Social Media Cheat Sheet

Social Media Comparison Infographic in Words -

1.5 billion monthly active users
Mobile is Facebook’s cash cow – 1.31 monthly active mobile users
Mobile ad revenue makes up 76% of all ad revenue ($2.9 billion in Q2 of 2015)
Users share 1 million links every 20 minutes
Instagram

300 million active users
Social sharing site all around pictures and now 15 second videos
Many brands are participating through the use of hashtags and posting pictures consumers can relate to
Most followed brand Nike
Google+

300 million active users
Social network built by Google that allows for brands and users to build circles
Not as many brands active but the ones that are tend to be a good fit with a great following
Hangouts and Photos have been separated from Google+ but posts remain as ‘streams’
LinkedIn

380 million users worldwide
Business oriented social networking site
Brands that are participating are corporate brands giving potential and current associates a place to network and connect
79% of users are 35 or older

Ho Ho Ho Happy New Year

Don't you love new beginnings :) I'm so excited about 2011. As you can tell from my latest post, that time flies which is truly a while ago. It exactly did. It flew a way. I truly caught up within the beauty of my career in social media, my life, my family, my friends. But I don't regret a bit. I love what I do. I love my family, my career, and myself. I'm looking forward 2011, as the harvest year. I'm not setting up New Year's resolutions because my goals are not just for a year but a lifetime. I know that if you believe in yourself, if you believe in your dreams; nobody can ever stop you.

There were so many good memories and so many bad memories but what matters that I know how to learn from my mistakes, I know how to stand when things go wrong and most importantly I know how to smell the roses. I know how to enjoy my family as my quality time. And that is what matters to succeed in life. Your values makes who you are.

Its so good to be back and finding time to my personal blog. I love you all and wish you a Happy New Year. Enjoy your life :)

Time flies or stops, its in your hand :)

You know what I realize when I watch the timer when I set it up for 3 minutes while I was cooking. Time stopped. It made me realize if you are watching time and start counting seconds, time stops. If you rush for life, then its flies by. Days follow days, hours follow hours and before you realize it, here it comes Friday. Is it bad? No, definitely not. Who doesn't like Fridays'. Its the best day of the week. Than you can have some free time for yourself, for your family. But if your are the pusher, time flies and you can't enjoy it. So please STOP and smell the roses. Enjoy your day, your time, your hour, your second. Slow down. Life has a lot of simple things you can enjoy. But if you move too fast you will overlook most of them. So don’t be in a hurry. Don’t move too quick. Slow down and pay attention to the world around you.
Life is not enjoyable when you've taken the wrong path and slowly lost confidence, or when you are no longer happy with yourself. If this sounds like your life, you need to fix it!
Do what you love to do... Make your goals and sequence your steps to reach there. Believe in yourself and motivate yourself. Things will happen as you wish to see.
Try to do things differently, try to do new things, or try not to do things you usually do. Doing things differently could give you some benefits:
First it challenges your assumptions; many things which you have taken for granted may turn out to be incorrect. What you’ll find may surprise you.
Second of all, it opens new possibilities. Since you go “out of the box”, things which are normally not in your radar may now come to your life. You may find that some of those new things are very interesting and useful.
Here's a list of 101 delights that are worth enjoying today by Sarah McColl.
Be happy to be alive. Appreciate what you have, love yourself, share that love and most important; Enjoy your second.

My Daughter Got Her Braces Today

Everyday in life we're learning and experiencing new things. I believe if you have kids and if they need orthodontic adjustment; you probably get through this before. My daughter got her spacers last week and Dr. Cooper took them out and put the braces today. If you didn'tget through those stages; let me share my experience with you. Spacers are just little tiny rubber bands that they stick in between her teeth to "space them out" its like having a thick peice of floss stuck in your teeth. Spacer accually hurt more than braces especially since its like the first thing they do, and shes not used to any pain in her mouth. I gave her midol and stuff which should help. The pain last only the first few days. anyways, yes, if the spacers dont just fall out on their own from her eating or from the teeth spacing out enough, they just pull them out then put a big metal band around the back teeth and little brakets on all the others followed by a wire and some colored rubber bands of her choice! Like they did to her today. The colors was her favorite part. She picked pink and hot pink. They say, it just takes a while to get used to the pain.
The best experience about today was our choice. We picked Dr. Jeffrey Cooper and he made the whole process so easy for my daughter. She explained everything step by step. He acted so friendly and professional at the same time. I'm thankful to him and happy to have him in this journey.
Sometimes you make the right decision, sometimes you make the decision right.
Phillip C. McGraw #quote

But still I know that there is alot of pressure and pain, any suggestions about what to do for the pain for her?

Happy Father's Day

Since I took all my business post over to Promin Social Media; I decide to keep up this blog with my personal posts and about my life story. So for todays special edition; I want to talk to fathers. I love my dad, his name is Nejat Sencebe. He is a character. While me and my sister growing up. He told my mom that raising the girls is a big responsibility so he decide to be the authority and never showed his love to us but always the strict one. We were so afraid of him. He never allowed us to go out at night with our friends. You know when I realized that he loves me; the day that I got married. He cried. He really cried. That I told to myself woww- He loves me. Why he waited so long. As a little girl, you need him to hug you. You need him to be understanding. Later I've learned that after we slept; he used to come our bed and watch us; but without showing us so we don't saw his weakness. Isn't it sad? But it was the culture that I've been raised. And also I think he didn't raised up in a loving environment. He lost his dad at the age of seven.
He has one photograph that he kept as a treasure from his childhood with his dad. Even his father wrote on the back of photo that "9-3-1938 Necat kicked by a donkey, because he was a naughty boy and showing that he got kicked by his head"
After his father passed a way, my grandma sent my father to a boarding school. That was the main reason he didn't get the love that he was looking, he never know how to show his love. But today at the age of 46, I know that he loves me, and I want him to know that I love him and I understand him. So even if you have heartbreaks, even if you have problems with your dads; Call them today, Visit them, Hug them. Just be appreciated that you have a dad, my dad lives so far a way from me. But I'm so appreciated that he is alive, he loves me and I love him.

To my Father in Law Ismet Gunver that I also love dearly, I know he's watching us from heaven and I'm waving to him. Happy Father's Day Daddy

Privacy Matters

Okay lesson learned, I'll never say see you tomorrow, because God knows what tomorrow brings to you. In any case I'll write my life story time to time, it won't be like a diary. But for now I want you to look at an important subject with me. Privacy issues! There are so many things going on through Facebook and other sites. Its obvious that Some quitting Facebook as privacy concerns escalate . The issue with Facebook isn’t so much that information is being shared, it’s that information is being freely shared, but at the time of posting, people thought it was private. Facebook went from an “opt in” network to an “opt out” network. This is bad for Facebook users, but it’s a good teaching moment. As parents and pioneers in the social web, we can use this moment in time as a teaching tool. I definitely won't quit Facebook. But what I'm saying is that you should be aware of your responsibilities. You should be conscious. Consciousness is basically awareness. Awareness of many great things. Your existence, sensations, thoughts, surroundings, actions, etc.. By being aware, you have a better understanding of your environment. So instead of ignoring the situations, problems; we need to solve them. We need to teach our kids the Internet responsibility. Because those type of stories are really and truly heartbreaking. "Facebook Fake Lures Teen Nona Belomesoff Into Death Trap, Say Cops; Job Offer Ends in Murder" The more you get involved with social media, you are allowing more and more people to your online presence. But if and when you want to meet in person, you should do a big research, to see whether that person exists or not; who is he/she? There are so many online networks that one way or another it gives you the hint of that persons character. If you are not sure, please don't risk your life. There is Skype, that you can meet face to face, if its that urgent you want to meet. Privacy matters, Your Life Matters.

A Funny Combination

My Life Story -3



I'm a funny combination. I'm half Turkish and half Greek. It's pretty amazing how I have two great cultures in my family. My mother's side is from Crete Island, which is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands and the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea.



They were my mom's grandma and grandpa from Crete. My great grandma was such an important person for me. When I was growing up, she was the person telling me about Crete Island and great stories about Knossos Palace with a broken Turkish. After settling in Turkey, they kept their Cretan Greek just at home, and tried to speak Turkish. I remember while I was growing up, the woman family members of my family used to speak Greek, while they were gossiping. My grandpa was so strict about using one language at home and it was Turkish.

In this picture you can see my mom's parents.

So now lets look at my father's side, they were from Uzbekistan. They settled in istanbul after they moved to Turkey almost a century ago. My father was only 7 years old when his father passed a way.


After my grandpa passed a way, my grandma lived with my aunt and sent my father to a boarding school. He never received the love from his mother and he searched for it his entire life. He tried to keep his loving relationship with his mom, even when I was growing up.
So after this photo summary let me explain how this start effected my life. My mothers side was from Crete and they always had and still have a close relationship; a big family, lots of food and lots of love. My fathers side was always cool, distant, and didn't have many family connections. So as you can imagine it was the biggest conflict in my family. A huge conflict...
But that's it for today. See you tomorrow!

A Letter To God

I was thinking to start form the beginning, but as of very early this morning I changed my mind. You know why, let me tell you the story. It was Hidrellez last night, it's a Turkish spring festival, which is celebrated throughout the country. But more than that, there is a tradition that you write your wishes, go out and find a rose tree and plant them. Because whatever you wish for on Hıdrellez, will come true :) So as I've been told and did this so many years, I've keep this as a tradition from my homeland. Last night my older daughter, who is in college sent a beautiful message and I printed it out. My 13 year old came along and told me that she also wrote a letter. I didn't read it, she folded it and I planted it out at midnight. As of early this morning, I took it out and before putting them aside, I want to read it. So here we go:

"Please, my family has gone through a lot this year, bad days, tears and more. I love my family, they are the strongest people I know. If something bad happens we stick together and hold our heads up high. They sacrifice everything for us, love us, and do anything just to see a smile upon our faces. They are my family, my friends and my guardian angels. We all look out for each other through thick and thin. I ask that this year and all the years to come are full of happiness, love and success. Please help my whole family and to have wonderful years coming up. My family is more important than anything else in the entire world and they deserve so much and more. I'm still thankful for everything I have. My family are very fortunate to be where we are. I just ask for your help. I know you will guide us and lead us. -The love of a family is life's greatest blessing"

I wish all your prayers come true, see you all tomorrow :)

My Life Story

I have a pretty funny background. I'm almost 46 years old, just one life story, but when I look back it was like so many lives that I've lived. I'm pretty new at blogging. So every time when I decide to write something, it's challenging. Just to be honest with you guys, when I listen to others and almost have common stories, it always makes me comfortable that I'm not alone. So if you are reading this post now, you're probably thinking that you have the same moments. I believe sharing is everything, and thats why we are here. Thats why we are networking, not only to sell our products but to make friends and share stories. I decided to write my story, maybe there are only one or two people that want to be friendly and will say hi. Maybe they will read my story, and wont feel lonely anymore.
So please stop by and say hi, introduce yourself. If you are my Twitter follower or we are friends on Facebook, it will allow us to get to know each other better.
I want to thank my dear friend David Steel, who encouraged me to share my story. I hope he's right, so you'll enjoy being with me in my journey. Hope to see you all tomorrow as I will start from the beginning...

Don't be too serious, life is short

Are you having fun? Do you get a thrill from your work? Do you enjoy waking up each morning?

Myths about work can hurt your progress. "Work is not supposed to be fun." "You must buckle down and get serious."

Perhaps the biggest myth of all: "People will think I’m important if I act seriously." Yet getting serious creates problems: stress, worry, anxiety, emotional pain, drudgery and failure.

Resolving problems by getting more serious is like fixing a computer with a hammer. The harder you try, the worse the problem becomes.

"When life becomes serious, a man becomes less cause and greater effect. If life gets really serious, his value drops to practically zero. Driving a car can become such serious business that one can wreck the car. Running a business can become so serious as to make it fail. There is a direct connection between insanity and seriousness." "It is only when an individual progresses in life to a point where much seriousness is attached to things that he begins to have a hard time. The ancient Italian really knew what he was about when he considered that the only psychotherapy was laughter." — L. Ron Hubbard

12 Ways to Lighten Up

Approaching your life with a non-serious attitude gives you a clearheaded view of difficulties and the energy to deal with them. Problems are easier to solve, people are more cooperative and you feel more relaxed. You probably live longer and more successfully, as well.

Try these ideas until you find one that lightens you up.

1. Deliberately turn a molehill into a mountain. Make a big deal out of a little problem. "I would feel much better if these papers were stacked exactly like this! Not like that! Like this! Not this! This!"

2. Ask yourself, "Is getting serious about this situation really going to improve it?"

3. Focusing on the positives. "What is right about this situation?" "What else is right?" "What else?"

4. Consider a complete, major change. For example, go back to school, move to the ocean, start a new career.

5. Ask yourself, "When I’m on my deathbed, will I be glad I was so serious about _______?"

6. A challenging game is much better than no game at all. So consider losing all aspects of the problem. Examples: You feel serious about family problems. You ask yourself, "Well, what if I had no family at all?" You feel serious about your investments. You ask yourself, "What if I had no money to invest?"

7. The size of your problem may match the size of your game. So get a bigger game. For example, if you get uptight about paper clips being in the wrong drawer, your game size is tiny. Double your amount of responsibility. Set some huge goals. Succeed by thinking much, much bigger.

8. Stop trying to solve the problem that is making you so serious. Certain types of problems solve themselves if you leave them alone. Your problem may be one of those.

9. Compare what you are doing to other careers. Imagine being a septic tank drainer or a tax collector.

10. Make everyone around you lighten up.

11. Look at bizarre solutions. What is the craziest way you could solve your problem? What solution, if it worked, would make you laugh out loud?

12. Act stupid for a minute. Let down your hair. Stop being so darn important for a while. Be a goof!




"Copyright © 2009 TipsForSuccess.org. All rights reserved. Grateful acknowledgment is made to L. Ron Hubbard Library for permission to reproduce selections from the copyrighted works of L. Ron Hubbard."

www.tipsforsuccess.org.

A Hero Will Live Forever In Our Hearts

It was last Saturday, early in the morning. I heard the news. One of my friends son got killed in Afghanistan. Cpl. Michael D. Jankiewicz was killed at the age of 23 along with three others, when a U.S. Air Force Osprey crashed in Zabul Afghanistan. Michael was serving his fourth deployment in support of the War on Terror. He was currently serving as an Army Ranger, a member of the military's elite rapid-strike force that specializes in covert missions.

Could you guess where I first heard about the story from? I didn't hear it from my friend. I've came a across this tragedy in a Facebook fan page of our town Ramsey, where we all gather and be one great community. This great guy, so called Ramsey dude, leading a great page for our town. He's always on top of the news, he gathers us around our sorrows, problems, happiness, celebrations... I want to congratulate him for what he's been doing.
We gathered in Main Street this past Thursday to "Welcome Our Hero", nearly everyone along the route held tight to an American flag. “It’s extremely important for the family to know that, people loved their son and support what he has done” said Tom Egan, a Vietnam Veteran from VFW Post 850 in Glen Rock in an article last Thursday at "northjersey.com". It was so true, Michael's mother Serena told me that, she clearly remembers every person on the way. That made her so proud. That was at least we can do for the family.
As I was posting some updates on my Twitter account, I received so many responds from so many people all over the world. They cried for him, they prayed for him and the family. A heartfelt "Thank You", whoever joined our sorrow and became one with the family and showed a beautiful display of love and respect.

How to get ready for the week ahead?

Getting ready for the week :)
One of the best things that has helped me to keep focused on maintaining a better lifestyle is planning. On Sundays, like today, I like prepare a few things ahead of time for the week to come. For example, I revised all the work I need to accomplish during the week.

Anyone who is on a few social networking sites knows that it can sometimes be a little overwhelming. It can take up a lot of your time, and so you are thinking of ways to continue being on top of your social media life without forsaking all the other things that are important to you. So you should be prepared a head of time.

If you’re too tired keeping up with the real time options of tweeting, and you still want to “keep your timeline alive” throughout the day, there are so many really neat twitter schedulers lined up for you. Some of them ... HootSuite, Twuffer, Twaitter, SocialOomph.


I feel that preparing several things ahead on one day helps me make better choices throughout the rest of the week, and keeps me on track.

Go with the flow

I feel life is not treating me well lately, and it's only my fault. I always have trust in people. I always think that they're good and the love I gave; I'll get in return. It's not the reality. May be because of the economic problems we have lately. May be its my ignorance. People are using your love, your honesty, your friendship. They seem friendly, close until they got what they want. When I write this, it seems and sound harsh; but its true. So may be I have to take my guard and not to trust people in the first hand. May be I have to keep the distance. But I know for sure it'll effect my personality. Cause I need to trust my friends, I need to have faith in people. May be I have to go with the flow; what do you think?

Social Media Business Forum in Europe, Istanbul Turkey

It has been a while since I was able to write my blog post. I had many ups and downs during that time. I truly enjoyed the holiday season but it was not as relaxing as previous years. I put my heart and my knowledge in preparing a forum in Social Media and its effects in business world. There is a study conducted by researchers Nora Ganim Barnes and Eric Mattson, and the study looked at 148 of the 500 companies on the 2009 list. Respondents were asked about their usage and familiarity with six types of social media tools, including blogging, podcasting, online video, social networking, message boards, and wikis. While Twitter and other social networking sites have seen significant growth in comparison to previous years, some older social media tools such as message boards and podcasting has declined. The important part for me is; many companies that have not yet incorporated social media in their business operations say they intend to do so in the future. For example, 44 percent of companies without a company blog say they plan to start one, and 36 percent intend to use some form of online video.

That was quite interesting, it was a great study to show us the growing interest. My aim is to combine my years of knowledge and experience in traditional marketing with presently famous social media marketing in order to leverage the unified marketing efforts of my company.

The idea to carry this and starting a series of events to show "the relation and correlation between social media and business" ended up with an event named "Social Media Business Forum In Europe". I met and become friends with amazing people in social media environment during this journey. I partnered up with a great woman Elif Dagdeviren who was in written, broadcast and online media and entertainment business for the last 15 years in Turkey, both national and international, experienced in how to be a brand in those fields.
I have great speakers, who believed in me, who come along in this journey and be a part of a great team that I believe we'll work so many years together. Shelly Kramer, Tim Moore, Ty Downing, Jacob Morgan, Patrick O'Malley, David Steel, Darren Monroe Last but not least I want to thank my coworkers in Promin Group without their support and understanding none of this would happen especially my angel and lucky charm Candan Ustun Demiral. I want to thank you all. This is already a great success to me and hopefully we'll make it a global success together.
So why Turkey, Because I love Turkey. But more than that I truly researched similarities and differences between two countries cultures. Not only in Social Media but in general. This event will be a nice bridge between two countries business worlds, and show us how we can integrate social media to build up a different bridge that is already established in cyber world. So please if you are in Istanbul February 10, 2010 come and join us. If you are in another part of the world, join us with your hashtag #smforum and be a part of this journey with us.

5 Free Google Tools That Will Help Boost Your Ranking

Author: Kyle Pearce

Google wants to make it easy for webmasters that create compelling content to rank well on its search engine. Using these free Google tools you can optimize your website, improve your Search Engine Optimization (SEO) efforts and gain new insights into which keywords people are using to find information on Google.



Google Keyword Tool

https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal



The Google Keyword Tool is an indispensable tool for any online marketing campaign. Using this tool, you can find the estimated search volumes, Adwords advertiser competition and popularity of keywords. It is an excellent tool for finding new keywords since it provides extensive lists of related keywords and suggestions to help you generate new keyword ideas. You can then use they keywords in article or blog posts and target them to improve your rankings.



Google Webmaster Central

http://www.google.com/webmasters/



With a free account on Google Webmaster Central you have access to the important data that Google stores about your website. It can allow you to easily identify problems that the Google crawlers are having indexing your content. You can also view top search queries that visitors used to find your website on Google, backlinks to your website and even the code that the Googlebot sees when it visits your website. On the settings page, you can choose the Geographic Target for your website to specifically target search traffic in your local area. A new, recently added feature gives you data on how fast your website loads, which is a new ranking factor that Google has added to their search ranking algorithm.



Google Insights For Search

http://www.google.com/insights/search/



This is a tool that is similar to Google Trends but provides additional data that may be useful to your Search Engine Optimization efforts. When you enter a keyword into Google Insights For Search, you are given important data related to that keyword such as: search trends over time, regional interest in the keyword displayed on an interactive map and top related search keywords. If you are looking for ideas for creating a new blog posts, this can be a very useful tool.



Google Analytics

http://www.google.com/analytics/"



Every webmaster needs to know how visitors find, navigate and interact with their website and this is where Google Analytics comes in. This tool provides extensive data on your visitors such as bounce rates, popular content, keywords used to find your website on Google search, referring websites, unique visitors and average time spent on your website. You can also set conversion goals for when visitors fill out a form, make a purchase or visit a specific page on your website, which allows you to identified from which traffic sources you are getting your most valuable traffic.



Google Website Optimizer

www.google.com/websiteoptimizer/



The Google Website Optimizer allows you to test different version of your website to see which version is most effective at conversing visitors. It gives you hard data on which images, descriptions, headlines and layouts that are most effective in grabbing your visitors attention. If you want to keep your visitors engaged, this can be a useful tool along with Google Analytics to analyze and improve how your website is presented.

About the Author:
Kyle Pearce is an Internet Marketing Strategist at SmarttNet, a Vancouver Internet Marketing company. For more information on the latest Search Engine Optimization tricks and techniques, please visit our website at http://www.marketingsmartt.com

Article Source: ArticlesBase.com - SEO Tips - 5 Free Google Tools That Will Help Boost Your Ranking

IKEA's successful Facebook marketing

Social Media has grown tremendously this year. We start to see whoever dares to use Social Media Strategies in their marketing efforts also started seeing the results. IKEA has put together a very successful Facebook campaign to promote a new store and at the end of the day, it was a huge success.

The Swedish furniture company opened a new store in Malmo, Sweden and rather than just using only old marketing methods they decided to go directly to the people using Facebook. They uploaded several images from the Ikea showroom over the course of two weeks. Finally the interesting part was that the first Facebook user to tag his or her name on one of the products in the picture won it.

So if you dare to use it, you can enjoy the results :)

Social Media Optimization

Social Media Optimization – 5 Major Rules Must Have

Author: Kenny Gregg
Social Media Optimization or SMO is a set of methods for generating publicity through social media, online communities and community websites. It is in many ways associated as a strategy to viral marketing through the use of networking in social bookmarking, video and photo sharing websites instead of having the word of mouth created through friends or family. It is also considered as an integral part of an online reputation management or search engine reputation management technique for individuals or organizations that care about establishing their presence online.
As of today's marketing industry, SMO has been widely used by marketers to give their business a boost in authority for their websites. Through SMO, they were able to raise their site's performance and visibility in the entire internet marketing world. In relation to this, many are still wondering how SMO works. Below are the 5 major rules that can assist you while conducting SMO:
1. Boost your exposure through links. As you will notice in the internet community, many sites appear to be rarely updated. So if you want to optimize your site through social media, you need to update the content then use the links of your content to be visible on different social media sites. Adding a blog is a great step.
2. Use the power of tagging and bookmarking. You should add content features to your site like quick buttons which your audience can click if they like what they have read on your site. Be sure that bookmarking and tagging on your site is easy to find and navigate. Remember, typical visitors want a quick process.
3. Reward inbound links. Inbound links send visitors to your site. So it will be a good act to reward them since it helps to boost your site. You can encourage more inbound links if you are known to be someone who provides rewards back.
4. Aid your content travel. When your site has content, submit it to relevant site article directories. This way, your content is being noticeable to many sites and will help you to boost your own site if you provide a link in the article back to your original article.
5. Allow others embed your content. Letting others embed your content is a great way to prove your existence online. It also helps your content travel further and a more tendency of showing up to different sites.
Actually, SMO is easy. You just have to know the basics. After that, you will notice that you are increasing your site's visibility. And now that I have revealed the five (5) major rules, start from there. I will be updating these rules in future articles as these ideas get more sophisticated.


About the Author:

Kenny Gregg is a Kung Fu Genius with regards to MLM Secrets. Kenny is an expert on attraction marketing in the MLM profession, and if you want to learn and master his secrets to growing a Network Marketing Empire, visit his MLM SecretsFormula

Article Source: ArticlesBase.com - Social Media Optimization – 5 Major Rules Must Have

We are Thankful, cause we have too much to share

Its been a while I couldn't update my blog. So many things happened past couple weeks. First my partner in Turkey got sick, later myself and my family. Some forms of H1N1 and bronchitis, sinus infection. We postponed our event. So time to time, I feel sad, disappointed. But during those times, I felt how much I've been cared. So many friends shared their concerns, they helped me to ease my pain. They showed me one more time that, life gets easier when we share. I was thinking, "God this must be a curse" and a great person that I know from Twitter told me that "who knows that curse may actually be a blessing :) " It was true. It turned out to be a blessing.
It was couple days ago, I met a friend through my grocery shopping. She told me that one of our common friends is in the hospital with a late stage of cancer. She might not see the Thanksgiving. Three little kids, a very young age and a nice career. She worked so hard, too much stress. She is such a nice person and I'm praying for her and asking for your prayers.
We have so much to share, we share our knowledge through Social Media, we share our success stories through Social Media, and we share our friendship. I'm so Thankful this year; I have so many friends that I can ask their prayers for my friend.
Happy Thanksgiving :)

Instant gratification by Jemma @cousinslowpoke

Twitter is my new bff. I have been on twitter for just a few short months and I already cannot live without it. I would have chuckled if I had heard someone say this a bit ago but here I am saying it to you. We are in an era where we are always waiting for the next new and improved something or other. Most are dependent on some type of tech gadget like an iPhone, Blackberry, etc. Ever see someone misplace their phone and have a full blown panic attack from withdrawl? I thought so. I'm only 35 but I feel ancient remembering what life was like before computers, cell phones and cable tv. We are fortunate to be spoiled with so much technology to keep our ever growing appetites fed. Although I was never part of Myspace I assume their users experienced the same euphoria that I feel now with Twitter just as I did in my first few months of Facebook. I haven't resorted to Twitter being my set home page when I turn on my lap top but it is definitely the second site I check after my email. My hubby loves to make fun of me for always being on Twitter and I actually see @ signs when I close my eyes at night. So it is safe to say I am a Twaddict. Hello my name is Jemma and I'm a Twitter addict.

Now that I have made fun of myself I would like to tell you why Twitter, Facebook and the internet in general is so important to me. I was diagnosed with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis also known as ALS or Lou Gehrig's 5 1/2 years ago at the age of 30, right in my prime techie years. As a result of ALS I have lost the majority of my speech. So although most cannot understand me in person I am definitely heard online. It keeps me entertained from an otherwise mundane day due to my illness. ALS is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that will eventually leave my body paralyzed. So I am very grateful to technology for making my life easier and more fun while living with such an awful fate. While I cannot just pick up a phone and call a friend to chit chat I can still sign on to Twitter and chat away with my new friends until I lose the function of my right hand and my typing finger. Twitter is an open forum unlike Facebook that only connects you with friends and family you already know. I've "met" quite a few amazing people through Twitter and call them my friends. I am just hoping they are legit users and not men in a creepy basement wearing only boxers posing as my friends. Whether you are looking for friendship, business contacts, social media tools or all the above it's amazing how you can connect with people for a wide variety of reasons. I'm only on for the entertainment value and it has definitely lived up to what I expected of it.

No matter what kind of mood I'm in I can sign on to Twitter and find someone that shares my temporary state of mind. Amazing right? Feel like complaining about something or want to share exciting news with someone, well then jump on Twitter and express yourself. What a concept. Instant gratification. Now that's my kind of site. It also opens your eyes to others, other's issues, other's feats, etc. I've met people fighting a battle just like me. People that need the support and ear of someone that understands. It's not just about being silly it's also about learning of people and causes in need. Twitter is amazing like that because information can spread like wildfire. It's an online support system. Let's just hope Twitter isn't just a fad and forgotten like cameras with film because I'm not ready to lose my bff.

by Jemma @cousinslowpoke

Thank YOU Jemma, you are such a great inspiration, I'm honored to call you "my twitter friend" :) Jade