Learn how I promote events via social media and don’t pay a dime to do so. Just use the sign up form below to receive access to this guide. Thanks for subscribing!
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First of all….Happy Halloween!
Sometimes as a blogger, you feel like you are spending all of this time to create 
great content, yet it feels that only your mom and dad are reading…and even they aren’t leaving comments!
What do I do to get a little blog love?
If you browse some of the top websites that focus on blogging or social media, they list several ideas: leave comments on other blogs that pertain to your niche, tweet the heck out of your posts, cross-post on facebook, etc. Check sites like mashable.
Final advice?
Don’t fret. It is likely that more people are reading than you realize. And beg mom and dad for a comment here or there!
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The title says it all, doesn’t it? There are days when you just don’t care that your so-called friends are taking a shower or getting ready to eat dinner. Have we all become so narcissistic that we think there are people out there that want to track our every move?
Do I need to know that you just got a new fish in your aquarium?
I will be the bearer of bad news…most of us don’t really care. Let’s face it, if your crops die in farmville because you didn’t harvest them soon enough, I think we will survive.
If you love playing mafia wars on facebook, perhaps that is a piece of knowledge best kept to yourself.
What is a boy to do when he doesn’t care about the mundane posts, but also doesn’t want to be rude?
There is a tactful way to tell someone that the fact that you have diarrhea really isn’t any of our business. Don’t worry…help is on the way!
Make life easier and don’t be confrontational with your internet friends
My best piece of advice when you are getting facebook fatigue is to do a clean-up of your list. Facebook makes this extremely easy.
Just hide all of the updates in your news feed from the chronic offenders. 
It couldn’t be easier. Right beside a post that the regular offender put updated to facebook, you will see an arrow if you hover in the right corner. Click that arrow and highlight “unsubscribe from status updates.”
This is genius by facebook. It gives us a way to not to have read the consistency mundane updates, but also not let the user that we have hidden them.
So do yourself a favor, and get to work unsubscribing. You will still be friends with the person and can check their profile page when you want to know what is up, but you won’t be bothered with the information that they got sick to their stomachs from eating too much Mexican food.
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I’ve just begun my little adventure into the world of social media. Although I have actually blogged for about 3 years on various sites and platforms, I’ve had a facebook page for a while, I’ve been creating videos for years, I feel like I’m starting all over again.
What do I do?
I think that the best way to learn more about social media is to experiment with
it. With twitter, facebook, forsquare, gowalla, yelp, etc., your mind could just explode. But have fun with it!
But I need help Jay!
Don’t we all? There are a few sites that I regularly check and that I subscribe to their RSS. My favorite social media site is by a Columbus phenomena, Amy Schmittauer from Savvy Sexy Social.
Sure her site is pretty, and you might think her target audience is female, but you would be wrong. Don’t despair guys….she has TONS of information on all facets of social media. She is a true expert and you would be very smart to start following this superstar.
Make sure you check out her videos, she is amazing. And be very sure to get on her mailing list for her knowledge to land right in your inbox.
Believe me, you will love her!
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Having a little trouble deciding on a topic to write about, I ran across this fun idea on a website and thought I would give it a try. It is all about me…one of my favorite subjects.
1. If you could build a house anywhere, where would it be? On the gulf coast of the Yucatan Peninsula.
2.What is your favorite article of clothing? Polo shirts.
3. Last C.D. you bought? Wow…i’m not sure. I usually buy individual songs from iTunes.
4. Where is your favorite place to be? Relaxing at home with my animals.
5. Least favorite place to be? Anywhere with people that I do not care for.
6. Are you strongest in mind or body? Definitively mind.
7. What time do you wake up? I wake up at 5:45 in the morning. 
I am so not a morning person either.
8. Favorite kitchen appliance? Dishwasher.
9. What instrument would you like to play? Piano.
10. Favorite color? Brown.
11. Sports car of SUV? Sports car for sure.
12. Favorite children’s book? I didn’t really enjoy reading until I became an adult.
13. Favorite season? Fall.
14. Least favorite chore? Cleaning up the messes that my animals sometimes make.
15. Favorite day? It’s always been Friday.
16. Favorite food? Good Mexican food.
17. Favorite drink? Mellow Yellow.
18. Favorite word? Mariposa. I’ve always liked that Spanish word.
19. Favorite inspirational book? To Kill a Mockingbird.
20. Who would you like to play you in the movie of you life? Charlie Sheen.
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Is it just me or can we never escape reality tv? Growing up, there were always some examples of this “genre” but in the last decade it
seems to have taken over.
In the old days, reality tv existed in shows like Candid Camera, America’s Funniest Home Videos, or game shows like The Newlywed Game.
In my opinion, things began to change with the advent of the phenomena COPS. This is the first time that I can recall watching television to witness the lives of the trashy among us. How many of us tuned in each week to see the wife beaters, drug injectors, and the prostitutes all while singing along to the theme song Bad Boys by Inner Circle?
That show was bad enough! But my question is this…Why must we be subjugated to this trash on channels that used to be educational?
If you have flipped the channel to TLC, no doubt you were as shocked as I was. Jon and Kate Plus 8 was bad enough, but check out some of their new goodies:
19 Kids and Counting
Little People, Big World
My Strange Addiction
Freaky Eaters
The Little Couple
Strange Sex
I Didn’t Know I Was Pregnant
Now the History Channel is trying to catch up. Typically when you turn on this channel, you will find them showing some type of show on Hitler, but if on the off chance you catch another topic, you might find some of these goodies:
Hairy Bikers
Ancient Aliens
Ice Road Truckers
MonsterQuest
Only In America With Larry The Cable Guy
Pawn Stars
Sex In the Ancient World
Swamp People
UFO Hunters
I’ve been watching the History Channel today and have learned quite a bit. Did you know that the ancient Maya bred with aliens which allowed them to build the pyramids? How about that King Tut and his sister were aliens? Or that the ark of the covenant was really some type of alien weapon?
I guess if you want your kids today not to have their brains sucked out by reality television and replaced with mush, you better spend more time at the library!
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It should not be a surprise to anyone that our teens always stay connected. According to the Pew Research Center, 83% of adults in the
United States have some type of cellular device, be it a smart phone or a traditional cell phone. As an educator, I contend that the number of teens with cell phones is not much less. In fact, parents often buy their children cell phones so that they can be in constant contact.
According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, the amount of time teens are spending online is increasing rapidly.
Today, 8-18 year-olds devote an average of 7 hours and 38 minutes (7:38) to using entertainment media across a typical day (more than 53 hours a week). And because they spend so much of that time ‘media multitasking’ (using more than one medium at a time), they actually manage to pack a total of 10 hours and 45 minutes (10:45) worth of media content into those 7½ hours.
In other words, teens are spending more hours staying connected than there parents are spending at work each week.
One trend that I have personally noticed among students this year is the proliferation of twitter amongst their peer groups. As recently as last year, it was common for students to say things like, “I don’t like twitter. It’s boring. I use facebook.”
Boy have things changed. Twitter is quickly becoming the new facebook for our youth. They crave the constant feedback that a service like twitter provides.
This should really come as no surprise. As late as last year, MSNBC reported that teens were sending approximately 3, 339 text messages each month.
In the mind of a teen, twitter is the ultimate group text messaging service. They post what they once would via text to a friend, but with twitter they send it out to a mass audience and receive instant feedback in the form of replies or retweets.
As most of us know, schools have traditionally been the last to jump on the new bandwagon. Not only do they typically not embrace new technologies, they often attempt to impede their usage. Most still try hard to confiscate cell phones and are still fighting the battle to not let students wear hats in school. Now that’s a silly and antiquated rule.
It is my contention that schools should be embracing these various platforms of social media and utilizing them, at least for communication purposes.
With so many of our youth on sites like facebook and twitter, why not use these tools to communicate with our students concerning announcements, reminders of games, or information on the upcoming school play? So many teens have smart phones that this would be a much more effective means to communicate such information than by simply reading the school announcements every morning.
I believe wholeheartedly that it is time for schools to move into the 21st century and prepare our students for the tools and technologies that they must master to be successful in this new world.
I’d love to hear your thoughts on this topic. Please leave a comment.
Next post…how to use social media as a tool in the classroom.
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Friends of the Shelter is a non-profit group that I work with in the central Ohio area. I help coordinate the social media aspect of this group and work various fundraising events. Check out the newest video I made for our group and let me know what you think in the comments. Thanks!
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As I continue to delve deeper into the world of social media, I am always looking for successful people in this area to emulate. Columbus is very fortunate to have a thriving social media community and this gives you a plethora of role models if you are trying to break into this career.
Here are three that I love:
Justin M L Bryant of Think Brand Studio in Mt. Vernon, Ohio is an expert in the field of taking your product to the next level by developing your brand. He is extremely creative and posts very interesting tidbits on various social media platforms.
Amy Schmittauer is on virtually every social media platform that is in existence. Please check her out on Savvy Sexy Social for tips on owning your social media presence. Not only does she blog, but she is an incredible vlogger as well. Check her out, you won’t be disappointed.
Nate Riggs is quite prolific. Once you begin following him, you will find that he posts all kinds of great content focused on social media. Not only does he have his own site, but is now running things in the social media department for Bob Evans.
Just the beginning…
These three are great examples of social media experts in Columbus, Ohio. But this is just the tip of the iceberg. Do yourself a favor and check out these three amazing authorities.
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What do you remember?
I think that most of us over the age of 30 will never forget where we were when we heard the fateful news of what happened on September 11. I still can remember who told me what was happening and how I felt. I can imagine the look on my face was when I was told the news.
I was teaching Spanish in a very rural area of Ohio. It was a beautiful fall day. But out in this area of Ohio, the school had no cable television, and there was a computer in your classroom, if it functioned.
My first true realization of the devastation was upon returning home and turning on the news. I know that I watched for hours and thought about my friends and the family that I stayed with in Mexico and emailed them to let them know what little information was actually known, but that we were safe in other parts of the country.
It is important to remember!
As an educator, I think that it is of paramount importance that we teacher our young ones what happened that day with an unbiased account. I also find it highly appropriate to promote patriotism on that day. Some “poo poo” patriotism, but what is wrong with being proud of your country?
From the minds of our youth
The other day I thought to ask one of my students if she lived in New York during September 11. She did. In fact, she lived in the Bronx. I asked her what she remembered from that day and she told me that she remembers her mom being upset. But that was it.
These currently high school students were between the ages of 3-8 when it happened. Most of them don’t have first-hand accounts of their own.
What are your thoughts or recollections after ten years?
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