by Lauren Huston on May 12, 2012
Mother’s Day is tomorrow and, around the Internet, people are already observing the holiday. I would like to write a bit about the topic of Mother’s Day and social media. I have seen several posts about Mother’s Day on Facebook and I have seen many tweets about it on Twitter. Social media is a great way to express our appreciation for motherhood but I wonder about its impact on the real meaning of the holiday.
Is Mother’s Day (and all holidays, for the matter) the same now that we can express our sentiments virtually?
While I love reading about how people appreciate their mother/mothers, I wonder if this has detracted from phone calls, get-togethers and celebrations with a more personal touch. Are people using social media as a [click to continue…]
by Lauren Huston on May 8, 2012
As any blogger probably knows, drawing (and keeping!) the attention of our readers is not always an easy task. We have to figure out what our readers want. We have to look at our analytics to find out what works and what needs tweaking. There is a lot of thought, at least for me, that goes into a post before the “Publish” button is finally pressed. During the time that I have been blogging, I have followed some general guidelines because I have found that they work at keeping the attention of my readers.
In this day and age, the digital era, just about anybody can start a blog and begin to write. That is one of the great things about the Internet. It also makes for some pretty stiff competition in the blogosphere. Do you have what it takes to get noticed? Are you doing what it takes to keep readers interested [click to continue…]
by Lauren Huston on May 4, 2012
#labradoodle #dog #pets #cute #adorable
Last night, I was browsing through Twitter when I saw a question about Instagram hashtags. My friend, Melodie Tao of Marketing Melodie, started the discussion with a really awesome tweet. As a lover of all things Instagram, I was more than happy to jump into the conversation. I gave a somewhat brief answer as you are only given 140 characters per tweet. I received a response from someone else saying that my answer would make a good blog post. Of course, I could not resist the suggestion.
Melodie’s tweet about Instagram that sparked this post was:
“As an Instagram newbie I want to know: Is there a hashtag [click to continue…]
by Lauren Huston on April 30, 2012
Back in March, I wrote a blog post about babies and social media. My post went into detail about the decision of my friends, who were brand new parents, to keep Facebook updates about their newborn to a minimum. As I said in March, the new Mom, Monika de Myer, put up a tasteful announcement on her photography blog. Both parents added the birth of their daughter as a life event to their Facebook Timelines. There was a lot of excitement in their lives but you would not have known it by looking at their activity on their Facebook profiles.
From my perspective, things have changed just a little bit since the baby’s birth. The baby has made a handful of appearances in pictures on [click to continue…]
by Lauren Huston on April 27, 2012
As many people who have pursued self-employment know, it is not necessarily an easy feat. There are ups and downs and, during tough economic times, the downs can (but not always!) outweigh the ups. The same is true when you embark on any adventure, whether it is related to career or a more personal endeavor that is even closer to the heart than work might be. Choosing your support system is critical.
The unfortunate fact of life is that there will always be naysayers in this world. Devil’s advocates may line up at your door. There will always be people who will try to take you down or try to “help” you in a way that is less than constructive. Sometimes the naysayers are the people who you were SURE would be on [click to continue…]
