Cloverdew Creative

♥ It’s Thanksgiving and you know what that means? Actually giving. And genuine thankfulness. For inspiring and amazing ways to spend your Thanksgiving, join social media socialites like Danny and Amber for Tweetsgiving. Don’t forget to add the hashtags #iamthankfulfor and #tweetsgiving to your Tweets of gratitude today and tomorrow.

♥ A few reasons to love Sweden.

♥ Beautiful, colorful, unexpected jewelry every artist and designer would love.

♥ DIY Style School 6-wk online course offered by Elsie and Leigh-Ann.

♥ OrangeBeautiful paper treats. (Boxes, stationary, letterpress cards, invites, etc.)

♥ The Nancy Drew themed fashion photo essay from BUST magazine.

You say you want a revolution, well, you know, we all want to change the world. You tell me that it’s evolution, well, you know, we all want to change the world. But when you talk about destruction, don’t you know, you can count me out. ~ The Beatles, Revolution

This year, not long after I started this blog, I joined 12for12k, a revolutionary group that uses social media to network and bring awareness to issues and raise money for charity. Started by Danny Brown, 12for12k makes donations to a different charity each month (this month’s cause is Doctors without Borders) and attempts to raise $12,000 in one month for that charity. In order to benefit from this initiative, the charity must be held accountable (a 501-c (3) organization, be able to provide financial records on request, use no more than 10% of the monies donated on administrative costs, and be accessible through a PayPal or credit card payment system).

Today is a very special day in the world of social media and non-profits, since Danny and others from 12for12k have organized Go Global 24, a 24-hour event including conversations via video, blog, and Twitter (#gg24) on health and fitness, business, arts and entertainment, social change, personal development, and travel. Instead of asking for donations from individuals to fund this event, however, everything is sponsored by companies (both large and small).

While the idea of charity work is neither new nor revolutionary, the commitment the members have to 12for12k and the outpouring of support for multiple causes is. Danny Brown has managed to bring together people on Twitter, on Facebook, and in the blogging community to support multiple causes throughout this year. Some of the charities that have already benefited: War Child, Stop the Silence, Share Our Strength, Hospice of Peel, Yehu Microfinance,  Unicef, and Eye Care for Kids. There is an active community of professionals from all walks of life from all over the world who come together to continually support these causes.  What’s truly amazing is that those involved have developed a cohesive online community and support each other in professional endeavors, as well as in their charity work.

Using Facebook, blogs, and Twitter, 12for12k has raised $361 so far for Doctors without Borders, funding Doctors without Borders. Let’s save some lives today. Every dollar counts. As Dr. Derek Shepherd from Grey’s Anatomy would say, “It’s a beautiful day to save lives.”

It’s no secret that I like to read and have extremely eclectic taste in literature. So, it would make sense that I follow a variety of authors on Twitter. Here are some of the best:

• Matthew Pearl (@MatthewPearl): Author of the Dante Club, the Poe Shadow, and the Last Dickens. Extremely gracious and interacts with fans and followers.
• Neil Gaiman (@neilhimself): Author of Coraline, Stardust, the Graveyard Book, the Sandman graphic novel series, Good Omens with Terry Pratchett, and many other works. Fun to follow and often promotes his events and posts special opportunities and other fun things in his Tweet stream.
• Holly Black (@hollyblack): Author of Tithe, Valiant, and Ironside, as well as the popular Spiderwick Chronicle series, and most recently, the graphic novels in the Good Neighbors series. Responds to many of her followers and fans both on Twitter and in general. She also has a public livejournal account, which she updates herself and receives and responds to comments in.
• Paulo Coelho (@paulocoelho): Author of the Alchemist, Brida, the Witch of Portobello, the Winner Stands Alone and many others. Updates a few times a day with inspirational quotes or words of wisdom in both Spanish and English.

This week’s edition of Twitter #followfriday recommendations includes some great men who provide helpful links, engage with their followers, and are genuinely awesome, as well as awesomely genuine:

	Christopher Scott (@christopherscot): Not only a great web designer, but also friendly and helpful. He’s a self-professed hipster technocrat and Apple fanboy, as well as animal lover, husband, and home owner. (Check out his site.)
	Peter Kobel (@TheEcoist): Peter sends out many helpful green links, his Twitstream is full of interesting articles, blogs, features, and talking points. If you’re into greening the environment, you should also check out his webpage and blog at www.peterkobel.com.
	Brian Cray (@briancray): Brian is has a wide variety of interests and skills, which include just about anything and everything to do with the internet and posts really great resources on all of them. If you want to know more about web development or social media, he’s your man.

Two very intelligent, very inspirational blonde women you should definitely be following on Twitter:

• Lisa Hoffmann (@lisahoffmann): is also known as New Media Lisa. Her blog frolics through the land of new media, including posts such as The Best Blog I’ve Never Read, which asks readers to recommend ‘undiscovered’ bloggers who contribute great content to the greater community; Twitter Is The Chuck Norris Of Ice Breakers, which starts a conversation about networking and making new ‘real life’ friends through Twitter; and Finding Inspiration on Twitter when in need of a mood-booster. This smart blonde keeps the good content coming on her blog and on Twitter alike. If you are in need of a mood-booster yourself, just take a look at Lisa’s picture on her Twitter page – that smile is completely infectious in the best way. Oh, and did I mention her plan for World Domination with Pamela Martin (see last week’s #followfriday recommendations)… all while shopping for shoes…  Now, that’s a smart blonde!
• Pam Stennett (@mistycliff): Pamela Stennett is one of my oldest and best friends, but that’s not why I’m recommending you follow her. This chick is all about conquering the world in small, but extremely important ways every single day. She’s a physical trainer, new mom (to Kai – just over a year old), entrepreneur, pitt bull rescuer, avid reader, and natural birth advocate. She’s been a vegan for going on ten years now and managed to keep her diet set even while pregnant (!!!), all the while staying in perfect shape and helping support her family with her husband and two dogs. She now has a very successful fledgling blog called I Write In Books, where she chronicles her many reading adventures, including literature, philosophy, and a feature called Kai’s Corner, where she reviews children’s books. If you’re an avid reader or are interested in natural birthing, she’s a must-follow. Plus, she’s one heck of a smart blonde!

Some hefty #followfriday recommendations from the forefront of social media at BlogPotomac:

• Amber Naslund (@ambercadabra): Amber is one of the most passionate people around. Her blog is thought-provoking, timely, and relevant. If you’re interested in branding, you should read her blog (AltitudeBranding). If you want to learn from her in many ways, follow her on Twitter.
• Beth Harte (@bethharte): One of the friendliest people and has a great mind for social issues, not just social media. She knows people, which is the most important part of marketing. Get to the Harte of Marketing with her blog or follow her on Twitter for updates, both venues have volumes of valuable content.
• Sonny Gill (@sonnygill): I’ve been following Sonny on Twitter for a while now, as well as reading his blog and he’s got great content about using social media and how to make use of the conversation. He’s smart, and a smart dresser, too!
• Frank Martin (@frankmartin): I just met Frank last night, but he’s a delight in person and on Twitter. His Tweets are phrased to make you process, think, evaluate. He writes a blog about marketing, called Marketing Magic. A great #followfriday for sure.
• Pamela Martin (@pamelamartin): I also met Pamela last night, wife to Frank, directly above. She’s a fun, funny, and interesting woman in her own right and has great Tweets. She writes a blog called ScatteredSpirit. She also shares my love for fashion, so that’s an obvious plus, as well.
• Arik Hanson (@arikhanson): Arik is the man behind CommunicationsConversations and a down-to-earth chill guy. He was kind enough to organize a pre-BlogPotomac dinner meet-up for the lot of us last night and was a great host.

There were so many more amazing people that I got to meet in the last two days. I learned so much and had a ton of fun while I was at it! I really hope to make it to another event like this in the future, perhaps the third and final BlogPotomac in October! For now, though, keeping up with all these great minds will have to occur on Twitter.

In learning much about social media networking and rapidly growing a fabulous community of friends, colleagues, acquaintences, resources, and other connections via Twitter, I have come across many a marketing strategy. In addition, people often reference the ways they find others to follow using this rapidly growing networking tool.  There are some who follow based on wefollow.com, others who use MrTweet, but I have found the most effective and rewarding way to follow new friends who are engaging, helpful, and great resources: Word of Mouth Tweet.

The best connections I have made on Twitter have come from adding people whose @names I see on friends’ Tweets. If I see someone’s name frequently, it means that they are engaging with others that I frequently interact with. If someone often recommends links or RT (retweets) someone’s links, perhaps that means I should follow him/her, as well. I have all but completely given up on the #followfriday hashtag because there are so many people who Tweet their follows without any rhyme or reason. However, if a connection of mine Tweets that someone should be followed, I will often check out the person’s profile.

That being said, I have a very short and simple process which I follow on deciding whom to add to my follow list on Twitter:

1. Is this someone I know personally? If not, is a friend or acquaintance of someone I know?
2. Is this person someone who works in a field that interests me and/or my followers?
3. Does this person post interesting original content in form of Tweets or links?
4. Does this person RT interesting content or links?

If I’ve aswered yes to one or more of the questions, I will follow that person. If, for some reason, I feel that their Tweets no longer benefit me in any way, I simply unfollow. No harm done. However, though I have unfollowed many from the MrTweet and wefollow recommendations, I have rarely unfollowed anyone I found through the Word of Tweet method.

What are your thoughts? What methods do you use to decide who to follow? Has that worked out for you?