Day 11 – January 11th 2012 – project 366/365 turns into project 52

I didn’t think it would come to this. Project 365, a blog a day, is too much when I hold down a full time job, do some freelance, plus I try to be a good wife and mother!
I want to blog about Social Media the right way. I have started to do some enquiries for a future blog and these rely on people replying to me and I am finding myself short on material some days.
I am not a serial blogger and I value, like most, quality over quantity! So, it makes perfect sense to do one blog a week.
Although the blog supports my work as a social media consultant, I do not want to risk of burning out. Nor do i want to allow the quality of my work slip because I have overbooked myself. So the next blog will be at the weekend .
over and out

 

Day 10 – January 10 2012 – Facebook and Twitter mention banned in France

This is a little aparte and it is not hot news,  (Summer 2011) but it is worth watching. I am French so this is very interesting and relevant. The French government banned the mention of Twitter and Facebook.Watch the video here and you can read more on BBC News – French media tweet and poke ban read here

What do you think about it? How does it affect businesses? Are you French or do you work in France what does it mean to you?

I look forward to your comments.

 

Day 9 – January 9th 2012 – Copains d’avant

Trust the French to have their own version of Friends reunited. They call it Copains d’avant. I subscribed to this site in early 2000. It was a precursor to Facebook. Around 2008/9 it had more French subscribers in France than Facebook itself (not anymore).

Very similar to other networks it relies on you imputing private details to come up in searches. It used to be centred around school college and uni years but now you can search for people by their interests. There were some paying features that returned to being free between 2007 and 2010, probably because of Facebook was free.It doesnt have great features, the searches albeit with some advanced options do not always work.

I have never like this site. It lacks graphics and is generally busy and messy. Despite these negative points it enabled me to find 9 dear school and college friends of mine. The first thing we did when we reconnected? We added each other on Facebook.

One person I reconnected with in 2001 has moved to Brighton in 2007 and has been here ever since! I guess I should be grateful!

Social networks do have some fantastic stories!

 

Day 8 – January 8th 2012 – Social Media Landscape.

Project 365/366 is a new year resolution in every way. First you are excited, you have lots of ideas, you tell the world, you write some down, you lose some along the way, life gets busier, you run out of time, your ideas become stale, you get bored, it’s a chore, how will you do it day in day out….and if you stick with it, the circle starts again (Summary of my last 9 days) but today I struck gold. I got inspired.

In the interest of my sanity and your reading enjoyment, I had to give this blog a direction. So I decided that for my second week of project 365/366 I shall investigate as many sites / networking platforms as possible. I will start with the sites mentioned on the following ‘social media landscape’ pictures and I will sign up to all of the sites that I am not already on and blog about them.

 

Day 7 – January 7th 2012 -Social Media – How far have they affected my life.

Yesterday’s blog was about how important social media is in my life. It is keeping my family and my inlaws connected and abreast of our daughter’s development.

Today it is about my husband. We met on a dating website. We carried on chatting on Facebook (that was 4 years ago) and after a couple of weeks we agreed to exchange phone numbers, called each other, met that weekend. The rest is history.

 

Day 6 – January 6th 2012 – Keeping in touch via Facebook, YouTube and blogs.

I have 162 friends on Facebook. Whittled down to people I actually want to keep in touch with not just people I knew and met. Out of 162, 20 are family, 11 are childhood friends, the rest are friends . We live in the UK, our families are in France and Australia ,and we have friends living in Australia, France, New Zealand, Denmark, Belgium, Japan and the USA. Social media and networks keep us connected. Here are some stories:

Since our baby’s birth staying connected with family and friends has been even more important. Everybody wants to see her grow up, especially our families. So when I was pregnant, we set up a blog on which we post ed pictures of the 12 and 20 week scans, pictures of the bump and since her birth, the best pictures we have taken of our daughter. We post the funny ones on Facebook with silly captions. We use YouTube to post videos of her milestones (videos are private and we only give out links to family). We have posted the first time she flipped from her back to her front, her first crawling steps, her first bites of solid food and recently her climbing up the stairs. We post links from the blog and YouTube on Facebook so that friends who are interested can see them.  We Skype weekly with grandparents so that she grows up knowing her family and she recognises who they are. It is funny to see her beaming when she hears the Skype connection jingle. She races up towards whoever is on the computer and starts babbling. She waves at her relatives, giggles and mimics their gestures.

If we didn’t have Facebook, YouTube and blogs our daughter would not know or remember having met her family. We would have spent the  first Christmas with her, just the 3 of us, whereas with Skype, we spent the day chatting to all our relatives. They watched her opening her first Christmas presents we all cheered and toasted. Skype was on all day. It felt like we had everyone around.

Facebook, YouTube and blogs have also enabled the people who could not be at our wedding to see the wedding live and wish us well via Skype. We have managed to reconnect with people we had not spoken to  in over 18 years. These are all positives of social media and social networking.

 

Day 5 – January 5th 2012 – Happy Birthday darling via Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare

Facebook reminded more than 50 people it was @Bewildebeast’s birthday.

Just like with birthday cards you get the dodgy joke.

Facebook tells our friends and family what we did for your birthday.

And Foursquare tells them where we ate.

Even Twitter followers send their wishes for your birthday and success in your shopping trip!

Thank you and goodnight! ….

Wishing happy birthday on a wall, status, timeline is easier and cheaper than sending a card, calling or texting. People are more inclined to do it. Someone sparing a thought for one’s birthday is always nice even if it only for the time it takes to write two words and hit enter.

Keeping your status updated lets your family know you had a good day and you spent your birthday money well.

Stay connected. Goodnight.

 

Day 4 – January 4th 2012 – Shameless self advertising

If you had a look at the rest of my site then you know that I am a freelance customer relationship and social media consultant.

How many of you out there call yourselves SOCIAL MEDIA CONSULTANTS?

And if you need a social media consultant how many do you come across, how do you choose them? Price, testimonials, years of expertise, quotes?

Some shameless self advertising: How I came to be a social media consultant.

My love story with the internet started in 1998, with a brick like computer, a slow connection and a thirst for information. I found this free and accessible wealth of information mesmerising and got this desire to connect with like-minded people. Sharing my love of ethical living, art, teaching, learning, local businesses and sustainability allowed me to communicate with people from all over the world but in the end I reconnected with local people. I have connected on Friendster, MSN, Yahoo groups, Myspace, Facebook Twitter LinkedIn ChimeIn. My chatty and inquisitive nature lent itself to this new way of communicating. Social media reopened communication channels in the local community.

In parallel my career took me from customer service to the art and music industry and teaching. An eclectic career centered around engagement with people and business. Along the way I studied hard to hone my craft. My profile as a customer relationship and social media consultant is supported by the love of people, ethics, ethical and local businesses and now I am able to share my knowledge. I am ready and looking for new partnerships and business connections.

The people I wish to work with are local people, local businesses, ethical businesses, artistic businesses and hospitality establishments who wish to connect locally and internationally.

What makes you? What is your passion? If you can sell me your passion, your business, then I can sell it to a new audience then transform this audience into paying customers, a faithful following , a tribe (to quote Seth Godin) and help you expand.

You know where to find me: on WordPress, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, ChimeIn. and lee.severine@gmail.com

 

Day 3 – January 3rd 2012 – Blog as a suicide note (NOT MINE)

Social media has helped millions express themselves, finding like-minded people, sometimes soul mates and even work! Networking sites, blogs, you name it, social media has infiltrated our lives. Today Project 365 is about the darker side of social media, it’s about blogs, blogs as suicide notes. Blogs are like journals, letters, notes and sometimes these notes are suicide notes. I found this blog post extremely sad . Please read: http://qualityshows.wordpress.com/. Joe was found dead 5 days after posting this blog.

Joe Bodelai a man I didn’t know existed. Joe Bodelai touched the life of many when he was alive and now my life by posting a blog that I stumbled upon after his death (well, my writer husband showed it to me)

‘Joe Bodelai remembered on social media’ read here. Please take the time to read.

I am not going to discuss suicide here, just going to say one thing: my idea of suicide is one of loneliness, lack of means or  ways to express ones sorrow, distress. Should Joe have written this blog one week earlier? My husband says that it does not necessarily read as a cry for help. I think it does. Mostly at the beginning. Nonetheless, with all our SOCIAL MEDIA, with so many ways to connect, Joe felt that he could not reach out and get help.

 

Day 2 – January 2nd 2012 – Facebook Chat during the earthquake in Japan

I wrote a few entries on my other blogs today, but could not make my mind up for day 2 of project 365.  There is no shortage of stories or ideas but I was trying to find an angle for this Social media blog. I have not quite worked out the line this will take but the best way to illustrate what social media can do for people here is a story:

During the  earthquake in Japan last year, I was online with a friend who lives in Tokyo on my iPhone . It was night time in the UK I was up breastfeeding my baby and had my phone in one hand (Good parenting that is!)

My friend and I went to school together in France. She lives in Japan with her husband. If I remember well she has been out there for a couple of years now but not long enough to have lived through an earthquake. Her husband was out of town working and we were chatting on Facebook messenger about me being a new mum and her photography business.

She was also online with a couple of other people when she started describing what was happening. The ground tremors, things falling and the sirens. It didn’t take us long to work out what was happening. We all started giving her advice about where to stand or not stand, where to take cover. My dear friend was obviously panicking (who wouldn’t) but she stayed online. Her phone cut out a couple of time but every time she could come back she would update us all. It was a very intense moment for all of us. I can’t remember how long it took. We were all so scared for her life. My friend concentrated on getting back online to tell us she was ok. I think this helped her to keep her calm and to make sense of what was happening. I remember dreading and feeling sick when we got cut off.

When she told us it has settled a bit and she had gone outside, I started messaging other friends who live in Japan. We could only message through Facebook, the phone lines were busy / jammed so Facebook was our only way to communicate. That day Facebook truly kept us all in touch.

We passed on the messages to their family and friends in other countries. It made us all feel very close.

What did Social Media do for you?