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Stay Tuned!
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Stay tuned for next month's issue, where I'm starting a new column on...yes...frequently mispelled words! Are there any words driving you crazy? E-mail them to
carrie@carriefreelance.com and I'll publish them, (along with an explanation) in my next issue.
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Welcome to my October newsletter! The last few months have been so busy that I'm only just getting this message to you now. Everyone who knows me knows that two things make me very happy. One is writing (you will see evidence of this below in my latest projects), and the other is...yes... pumpkins! If you don't believe me, here's me in a pumpkin field... When we lived back east, I thought autumn was quite a production, but I see here in California they also take it quite seriously. So I hope the fall finds you enjoying your favorite activities, whether jumping in a pile of leaves, carving the aforementioned pumpkin, or simply taking a moment to appreciate life. And let me take this opportunity to wish you...  |
| If You Twitter, Will They Come?
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 Some of the Latest Statistics
Will Surprise You
Many people have been asking me lately about Twitter, in hushed voices, as if it is a secret of some kind. Not so much! I have been using Twitter for about 6 months now, and find it very effective for communicating with a growing and influential, group of people. In fact, my group of "followers," that is, people who have found me, has doubled since I set up my profile, without too much hard work except for quick updates several times a week, as well as linking my blog through Twitterfeed. As is always the case, one has to "shop" through posts to find the information that is relevant for them or their business, much as you would shop for clothes or food. But the 140 characters limit makes it fairly easy to assess if someone is worth contacting individually. If you don't have much time for social networking, consider Twitter as a good place to get your feet wet. If you think it's not a contender, consider these statistics from the most recent Marketing Sherpa:
*In September, the number of Twitter users passed 3 million.
*Major media brands, such as The New York Times, have had success
importing their RSS feeds onto Twitter (The Times has more than 9,000
followers, making it the most followed newspaper on Twitter)
Before setting up your account, study the community and get a feel for what people are posting. Once you have your account, you can search for the audience you want by inputting the relevant information, such as geography or career area. Once you start posting, make your "tweets" relevant to the community and try to avoid being too personal, or "overtweeting." Find short, useful content for users on the go, since this is most of the audience. Also, remember that just because someone is following you, does not mean you will want to follow them. Check out their profile first, and see if they are relevant to you. As with many things, it's quality, not quantity, that counts. Good luck tweeting!
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| Announcing New Contest!
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A Chance to Win the Illustrated Elements of Style,
the Ultimate Grammatical Reference
E.B. White was my literary hero, as he was for so many others. The famous New Yorker writer was also the author of Charlotte's Web, The Trumpet of the Swan, and many classics. And he knew a thing or two about grammar. In today's competitive business market, you can't afford to make mistakes in your communications. So here's your chance to win this classy book, that makes an art out of looking up the proper uses of semicolons, it's vs. its, there vs. their, and all the little rules that can drive a person crazy--that is, until you learn them. Simply forward this newsletter to 3 friends or colleagues, and you will automatically be entered to win, along with all subscribers on my list by the end of November. Good luck, and may the forces of good grammar be with you.
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What Have I Been Writing Lately?
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 Features for Bay Area Business Woman and Web Site Content Oriented ProjectsI profiled Bay Area artist Hannah Stouffer for the August issue of BABW, and was very impressed with her artist/entrepreneur take on her business. I also got a lot of great feedback on the article! Also, for the September issue, I wrote about healthy beverages and women business owners successfully making careers out of them. For my latest article clips, click on the image above, or here, for a link to my home page. Other projects included web site content editorial revisions for a gourmet food company and a career coach, a rewrite of a financial services company brochure, a guest post for a food blog, and a corporate profile for a new newspaper in the area. Whew! |
Lights...Video...Action!
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It All Started with the New Flip Camera...Here's what happened. I won a Flip at the You Tube Developers Conference in San Bruno. That got me started filming all kinds of things, and getting to interview folks up close and in person in the same way I'm used to doing for articles, only this was on camera and really fun. I got a trade show "workout" by getting press passes to the American Crafts Council and Slow Food Nation events in San Francisco, and learned a whole lot about wood carving, cheesemaking, felt vases, and olive oil-- not in that order. Then I made good use of my way underused IMovie program, (which by the way really rocks!) and was in video heaven, adding cool floating text, great music, and learning the finer points of cropping. Of course after all that, how could I not start a YouTube channel? Check it out and let me know what you think. A few tips I picked up along the way:- Look for colorful people to interview to tell their story. Note that they may not be the most obvious and you need to take a little time to chat with them before you start the camera rolling.
- If you don't have a special microphone attachment, try and get as quiet a location as possible to eliminate background noise.
- Don't be afraid to be spontaneous and funny...this is where you get the most viewer reaction.
- If you are looking to maximize your online visibility by posting your videos through a YouTube channel,(over 11 billions clips viewed in the month of July alone), make full use of tags and keywords, as this is what traditional search engines pick up on. According to an interesting article in the Wall Street Journal online, "Beyond YouTube - New Ways to Find Video on the Web," some video-search sites are moving beyond tags and keywords. For
example, San Mateo, Calif.-based VideoSurf Inc. is using technology
that can search the actual content of the video. Inside YouTube, Google Inc. is experimenting with speech-recognition technology to identify the words and phrases spoken in videos."
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From carriewriterblog.com
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 Master of My Own Domain (Name)
A few updates from the blog world. I had a name change, from "musingsbyapple" to carriewriterblog. Why? Because I didn't like having blogspot attached to my name forever, and carriewriterblog had a nice ring to it. There are other really good reasons to get your own domain name. Search engines like it better, and people can find you more easily. So if you haven't already, please subscribe! I took a lot of time to configure my feedburner and feedblitz icons just right, so please make it all worthwhile.
What do Henry Ford, Neil Young, Anne Hathaway, and Twitter have in common? I wrote about them all on my blog!
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