Welcome to a "Tuesday Edition" of #MustMeetMedia Monday. 

The school year is in full swing again and I am BACK at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication teach online media. I LOVE TEACHING! Anyway.

This weeks #MustMeetMediaMonday is someone I have gotten over the last several years.

Also today's #MustMeetMediaMonday is a vlog post. I one more notch to up my video pressence in this game called social media.

So with out further ado, I present your #MustMeetMedia web personality, JD Almond.

As always, the purpose of #MustMeetMediaMondays is to show you how YOU can use social media and how it IS NOT impossible to learn & use. It is also my opportunity to spotlight social media influencer up and comers that I follow and glean valuable techniques from. Also I think you would enjoy following.

Tomorrow (a little bit after this video) for #TwitterToolTipTuesday I will be doing another vlog but with a Twitter Tool Tip this time.

Until then, thank you for visiting and I will see you tomorrow.

Moving my family into a new house this weekend wiped me out worse than I expected. :(

This weeks #MustMeetMediaMonday is someone I have gotten aquainted with over the last six months at least, probably a little longer.

Also today's #MustMeetMediaMonday is a vlog post. I have been meaning to up my video game and this is the one to start it.

So with out further ado, I present your #MustMeetMedia web personality, Kirsten Wright.

As always, the purpose of #MustMeetMediaMondays is to show you how YOU can use social media and how it IS NOT impossible to learn & use. It is also my opportunity to spotlight social media influencers up and comers that I follow and glean valuable techniques from. Also I think you would enjoy following.

Tomorrow (a little bit after this video) for #TwitterToolTipTuesday I will be doing another vlog but with a Twitter Tool Tip this time.

Until then, thank you for visiting and I will see you tomorrow.

So now you have written some blog posts. First, pat yourself on the back! This is the hardest step to blogging, congrats! Now how do you spruce up your blog now. One EASY way to improve your blog exposure and help it to be more eye catching is pictures.

Pictures make it pretty. Okay maybe not “pretty” per se, but it definitely gets more attention than just plain text. When your Blog or Website article is shared on Facebook it will look like this :

Instead of this:

Which one do you think looks better? Which one captured your attention? I thought so. I believe, don’t quote me though, I believe when services like “Network Blogs” shares it they select the first picture in your blog post. As you have seen from my examples right here on this blog, I make sure that my “title graphic” is the first thing seen. If someone is sharing your post as a link on Facebook, they can actually choose from all of the pictures related to your blog and even sometimes pictures that are just on your website. The more your pictures are eye catching and have to do with your subject, the better.

Now you are probably asking, “Anthony, where do I get pictures from”. That is a great question and there are a couple of few answers. First, the definition of “Fair Use” of pictures on the internet is :

"Fair use, a limitation and exception to the exclusive right granted by copyright law to the author of a creative work, is a doctrine in United States copyright law that allows limited use of copyrighted material without acquiring permission from the rights holders. Examples of fair use include commentary, criticism, news reporting, research, teaching, library archiving and scholarship." - excerpt from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use

With that being said these are several ways to acquire a picture for your post:

• the first answer is Googling the internet. Find a picture that matches your post. Download it, rename it appropriately, i.e. a dog in a pool gets renamed: dog-in-pool-for-anthonyryanpost.jpg . Make sure you do not take credit for the picture, or that you are not selling services that can produce the picture. 
• A second way is to purchase one. You can go to a variety of affordable picture sites and pay credits or dollars for legal use of a picture. This way is safer , but takes longer to probably find one that fits.
• Your last option, if you are good with a camera is to just take the picture yourself. This way costs the least but will take the most time especially if you are looking for a drawing or clip art.

Now you are ready to make your well written blog post shine a little more.

As always, the purpose of #WednesdayWebBlogTip is to show you how YOU can use the tools available to make your website and blog the best experience you can create for your audience. Sometimes the tips will be like this, sometimes a tutorial, sometimes a guest post by a Blog "expert".

Tomorrow is Thursday, so I will be taking questions from the "audience" and I will answer them right here on the blog.

Thank you for visiting and I will see you tomorrow.

Many times we will get followers on Twitter just from existing and having an account on Twitter. Some of your followers will be from you targeting specific followers, and some of your followers will be from them finding you through someone else following you. Either way, these are now your followers. Since there are so many people following us, one way to get to know them better is to do a “Question/Answer” session with them.

This does two things: one you single out one follower to get to know them better. Two, your followers that read your tweets will get to know that person/business better as well. You are getting more info so you can build a possible long term relationship AND you are giving others the opportunity to “eaves drop” on your conversation and find out about this person/business and determine if it is possible to build a relationship with them as well.

Unfortunately, Twiiter is a FREE tool which means it is “here today” and could be “gone tomorrow". So in order to keep and maintain contact with your Twitter followers in case Twitter is down (you have ALL seen the #failwhale) or if suddenly Twitter can not handle traffic and is taken down, you still need to have a relationship so you can contact them outside of Twitter. Very, very important!

Below is an example of how one “question/answer” session can go:

Hopefully either during or at the end, they will ask you questions back, and THEIR followers will see their conversation with you and PROBABLY start following. AGAIN this is not supposed to be a task where you are living on Twitter. You could always have one question and answer per day. This will set up a situation where people will be waiting for your interaction and they will periodically check back for more.

As always, the purpose of #TwitterToolTipTuesday is to show you how YOU can use Twitter more effectively, how it IS NOT impossible to learn and use, and how you do not have to let it take up too much of your time. Sometimes the tips will be like today a tutorial, sometimes a guest post by a Twitter "expert user".

Tomorrow for #WednesdayWebBlogTip we will be discussing pictures help your blog posts get more attention.

Until then, thank you for visiting and I will see you tomorrow.

Today's must meet is Deborah Munoz-Chacon of Sonoran Oasis Landscaping. You can find her online here on Twitter ,on Facebook and on her blog.

Deborah Munoz-Chacon saw a need in the landscape industry for landscapes that use desert plant material and drip irrigation to create vibrant beautiful desert outdoor spaces. 

Deborah says, "Communication is so important in landscaping because as the professional, it is up to us to make sure that you know why we are doing things and when they should be done.  We know that you also want to be sure that you’re getting the best service for your money. And, the best way to do this is to meet with you regularly and keep you in the loop about our work for you." - http://www.sonoran-oasis.com/index.php?page=company-history , Company History

Recently Deborah decided to join the SMART Group of Arizona to learn more about social media and how it can help her company grow. Since joining in March of 2011, she has successfully created and maintained a Twitter account, Facebook business page and a blog for sharing tips. She has seen her site traffic increase and there is an interest and demand for her "expertise" and information.

You will notice she is growing her followers slowly and that she is actually accessible by each of her social media channels.

For any of your desert landscape questions, make sure you contact Deborah today. She will be happy to help you and answer your questions.

As always, the purpose of #MustMeetMediaMondays is to show you how YOU can use social media and how it IS NOT impossible to learn and use by showing you others who are successfully using it. It is also my opportunity to spotlight social media influencers up and comers that I follow and glean valuable techniques from.

Tomorrow for #TwitterToolTipTuesday we will be continuing our discussion regarding conversing vs selling/spamming.

Until then, thank you for visiting and I will see you tomorrow.

Today's question comes from Sabrina Linman of Cobalt Mortgage , "hey SuperStar - can you tell me if i can link my facebook posts to twitter automatically or visa versa?"

This is actually a vey common question. Once you have your social media plan in place and are using it, this can be a time saver sometimes by taking what you Tweeted on Twitter and having post as your "Status Update" on your Facebook profile. We will cover tweets to Facebook page and Facebook update to Twitter another time.

Keep in mind there are a lot of different methods and third-party software and applications to do this. This is just one method. The app I am going to show you to use for putting your Facebook Profile status update on your Twitter page is Selective Tweets.

This allows you to fill in your Twitter name and then after you add "#fb" to the end of your Tweet, it will post to your Facebook. Pretty simple, huh?

in your browser go to the following address: http://www.facebook.com/selectivetwitter 

Once there click on "Go to App" 

You will be taken to the application page and you wll need to fill out some info.

After you fill in your Twitter name, mine is theanthonyryan, then click Save and a persmission window will pop up:

Now you need to login to your Twitter account and send a tweet ending with "#fb".

Then your tweet will appear in your Profile status update like this:

Again this is just one method. Have you heard of or use another? Leave a comment and let us know!

As always, the purpose of #AskAnthonyRyan is to take your questions and get them answered and you on your way to using the new info you have received. Sometimes the questions and answers will be like today, sometimes they may be answered by a guest "expert".  

Tomorrow is FRIDAY and that means "#FridayFacebookFeature" where I will cover a Facebook feature that you may have seen, but would like to know how to use.

Thank you for visiting and I will see you tomorrow.

Good morning this beautiful Wednesday and welcome to another #WednesdayWebBlogTip. This tip actually pertains to both websites and blogs.

This tip comes after Rachel Naegeli asked: "Hey Rockstar! How do I add videos to my website??!"

Great question. Now there are some assumptions I am making at this point:

1. You have shot a video
2. You have uploaded your video to YouTube or another video channel

If this is the case, move on to the next step. All of your videos that have been uploaded to the internet via YouTube or other video sites comes with an embed code. This is html "web" code that is needed to make your video play correctly on your website or blog.

You can be on your channel page or the videos actual page. You are looking for a "Share" button. Click this and you will get a drop down. You will probably see a link, this is a link you can just paste in say an email or tweet to share it. This is what people who are sharing your video. You are now looking for another button named "Embed".

You then take that code and paste it into your blog here:

You place the embed cod in "HTML" mode instead of "Visual" mode because it is html code.

Then you will need to "Publish" it and then voilà :

There you go Rachel, I hope that helped!

As always, the purpose of #WednesdayWebBlogTip is to show you how YOU can use the tools available to make your website and blog the best experience you can create for your audience. Sometimes the tips will be like this tutorial, sometimes a guest post by a Blog "expert".

Tomorrow is Thursday, so I will be taking questions from the "audience" and I will answer them right here on the blog.

Thank you for visiting and I will see you tomorrow.

Part of the reason you are following people is because you are getting to know them or they followed you first.

So you ask, "how do I read my timeline without getting lost and over whelmed?" 

One way is to eliminate some of the noise. To do this, you take the people you follow (this is important) on Twitter, that you actually do want to follow and read from, and put them in a "list". This will alow you to read tweets from only people on that list and not everyone you follow.

Mashable.com says the following about lists: "They offer a way for you to bunch together other users on Twitter into groups so that you can get an overview of what they’re up to. That’s because Lists aren’t just static listings of users, but rather curated Twitter streams of the latest tweets from a specified set of users.

In other words, you can create a list that groups together people for whatever reason (the members of your family, for example), and then you can get a snapshot of the things those users are saying by viewing that list’s page, which includes a complete tweet stream for everyone on the list. Lists allow you to organize the people you’re following into groups, and they even allow you to include people you’re not following." - Mashable.com, HOW TO: Use Twitter Lists, November 2, 2009 by Josh Catone 

For the writing of this particular post, your "lists" can be found here on your Twitter home screen:

Click on the "Lists" drop down menu and select "Create List" - 

You will need to Name it, and possibly write a description. If you leave your list "Public", other people will be able to see your list and follow it. I think I follow fifteen or twenty lists I did not create myself. If you make it "Private" ONLY you will be able to see the list and you will not be able to share it with anyone. Remember, most of social media is socializing and conversing and sharing. Can't share a private list.

Now you need to add people you follow to your new list. You can do this by going to your "Followers" (clicking on the "Followers" link on the right hand side of your Twitter home screen). You will see button with a "person sillhoette", click on that and choose "Add to list". A pop-up window will then pop-up with a list of all of your Twitter lists that you have created (mine has a bunch, yours will have only the one). Select the check box next to your list name, and then click the "X" to close the box. DO NOT click on "Create a List" unless you want to do this whole process all over again. :)

Now when you hop on Twitter next, you can go to your lists, select your list, and see only tweets from those people you put on that list.

My apologies for the length of this post, I probably need to start doing videos of these "tutorials", baby steps though, baby steps.

As always, the purpose of #TwitterToolTipTuesday is to show you how YOU can use Twitter more effectively, how it IS NOT impossible to learn and use, and how you do not have to let it take up too much of your time. Sometimes the tips will be like today a tutorial, sometimes a guest post by a Twitter "expert user".

Tomorrow for #WednesdayWebBlogTip we will be discussing so you have posted a blog post, now what?

Until then, thank you for visiting and I will see you tomorrow.

1. Introduce you to other business owners and people who understand and use social media pretty proficiently, so you can look at exactly what they have done and follow the parts of their good example that applies to you.
2. I also WANT to focus on Tucson business owners, but this is not always possible because a lot of Tucson business owners are brand new to the social media game here, and are brand new using thier chosen strategies.

Today I have decided to spotlight someone I have mentioned before, but haven't taken the time to spotlight. I feel this person knows exactly how to get BUSINESS results using social media and she has done it with real estate professionals and also professionals in other industries.

She uses all facets and shows how to tie them to one another so you are not feeling over whelmed.

DotJenna is a social media coach hailing from Frisco, Texas. She has been in marketing and web design for many, many years and now she runs a highly successful social media coaching program.

One of the things that separates Jenna from the crowd, and why I talk about her and methods often, is she uses more than just one channel! She uses Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, and UStream just to name a FEW. She does webinars, seminars, podcasts, and conference calls. She has done this for so long she has a library of info she can share over and over again. Often "social media experts" are really good at ONE particular tool, like Twitter, and focus all of thier energy on how great that one tool is. Then they are not able to help you create a rounded campaign with multiple tools.

Now, I can hear a few of you saying, "but she is talking about social media, that's easy to talk about. What about MY industry?". HELLOOOO, she has helped MANY business owners in MANY  industries learn her methods and duplicate them to fit THIER own audience!

Check out Jenna and ALL of her many options. There is PLENTY of room here for MORE than one social media tutor, especially one that practices what she preaches. I am looking forward to learning, growing and tuning my biz learning from one of the best in the biz.

As always, the purpose of #MustMeetMediaMondays is to show you how YOU can use social media and how it IS NOT impossible to learn and use. It is also my opportunity to spotlight social media influencers up and comers that I follow and glean valuable techniques from.

Tomorrow for #TwitterToolTipTuesday we will be continuing our discussion regarding conversing vs selling/spamming.

I decided to cover a feature today everyone could use, some people have and can be complicated. Until now. 

A contact form is one of the easiest ways to get your audience to engage with you. There is a simple contact form that I use for the Facebook pages that I put together and it is called Contact Info .

It is a very clean, very minimal contact form that does its job very well. Straight from their page : "Show your Contact Information with a Google Map on your Facebook Page Tab. Present your visitors with clean, formatted contact information. Includes a contact form so users can contact your company quickly. Messages are sent to an email you specify. Also included is the Click-to-Call feature. Users can initiate a call directly from your Facebook Page! "

As with all Facebook applications, you will need to "add" this application to your page first. Then you will go to app settings and you will get an easy to follow along screen that needs your pertinent info:

After you fill out your info (all of the blanks may not apply to you, skip the ones that do not like the example does), then you hit "Save Settings" and then you get:

A beautiful, clean, small contact form that even has a Google Map if you have a physical location you would like them to be able to find.

Yes, there is a tiny advertisement on the bottom, but it is tiny, unobtrusive, and the app is free so they are just looking for more users like you.

As always, the purpose of #FridayFacebookFeature is to show you what Facebook is capable of beyond, "I just had lunch", and help you unlock some of the great add-on features. Sometimes the feature will be like today; sometimes it may be from a guest Facebook "expert".

Tomorrow is SATURDAY and that means a summary of the items that caught my attention through out the week I did not get to blog or tweet about. We'll see what direction I choose to take.  ;)

Until then, thank you for visiting and I will see you tomorrow.