Image by luc legay via Flickr

Here are some new ways you can empower your profile, enlarge your community and GET MORE SOCIAL!

1. At every single book signing you do make sure you not only sign your book, but what about putting your @TWITTERID right underneath your signature?

2. Revive and revamp your signature line in your email – make sure you include your TWITTERID, YOUR LINKEDIN profile, your FACEBOOK FAN PAGE and a link to your BLOG. Also make sure that you put your TWITTERID and your LINKEDIN ID on your business cards.

3. Encourage people to tweet during your booksignings. Create a hashtag that is your book title, or topic and give it out at the start of the booksigning.

4. Still think you can’t find media on Twitter? WRONG! Check out this great link for all the public media.

5. Always mention your TWITTERID in media interviews – say you would love for people to connect to you via Twitter.

6. Subscribe to the enewsletters from media, print and online magazines you want to be featured in. Make sure when you get the enewsletter you take time to then go to the site and immediately comment on a story. By doing this authentically you are not only providing more insight, but providing the reporter or freelance journalist another possible expert for a future story. Journalists don’t always want to quote the same sources for every story. Respect their work and they will in turn count on you to add new ideas in future stories.

7. What? You don’t have time to source actionable data on Muckrack.com? That’s crazy! You aren’t seriously thinking your PR person is doing this all day every day to find new journos on twitter? Peeshaw. Start doing it yourself.

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I think the site is a superb resource for finding actionable and interesting information about the leaders in tv, radio, tv execs, producers, radio hosts etc.  What’s interesting about the site is how it tracks the people who are making news for all of us and their online buzz, metrics etc. Bookmark the site and visit it often.

And if you’re still not sold on online profile/presence and why it’s important, let this site give you another kick toward embracing your online visibility!

You can also find some great Twitter handles on the site and take note how folks are using online tools.

Check out the brilliant Jack Gray (producer for Anderson Cooper), he tops the list of Twitter followers at 1,065,148 Twitter followers. It’s interesting to note how many on the TVExec list don’t have a Twitter profile. (YET!)

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I was up last night like a little Animoto elf creating some and I like this one best.

The price point is fantastic at $30 year for creating as many as you want.

If you want to create a free one you can do so as well. The free ones are limited in length and can only have 15 elements, but they still turn out pretty terrific.

It would be wonderful of course if every author had a budget of $3000 to $5000 to have a company create a stunning video for their books, but just in case you don’t, take heart you can still come up with something
that works for your site, your Tweets and your Facebook.

Now go and create! Send me links to some of the ones you create and I’ll feature them on the blog!

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The announcement has filled me with glee, when I consider that all those Oprah-esque PR insiders who provide you tons of tips, insider secrets, oprah-show advice etc. will also hopefully be cleaned out as well.

If it’s time for Oprah to have a new start, it’s also time for everyone who has ever paid thousands of dollars to consultants just “hoping” they’d get the right Oprah teleseminar-guru-recipe for being on the show to have a new start too.

For those folks, I hope Oprah’s announcement will serve as a wakeup call that you don’t need to rely on PR gurus, or media gurus to get you on the Oprah show. I’ll tell you a secret, the best way to get on the Oprah show is by using your own initiative, being creative and having a unique and interesting story.

I’ll tell you another secret! People have actually been booked as a guest on her show by pitching the show directly through the website form on Oprah.com. People have actually been booked on her show by tweeting out interesting ideas that Oprah’s producers (who are also on Twitter) find and then build a show around.

If you don’t think they’re on Twitter, do a Google search for “Oprah Producer Twitter” and find them yourself. I could give them to you, but it’s time you start doing your own walking! Come on! You can be your own PR guru if you believe in yourself enough.

You too can go back home to Oprah when she starts her new show. The first step is to tap your shoes together three times and say, “There’s no place like Oprah, there’s no place like Oprah, there’s no place like Oprah. ” (Oops, wait, I was channeling a PR guru and what they might tell you.)

Ok, start again. The first step is to come up with what makes you unique and then research Oprah’s website and see if there is already a show they are booking around that topic. Every week they post new calls for guests to pitch themselves.

The second step is to be persistent without stalking! The third step is to be creative about how you want to get on the show. Don’t believe there’s room for creativity? Peeshaw, as my great Aunt Susan would say.) Still not feeling it?

Read this story of how one person got on Oprah by selling tickets to his own show on the sidewalk.

Or how about using a billboard to get on Oprah?

Still not convinced? Read this story about how one woman used the online submission form and kicked ass on Oprah.

Don’t give up. Who knows you might even be featured on the show twice!

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It’s really time to stop worrying about how you will “look” on the Web if it’s preventing you from wholly participating. It’s not about how you will look on the Web, it’s about being authentic, engaging and real while you’re on there. It’s about sharing your insight freely and championing those in your peer arena who are doing the same.

If I worried about how I “looked” on the Web, I would have been a failure, during the years from 1995 to 2002, because dare I say, I was a full-time mom, writing my technology news stories late at night for Ziff-Davis and Allbusiness.com , Internet Business Forum (now defunct), all for the sake of being able to stay at home with my kids when they were little. I was lucky and blessed, and left a job at a news station to do this.

I mistakenly thought if someone could have seen the real me (mom, pajamas, milk pump, cheerios strewn throughout my hair, typing feverishly at 4am), they would not be paying me to write as a technology journalist or think the stuff I’d written was worthwile.

But here’s the real secret, they can see you on the Web. They know your heart by your writing. They know who you choose to affiliate with by your blogroll. They know how much you care about your readers of your blog by how often you post really good edu-focused content to uplift your whole community.

The Web community can tell a bait and switch a mile away. This community can also tell when you’re not being honest, authentic and mindful of their time.

If you’re going to spend time on the Web building your platform the biggest thing you need to understand is there’s not a dress code, but there is a social 2.0 code.

Take time to learn it and you’ll thrive. You’ll really make lifelong connections. Hey, maybe you’ll even be like me, who got roses upon the birth of my son Gibson, from a client in New Zealand that I worked with for almost three years and never met.

The only way to truly participate in the Web is to give up control over what you dictate your community should find useful. Decide that you are going to focus your energy on empowering the collective and you’ll be surprised at the Web marketshare you’ll slowly gain.

Decide to invite your community to share their ideas, to guest blog at your site, to openly comment and disagree with your ideas. Elevate the discussion and you’ll elevate your community as well.

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1. Stop being sheepish about your accomplishments and build a truly savvy and transparent profile for yourself on the Web.

(Oy vey – you’re not tooooooo olddddddd to be on the Web. Seriously.)

2. Use Twitter for good, not evil. As mega-celebs close down their Twitter accounts it just means more room for your content rich, edu-focused tweets! Don’t Twitter out something you wouldn’t want your Mom reading. Keep your tweets filled with link-love and be willing to share your knowledge.

4. Don’t hate me because I’m social. (Oops, did I blog that out loud?) – what that means is don’t kill the Web 2.0 messengers, and don’t buy into everything they tell you to do. Find a good Web 2.0 balance that works for you. Many people become power LinkedIn.com users, others just operate best on Facebook.com. Whatever you choose to use, don’t let it languish.

5. Stop wishing for the good old days of cold pancakes and stale coffee networking breakfast events. Put your butt in the chair with your favorite coffee mug and spend thirty minutes a day online using all the free tools available to you. No excuses. Just Social IT!

6. Find your tribe, your peeps, your community by using Google Search, technorati search and Google Blog Search. Ready for something new? Try BING search.

7. Be present, be YOU, be Web 2.0 brave!

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 Here are Six Ways to Expand Your 2.0 Sociability:

1. Create at least three profiles to start with on the Web: LinkedIn.com, Twitter.com and Google Profile .

2. Use Alltop.com as a great reference for how different blogs can be and how you might create new ideas or content when you launch your own blog.

3. Read Mashable.com for superb 2.0 latest news and also follow them on Twitter.

4. Use Ping.fm to update all your social networks at once.

5. Check out what Stribe can do – lets you create your own social network on any website. (it’s in beta right now.)

6. Use TweetMic if you want to do audio versions of your tweets. This is really cool – I’m going to play with it today and see how well my southern accent goes across Twitter. :>) The latest version just got released on September 27th.

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2. Read other bloggers – you’ll be inspired and it helps you understand what you can also add a topic that has not yet been covered.

3. Don’t spend all your time on Twitter, but also think about how the things you are tweeting about can be expanded into a longer blog format.

4. Use Google Alerts  to create writing prompts for you that help you blog effectively on the topics you want to cover in your blog.

5. Don’t waste time blogging about topics you’re not passionate about.

6. Don’t buy into blog-envy. It keeps you from writing what you need to share and keeps all of us from reading your great wisdom.

7. Stop worrying about how many comments your blog posts are generating and start focusing on if you’re producing good content. Keep in mind you’re building your own mini-publication or magazine and that a blog post is not just about producing comments.

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Just grabbing a Twitter account, polishing up your Linkedin.com account and reading one or two other bloggers is not enough either.

In that same vein, your procession (postings) on the Web using all these tools, should never be a series of over-hyped marketing messaging with little or no real insight.

Instead of looking for the quickest way to have the biggest float in the parade, why not strive instead for slowly making your way – respectfully, truthfully, and creatively.

Don’t let people fool you into thinking that just because you’re here it means you don’t have to do anything else.

Don’t be beguiled by folks who tell you there’s a quicker way of using all these tools that don’t involve work on your part.

If you really want to reap the benefits of  Web 2.0, you have to be willing to march with the masses. Let them see who you really are and contribute what you can to benefit everyone.

Don’t view this work as drudgery – view it as a way to find your peeps. Find the tools that work best for you and join in!

And always remember to simply be yourself.

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Here are some very cool Twitter tools to check out sent to me by my pal Steve Kayser.

www.twitoria.com  — shows you followers who are inactive or lame – so you can manage your follower base.

twubble can help you find followers and so can twellow and tweepular .

Steve’s favorite app for  Twitter is either itweet.net ( best for newbies) or advanced user would be www.peoplebrowsr.com

Check those out! And follow Steve – Http://www.twitter.com/stevekayser .

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“For example, on the page listing your followers, Twitter now shows a check mark of the people you follow back. There’s also a pull-down menu that includes options for direct messaging them, sending them an @ mention, or following them (if you’re not already doing so).”

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