150 Public Pledges

I’ve blogged on and off for a couple of years now about Gratitude and love everything about it.  This year’s Grateful in April campaign was fabulous and from feedback I received, many of you following me and/or the campaign equally enjoyed my posts.

This simple facebook post prodded (more…)

Are you a part of the Klout community?

Klout is the latest social media tool I have been introduced to thanks to @yhpo and I have to say I am impressed! At first I questioned why on earth I would want to use something like klout.com Quite frankly, it looked a bit kitch to me! You see meaning and relevance matter to me and initially, while trusting my mate’s judgement, I didn’t really see the value in yet another social media space I needed to participate in.

However, once Kishan explained the basics to me, I shifted my thinking and realised, that here was a tool with the potential to help keep me more focused and clear about my digital reputation.

So, I did a bit of research and watched an interview on ABC news video with Joe Fernandez, head honcho of Klout followed by some youtube surfing and found this Forbes interview as well:

Are you one of the 75million people now being measured on Klout? It’s mind boggling to think Klout started with 2 techies and 10,000 participants. I agree with Joe, the search for relevance and meaning is much greater now more than ever. In fact, he goes so far to say its overwhelming…

Interestingly, while Twitter was the starting point to capture information to measure data, Facebook and LinkedIn are now part of the data and by the end of 2011, they predict 20 social media networks will be influencing Klout scores. Already being used a measure in online background checks, can you envision having a Klout score on your resume, website, blog or in your QR code?

Like I said, I’m enjoying Klout, though at this point, I haven’t found an iphone app that makes mobile sharing kloutkindness possible (sharing the love and giving friends a +K is similar to the Like button on facebook). Being desktop bound, I tweeted the klout guys

Klout convo on twitter

I’ll keep you posted regarding the response I get about the Klout iphone app, and in the meantime, here are my top tips to ramp up your Klout:

1. Join – it’s Free and Fun!

2. Check out who you know and send them some +K (that’s abbreviated Klout kindness). I try and add a personal note with automated message whether it’s on twitter or facebook

3. Let me know you’ve joined and make sure we’re influencing each other

Bronwyn Clee on Klout

4. Don’t be shy in sending +K to people you haven’t yet met.

5.  Ask questions in the auto responder message that Klout generates – make each message count

6. Pay attention to what the analysis Klout does for you and put it to work

put your Klout analysis to work

True reach distills numbers into helpful information

Bronwyn Clee Darwin NT

I love interacting and sharing insights. If you’ve got some stuff you would like to shre with me here, let me know. What do you think, I mean really think about social media? does it rate high in your world or is it disruptive?

BRONWYN CLEE IS A LOUD AND PROUD NERD WHO IS NUTS ABOUT SOCIAL MEDIA, CARING FOR COMMUNITY, GROWING STUNNING ORCHIDS AND SMASHING TILES TO CREATE LIVEABLE ART. KNOWN FOR HER PRO BONO WORK, VOLUNTEERING AT A COMMUNITY BASED OP SHOP KEEPS HER FEET PLANTED FIRMLY ON THE GROUND, EVEN WHEN THE SPIRIT OF WRITING ALMOST KNOCKS HER OVER AND OFFERS HER WINGS TO FLY. FIND OUT MORE ABOUT BRONWYN HERE

Have you unlocked LinkedIn or are you still Locked out?

Without realising it, most of us go to the internet because we are either consciously or sub consciously looking for a solution to a problem.

Some of us are looking to connect, share, enquire, yell, sell, swap and buy, amongst many other things. Facebook isn’t my favourite space to look for solutions, however I acknowledge that it’s the biggest online watering hole in cyberspace! And if I want to stay connected and find out what’s happening out there, then I need to at least have a presence there right?

Well, having conducted my own research, no matter what kind of interactions I have initiated on my FaceBook business page in the last 6 months, I still don’t get a quarter of the juicy responses that I get here on my blog, or the quality connections I have made on LinkedIn and Twitter.

Sure I don’t personally know all of my connections in my online communities. What I do know though, is that LinkedIn runs neck and neck with Twitter as my preferred professional networking communities, where I have also made some amazing friends and joint venture partners like @rajinderyadav and @nanastories

Additionally, since I discovered the News function, the big L has become my most visited online resource centre. You see I skim read allot and for lots of reasons, I read off various devices like my iPhone, Kindle and mac book pro depending where I am at the time.

Now we all know reading at lightening speed has it’s pros and cons. And as I go deeper into my forays with social media, I realise that while I love and rely on the great bloggers at www.bitrebels.com and www.mashable.com to curate my information, I still need to collate it all…. so here’s why I love LinkedIn:

I can take a squizzy at the attention grabbing headlines on my iphone whlle I’m cooking dinner or grabbing a rare moment on the couch. A quick flick at the headlines, a click on view full article, and a 30 second read gives me the chance to decide whether I choose “save article” or whiz through to the next topic. I know others use much cleverer systems for doing this, but I prefer to keep it simple. (By the way, if you have a fabulously simple online filing system I’d love to know about it!)

I started writing this blog last night at 11:21pm, dog tired and desperate for some sound sleep. But once again the Arch Angel of words shot info through me so fast I was scared that if I didn’t capture them all and tie them down to print, they would be lost and disappear out into the ether for a REAL A-List blogger to grab and make great with!  Committed to you my reader, I pushed sleep aside and gave over to Arch Angel of writing and had an ahhhhuh moment!

Are you ready for it? I think I know why some people are hesitant to use Linkedin, and yes I mean USE. Did you know, that every second there is a new member joins up? Anyway, back to my ahhhuh moment! The big L is really just like a speed networking event where business cards are quickly handed out, initial connections are made, the research and follow up happens later and sometimes, just sometimes magic happens! Now I know a little bit about people, and for some this can be stimulating, while for others terrifying. If this scares you, I’m going to encourage you to shift your thinking and find out why in June 2011, 33.9 million visitors stopped by LinkedIn!

Do your LinkedIn homework! Look, regardless to what kind of networking event we’re talking about, you must be clear about your purpose for attending. Why are you going? Who do you hope to meet? A golden rule my mate @ICT_Guru taught me is “Remember we all love buying, we just hate being sold to!” First impressions are lasting and language and syntax have meaning – ie what we say and how we say it makes a difference.  So do yourself and everyone else a favour, and give some thought to what you expect from your networking experience. Get clear and be real!

Be authentic – real people DO have real conversations! I rarely ever send anyone an invite to connect without a personal note. I must admit though, that I have been known to send connection invites from my iphone thinking that there wasn’t a function to personalize the invite, when in fact there is…. Not a fatal mistake, but not a good look either. I did follow up by posting an update apologizing to which no one responded

Having said that, I’m not quite sure why it is so, but I have to say, the update thingy on LinkedIn doesn’t really do it for me.  Not like Twitter does! Has anyone got any great tips on how I can improve this? Or is this the norm?

Great networkers share the love and don’t try to be all things to every social networking community! I have forged strong relationships through LinkedIn and won’t be taking a long separation as I suspect I will be with Facebook somewhere soon. I do intend to make time (?) to explore LinkedIn some more over the next 90 days and invite you do the same. I am an open networker, and encourage you to check out my 754 (at last count) connections on LinkedIn.

Google+ on the other hand is something I just can’t get my head around, and considering I really only want a G+ account for professional purposes, I figure I’ve got time to wait it out as the creative geniuses behind the scene tweak the tweakables and soften the circles! Watch this space though for some guest blogging with @rajinderyadav from DevMentoring….

In wrapping up, I’ve tacked some stats here from Bloomberg.com and Mashable.com

• 91%of LinkedIn users find the site useful
• 61% use it primarily for professional networking
• 81% of LinkedIn users belong to at least one group

Remember I said I wanted to encourage you to shift your thinking and find out why in June 2011, 33.9 million visitors stopped by LinkedIn? Well here’s my top tips for you to unlock LinkedIn for professional networking:

1. Sign up if you haven’t yet!
2. Be authentic!
3. Search for people you know and send them an invite.
4. Check out my profile and  network and when you find someone interesting you would like to know, ask me for an invite!
5. Search topics for groups of interest and join. Ps make sure you check your email settings to manage the traffic generated here. I joined some groups (quite a few) and made the fatal mistake of selecting to receive email updates! Hooley dooley, before I knew it I had 468 emails just from one group! So that definitely needs to be monitored closely.
6. Check out the News function – you’ll be surprised at what you find.

Ok so that’s it. You now have my keys to unlock LinkedIn – problem solved! Get cracking then retweet this blog in your LinkedIn status update, on your twitter account or even facebook!

Bronwyn Clee is a loud and proud geek who is nuts about social media, caring for community, growing stunning orchids and smashing tiles to create liveable art. Known for her pro bono work, volunteering at a community based op shop keeps her feet planted firmly on the ground, even when the spirit of writing almost knocks her over and offers her wings to fly. Find out more about Bronwyn here

LinkedIn images courtesy of Google

My top twitter tips so far…….

On the road to recovery….. Darwin Private Hospital Sept 2009

I opened my first Twitter account @bronwynclee in late 2009 as a ‘recovery aid’ and am so grateful that our son insisted I invest in an iPhone. Having been hospitalised for almost 3 months, feeling geographically and emotionally isolated from the dreams of launching my new business Bronwyn Clee & Associates, I decided to explore Twitter.

At that stage, I had little understanding of the world of social media other than Facebook, which at that time, held more of a personal connection for me rather than a professional one. I decided that I wanted to establish my Twitter presence with a professional edge, spiced up with by my own personal touch.

My preferred learning style has always been to learn by doing, doing and doing. And I know one of the greatest law of the universe is 10,000 repetitions make an expert! So, while unfamiliar with Twitter I was determined to become at the very least, a proficient user.

These aren’t hard and fast rules (more…)

Golden gems from days gone by……..

I posted a comment on facebook recently about remembering wanting to write a book of tips as a young mum… Well life happened, and here I am now, an older mum who thinks more about all of the golden gems my mum has taught me so far. While thousands of kilometres separate us, I hear her voice in my head regularly, guiding and urging me forward. She encouraged me when our kids were little to

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