Archive for the 'Facebook, Twitter and Social Media' Category

The other day I passed by a man trying to take a photo of a restaurant. Intent on getting the best shot, he was oblivious to me or any other passer by.

Some time ago, I had to walk up an escalator which had come to a halt because of a crocs shoe that had somehow got stuck at the top of the escalator. Everyone was staring at the shoe and several cameras were zipped out from pockets and handbags.

At a car park, it is quite common these days to see someone take out his camera phone to take a photo of his parking lot to help him or her remember where he or she had parked.

With digital cameras and now cameras within mobile phones, everyone seems to be taking photos of anything and everything and sending them round. With these online college classes you can take your love of photography from a hobby to a career.

Whenever, I see someone taking a photo of his food, I would automatically think to myself that this person must be a blogger but it is no longer true. That may be the case previously, but now everyone wants to send photos of what he ate to his friend or to the world and update it on his social media page.

So far, I have not gotten into the habit of taking pictures of things around me. That is because I don’t have a phone with a camera. Perhaps if I had one, I too would be taking pictures of my food, my surroundings, the restaurant and that shoe stuck on the elevator.

Google+ is now open to public and everyone can sign up for a Google+ account now. I love everything Google (accept my fluctuating Google Page ranks) however I do wonder whether Google+ is too late now that everyone has their feet firmly tied up to the Facebook boat. Will they jump ship? Only time will tell.

At the moment, it doesn’t look that way because Google+ does not appear to offer many extras to ordinary users like me. It will really need to be extra special for people to abandon the FB ship. Twitter and FB is different but Google+ and FB is too similar, so its either one or the other.

I have both because it simply means another extra outlet to post my links and improve my traffic and get backlinks for my sites but if you are using it for networking with friends and family, you won’t need 2 similar social network platforms! Are you really going to migrate all your posts, photos, etc? Why should you? Unless Google+ really offers extra pluses.

Will Google+ give Facebook a run for its money? Will it outdo Facebook the way Facebook almost killed MySpace and Blogs? Only time will tell. In the meantime, if you want to give Google+ a try and yet remain on FB, you can marry the two either by adding Google+ into  your facebook or add your Facebook into your Google+.

It is rather quiet over at Google+ at the moment. Its only been 2 weeks since Google+ is open to everyone so lets give it a little time. Hopefully it won’t fizzle out the way Google Buzz did almost without a Buzz.

You can follow me on Facebook or Google+.

What do you do when you have to wait for a long time in a waiting room…… of a doctor’s office, clinic, dentist, government office, airport, work interview, to pick up your child after school or any other place where you have to wait for a long time. Do you..

• play with all the available apps and games in your tablet computer
• send countless sms, tweet and update your fb
• read
• have a catnap
• eat
• continually sigh while tapping your fingers and striding up and down

I am now an EzineArticle ‘expert’. Here is my first EzineArticle: How to use the Computer as a Learning Tool.

You won’t see MG or Mumsgather there because I am required to include an Author’s name. So that is what I did. What you see Mimi Koay is my pen name or author’s name. Since I prefer to keep my online privacy, I could not include a photo as well. Too bad, because a photo along with my bio would get my article included in the highly trafficked homepage of EzineArticle. Anyone wants to lend me their sweet and pretty photo for inclusion with my bio? Just kidding.

With that, I am now writing on my several blogs, on Squidoo, on Brighthub and on EzineArticles. Oh, and I still owe a website a guest post. What a lot of writing I have to do. Unfortunately my family have not been feeling well so I have taken some time off writing. Family comes first.

All this writing makes me crazy looking at dashboards.

• My Blogger Profile and Dashboard
• StatCounter Dashboard
• Google Analytics Dashboard
• My Squidoo Profile and Dashboard
• My Brighthub Profile and Dashboard
• My EzineArticle Profile and Dashboard

Looking at dashboards and all the graphs, charts, stats and numbers is more interesting than looking at stock market charts.

In all my 7 years of blogging, I have never been invited to do a guest post before! However, thanks to this very resourceful mommy blogger, I now have my very first guest post floating around in the blogosphere.

Germaine from Kiddothings is a very resourceful blogger whose learning curve on blogging is amazing! In just a very short time, she has done incredible things for her blog. One of it was this idea to have 100 tipsy friends (as she calls it) guest posting on her blog with tips on just about anything in life that are close to their hearts.

I am proud to be her first tipsy friend. Naturally I wrote about blogging. Here is my post on her blog: Top 3 Blogging Skills You Need. I am currently looking at preparing my second guest post which I will feature on this blog as soon as I have written and submitted it to the linkedin contact who invited me.

I am also looking at the idea of opening my Mothering Times blog for contributions from breastfeeding mothers to share their inspiring, insightful and sometimes funny stories. Reading stories from other breastfeeding mothers was what kept me going when it was so very hard. So since guest post is on my mind, I have decided to do a little more research about it.

So What is Guest Posting and How Do You Guest Post?

I like this infographic from MyBlogGuest Updates. It is self explanatory. A picture tells a thousand words.

Basically a guest post is a win-win situation for blogger and guest poster. The blogger gets a free (or sometimes paid) article on their blog in their niche from an expert they have invited or who invited themselves whereas the guest poster gets free traffic, promotion and more exposure.

Read this article too How to Guest Post to Promote Your Blog. It has some excellent tips on guest posting.

This one is an interesting read too  Guest Blogging To Pay or Not To Pay since many people do wonder whether there is a need to pay guest bloggers or otherwise.

To me, when you do a guest post, it is akin to writing an article. You must focus on the article and not on promoting yourself. You should write better than when you write on your own blog. After all, you would not go to your guest’s house dressed in shorts and slippers. You would dress in your Sunday best and put your best foot forward. It is the same with guest posting.

What about Accepting Guest Posts on Your blog?

Here is a good guide about accepting guest posts on your blog: The Ultimate Guide to Accepting Guest Posts On Your Blog.

However, you must be wary and not be fooled. Sometimes the term ‘guest post’ is used very loosely by some. I have received numerous emails with requests to do a guest post on my blog. One look at it and I know that they are free loaders. These are not genuine guest posters who will post a valuable article for your readers that is relevant to your blog.

These are companies or individuals who are merely trying to get a free ride on your google page rank or traffic. They often look like sponsored posts promoting a product or service. You should either ignore those spam emails or request for payment. It is your blog after all and you should control your content.

Recently I have submitted my first article to ezinearticles.com. I hope that it will get approved and published soon. I have also written and published a couple of my articles on Bright Hub. Besides these, I am busy creating my Squidoo lenses. I am slowly expanding my wings beyond blogging but blogging shall always be my first love.