebrating second anniversary recently. Tell me, how did it all start? The blogging I mean?

Lolly: I started my career in medical marketing, and I was desperate to do something more exciting but kept hitting a brick wall. A friend of mine who worked for an Internet start-up suggested I start blogging… I was hooked within months and started experimenting with a variety of social media tools. I seem to live and breathe social media these days!
Syl: Did your approach to writing the blog change since the first few posts? How does it affect your private life?

Lolly: My writing has definitely changed over time - I used to blog a lot about traditional marketing and advertising but I seem to write about anything that’s Social Media related at the moment. When I read some of my old posts, I feel like an inexperienced schoolgirl!

I write whatever tickles my fancy and I do not have a set agenda. Some people have joked that I am glue 24/7 to my computer screen but I do have a life offline, so no blogging does not affect my private life at all.

Syl: Did you have on-line presence before starting a blog? You are active on Twitter, Facebook etc - how and when did those preceses join the blog one?

Lolly: I used to spend a lot time on MSN Messenger and Skype. I also had a MySpace account for a while (we’re talking late 2005) but I quickly got bored of it… Pink glittery GIFS aren’t my thing!

Blogging is the foundation of everything I do online – I have a social presence on a number of other sites (LinkedIn, YouTube, Flickr, FriendFeed, Twitter but to name a few) but they all relate and add value to my blog. Facebook used to be purely for my real-life friends but I have now added a couple of bloggers I get on really well with.

Syl: More about your private life, I guess:) As French blogger in London, what can you say about the local blogosphere? You attend the geek meet-ups, so what do you think about people you meet there?

Lolly: The local blogosphere is awesome as there is always a party / meet up going on! Everyone knows everyone! The French blogosphere in London is buoyant – you would be amazed to see how many French bloggers who work in the digital / social media industry live in London

Syl: What is the French blogosphere like? Where do the bloggers meet, georaphically I mean?

Lolly: That’s a tough question! I read a few French blogs but I am not part of the French blogosphere – I write in English after all. The Social Media scene in France is also very exciting – there are dozens of Meet Ups in Paris but also in my hometown, Lyon.

Syl: Do you miss France? Do you think about living in other parts of the world?

Lolly: I am not French, so I don’t really miss France. I would love to live in NYC – who knows; someone might read my blog and offer me a job ;) I also love Italy so that’s definitely another option!

Syl: I'm an expat myself and I am asked that question very often (well, maybe not so often in the UK, still) how do you decide upon a country you want to live in? Is it just job or persoanl hapiness driven choice?

Lolly: I originally studied modern languages and I used to travel quite a lot in my student years. I simply fell in love with the UK. As far as I am concerned, I must be in love with a language to move a country. Job and happiness are of course also very important

Syl: I see you like travelling and run a travelling blog aside from your main one. What is your best and worst memory from Poland?

Lolly: I loved Poland! Nice country, nice people, nice food! My worst memory is not being able to speak the language and the roads! I really thought I was going to die in Lodz at times!

Syl: If you could choose a country to live in, where would that be? Why?

Lolly: NYC career-wise (wait a minute, that’s a city!) or Italy as the lifestyle, language and people are simply amazing!

Syl: And a last very general one: what is the best and the worst aspect of living in a different country?

Lolly: The best aspect is that you learn a lot from other people culture-wise. The worst aspect is that however hard you try, people will always see you as a foreigner.
Syl: thank you!

(If you have any other questions, let me know, I'll ask;))

Part of this interview is also available here.

Tweader, 'a tool for Twitter'

It is an interesting tool indeed. It allows you to track back conversations (@...) on Twitter. See loiclemeur's conversation here for instance. It does not always pick it all up, but in principle it's great to actually pick only those tweets that are conversational.

This tool makes me think about the Twitter itself. We all started using it probably just to try it out, to see how it goes...and at the back of my head I had the thought of 'just another social media bit, surprise me!'. And it did indeed! I grew more and more interested in microblogging simply because my presence on Twitter started to turn into something serious. After few weeks I got to the stage where Twitter was:
1. Providing me with insights on what the leading web 2.0 personalities use, do, suggest - and where form can you learn it, if not from them?
2.Serving as secondary to my blogs tool to network/communicate with my old and new friends.
3.Giving me the flexibility to be present on-line while I am away from my PC (I must admit I am sceptical about mobile blogging, and I know I will have to face it soon, still:/)
4.Most of all meeting extremely interesting people!
As I am getting into more and more apps and tools based on Twitter I really think it's a great platform, simply because it matches our busy lifestyle!
Blogging will not die, obviously we all need it and always will, but microblogging is a great appendix, intro and wrap up of all we do on our blogs.

Twestival

What a great idea! It's one of those events that makes me really, really sad that I cannot attend! Damn! It looks like few of my friends are going so at least I can be happy for them and have a chat afterwards, but it really annoys me that I am stuck at home that night. (I feel like a bad teenager who needs to do the homework instead...that annoyed). Anyway, do have a look at their website, and do try to sign up for it. It really looks like a cool place to be for all Twitter and social media fans. And to meet people like @ihatemorningsdotcom:

social media vs. traditional communication and more - thoughts on the bus

On a way from work, listening to Damien Rice, I heard this ‘Read me your favourite line..’(from a book) and it hit me! Lolly posted about her favourite Twitter lines today as well….It’s been so long since I had E.A. Poe in my hands and I can still quote the Raven in Polish! My 'the line' is the ending
'And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor
Shall be lifted--nevermore!'
I think about my favourite painting form Beksinski - one of a kind, since it had NEVERMORE written of a balloon drifting away. I think about the painting of the Raven painted based ont he poem specially for me for my 18th Birthday – left behind in Budapest, and as it turns out now – simply given away I did like the thought of it, actually – I learned to let things go, things, not people. I treasure the people who honour me with their time…

Letting people go...
...we had a discussion about writing traditional letters in the office the other day and I must admit that seeing the average attitude (bills, official packages) I stayed quiet – I do write personal letters and some of my closest friend know me (and vice versa) from those. I left some of those behind, and I have a small collection now, but I still enjoy receiving one time to time. I actually need to put time aside to write a few more to new friends nowadays, and I am sure I will make them happy.

There is magic in paper travelling between the space and time – unlike e-mails, letters feel, smell, look personal. You wait for them, or they surprise you…you see the person you love (this way or another) caught in a moment – you follow the emotions together with the lines of their handwriting. The handwriting is their soul in front of you, in your hands!

I appreciate social media, I love the speed and globalisation of all communication tools, I like to make new, rather shallow relationships based on common respect and knowledge or information share. Those are capable of gestures too – one of my closest friends created a blog specially for me to update me on her thoughts after she stopped writing letters – lack of time, I guess. I am honoured and read it, comment on it, use it as our private venue, our common table and cups of coffee, in a way. Still, we do write letters, we store them, read them again and we do appreciate each of them. I will never move away from magic of a simple letter.

Just as I will never move away from reading books and memorising the best lines…

What is your favourite line form a book, by the way? What is it that makes us stop – go back-read it again- remember?

Gustav Information Center - site now live

Some of you have probably seen my tweet 'Please retweet: Gustav Ning Site up and running: http://gustav08.ning.com/' and I hope you did so.
Here is the site itself - Andy Carvin's iniciative, so check it out and see how social media can help! Spread the word!

New rules of marketing again

Currently I am forced to commute to work by bus which gives me more time to read the books waiting on my shelf. Just as I have finished 'The New Rules of Marketing & PR' written by David Meerman Scott, and was wondering which work-related book should be next I got a Google alert containing link to this podcast. It's an interview given by another social media marketing specialist - Andy Sernovitz - whose book on WOM marketing I happen to have on my waiting list. (I am just about to start it now...). Andy's podcast explains very basics of WOM marketing and to me seems to be quite obvious, but I am happy to see that new type of marketing activities is promoted so wisely!
As for 'The New Rules of Marketing & PR' I am once again glad I decided to order a few books related to my current work - they give me insight into both business, as well as the social media. I think it's crucial to understand how the web and the markets are developing - not only for work, but for my own experience too. I find David's book fascinating and very inspiring - so inspiring that I decided to try out podcasting myself and got a proper microphone today. Silly idea, but I will read children books to my fellow Polish bloggers, since most of them have at least one child. And honestly - I do it every evening for my son anyway, so it's an easy way to start something potentiallt more serious:)
So read it - you can never tell how a book can change you!:)

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the best social media marketing practices

Mitch Joel is asking a question about the best social media marketing practices and I must admit it took me a while to decide what is most important in my view...Consistency mentioned on Mitch Joel's blog is crucial, just as much as ethics of any engagement but I think we need to go back to the basics and ensure we know exactly what we are doing. An agency or any of the team members working on a project related to social media marketing must be well trained and experienced in social media themselves, they should study the audience they aim to traget and respect the rules of venues they plan to engage in their activities. Internet has its own rules and most of them can be understood only by people who actually ARE a part of the blogosphere. My personal experience is very small, but being my own blogging experience (together with presence in other places, like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc) prooved to be crucial in my work. My commitment to respect people I work with and great amount of research into the theory of socal media marketing helped me so much! We must never forget that social media IS real people with power to speak up and expect - there is no space for traditional marketing!
(Here you go - I tried to be brief:/)
I also agree with what Chris Brogan wrote: 'Learn how to listen. Simple, I know. But it’s a best practice. ' and I hope to see more bloggers responding to this challenge!

I would like to tag Lolly, Girl , Tom and Colin hoping to see what they think.

BTW - If you haven't read the original post I believe you will be happy to know that you can share your opinion too, as long as you tag the post 'social media marketing best practices', link to original post and tag few other blogs. So, go on!!!

The F- word on social media?

When I started working in the UK I was a bit sceptic about the usage of the F-word, I somehow still am, to be honest. I need to be careful - my son picked it up once and it took me a while to convince him he is really saying FORK - he is too smart for it now, so I stopped. I do think seome of us misuse the bad language still - have you seen YouTubeSunshine project?
In this presentation by Marta Kagan however it does look perfect - I really enjoyed it! Hope you will like it too...

What The F**K is Social Media?

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: socialmediamarketing marketing)

#080808

I like the date, I like the day - last day of work before my holiday trip to Budapest:)
China is celebrating, Chinese Twitter users are celebrating too. Check this article, and their blog for more info.

I joined, so follow me on Twitter:)

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Beijing and Social Media

OK, I have moaned about it and how skeptical I am but the more I read about the Olympics web coverage the friendlier the idea becomes. Today Lolly drooped me a link to Buzz Attitude article describing Lenovo team of bloggers and their WOM activities covering Olympics. Check out the Voices of the Olympic Games site - it really looks impressive, and I am surely going to keep my eyes open for more info there, mainly on their interactive guide. At the same time Read Write Web posted great article about other sponsors and their involvement here. McDonald's The Lost Ring made me stop for a sec - that's how far I get involved in gaming:) - since it doesn't look bad. More on-line, just do a good Google search:)


I can't wait to see the result of Chinese web surveys in few moths time, but I was told already today by someone experienced in Asian marketing that Chinese audience will escape the challenging really and start using web more (this might be a simple personal opinion though, wouldn't make a bet). Let's see...

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Cluetrain Manifesto - Old Testament of Blogging

'We are waking up and linking to each other. We are watching. But we are not waiting.'

- the most striking, since very, very true for our times, statement closes 95 Thesis of Cluetrain Manifesto. All of those are available (together with the whole book on-line for free - I love the idea!) on Manifesto site.
It's interesting to see how nothing has changed since the times it was written. We know Scoble's Naked Conversations, we see the lists of Social Media Marketing references. Still, those 95 points remain the same and ethics behind them seems to be grounded in basic blogging experience. I think every one of us, bloggers should have this book on the shelf.

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@answerme vs. twitter, day of a blondie

Just read about @anserme but I think I am not using it right. Seems to be described as a useful tool, but for me it's a bit too much. Oh, well, Twitter does move towards a leading scape, so who knows...
I searched for 'blog' and came up with this:Third question had only 3 answers, so I guess it needs to kick-off more.
*
In the meantime the well established Flickr before I even managed to upload my new pix greeted me with a language lesson, which I have not noticed before (I do tent to focus only on what I NEED! and I AM blond)
Maybe it's a bit childish, but I do like those ideas. So... I know how to greet people in Korean, but how do I say 'nightnight'?:)

Polish British web

Thanks to Robin, I got to read this cool article with ranking of the most popular websites used by UK based Poles. Interesting, how it truly reflect the reality of the lifestyle of this minority...Also, YouTube on the 3rd place. The more I learn about social media, the more impressed I become by the Polish web. Not only seeing Polish versions of international venues amongst main languages (English, German, Spanish, etc), but also reading Polish blogs on social media and checking quality of Polish websites (Zubrowka, Frugo, Heyah, and others)

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