Use Twitter in a National Emergency...

You might be able to use this line of reasoning to your spouse to let you buy the new Droid or 3G iPhone, but better yet to learn a few high tech, social media tricks to help you during a time of crisis. Any other tips? Tweet us @thirstyfishinfo or leave a comment!

clipped from mashable.com Earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes — lately, it seems like there’s a new natural disaster wreaking havoc on poor planet Earth every week. From our television sets to our Twitter () streams, it’s impossible to ignore the devastation these disasters leave behind. Create a Plan According to FEMA, the best way to avoid significant damage during a disaster is to prepare an emergency response plan in advance. The FEMA website is a great place to get that process started. You can easily order ID cards online at places like Life360, a site that offers multiple mobile and web-based emergency planning services, including ID cards for your kids your 3G-enabled phone will likely help you stay connected in case of an emergency. Even though phone lines may be down or jammed, the 3G network won’t necessarily be out as well. This is how Twitter status updates helped locate a missing person during the recent Chile earthquake bookmark your local emergency services site Google Docs back up your important papers

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How do you use social media?

Cover via Amazon

Chris Brogan is the author of Trust Agents and a great pragmatist when it comes to social media uses. Here's a great bit of how to make social media cool and use it for some great power business tools. What do you do with social media sites like twitter, linkedin, myspace or facebook that is cool?

clipped from www.chrisbrogan.com Social media are a bunch of tools. They let us see things a bit differently. They empowered new ways of working together. But they’re just the tools. When this all gets cool is when we start really turning this stuff on our own passion projects, on our bigger goals, on what COULD happen. Start a public list of Twitter accounts from local businesses. Point everyone in your community to it. Start small mastermind groups on Google Wave (I have an incredible group going. Very small. Very useful.) Donate four hours a week to a charity, giving them more promotion and exposure for their causes, equipping them with more ways to find what they need. Connect to 10 people every day. Make it a blend of 5 people you’ve been in touch with, and 5 people you need to stay fresh with. Ask for nothing. Offer everything. ( Tim Sanders does this well.) Give your local school teachers or library a free class on how to use the tools for their projects.

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The Social Impact of Friendships and Lies | Social Media Marketing | Social Media Consulting - Convince & Convert

We don't trust the media anymore but we do trust our friends online. Should we really?

clipped from www.convinceandconvert.com Social Media Strategy Blog Social Media Consulting

What's your emotional trigger?

We all got one! Some of us have a "hair-line" trigger and blow at the littlest things. More importantly, for marketing, what are you using in your copy writing?

clipped from www.entrepreneur.com Once you identify the target audience for your marketing messages, you need to consider which emotional triggers you can connect to those messages. Following are 10 common emotional triggers that you can tie into your marketing messages to make the sale. Fear: Fear is an emotion that can be used in a wide variety of marketing messages. Insurance companies often appeal to the emotion of fear with messages like "Don't get caught with too little insurance." Guilt: Consumers are easily affected by messages that trigger emotions of guilt. Nonprofit organizations use the guilt trigger effectively in copy such as "Don't let them suffer anymore." Trust: Trust is one of the hottest trends in marketing, and every company seems to be trying to jump on the trust bandwagon in their marketing messages. Financial companies are leading the way with messages like "no hidden fees." Value: Belonging: Competition: Instant Gratification: Leadership: Trend-setting: Time:

Twitter Speeding Towards 10 Billion Tweets

I was just chatting with a couple of friends who still haven't gotten on board twitter. Why not? Is it too late? I wonder...Click below to get more info.

clipped from mashable.com About one year ago Twitter reached a huge milestone: one billion tweets. Four months ago, 5 billion tweets were served. And now, in about one day, Twitter

12 Questions to Ask Yourself about your business

I am not sure I agree with all of the ideas suggested in this post but there are some very good and very hard questions to assess your success (or lack thereof). The point I disagree with the most is the need to work on weekends. I am sure the author doesn't mean every weekend and I have had a few weekends where I do work but overall there should be a clear line of demarcation between work life and family life. The one question I really appreciate is "Are you a defeatist." So many of us are negative! We create most of our own problems and blame them on everything else. What are your thoughts? Tweet us @thirstyfishinfo or reply below.

clipped from www.entrepreneur.com Do you love your business as much as your family? Do you take responsibility for every aspect of your business? Do you play golf? Do you work on weekends? Do your workers respect you? Are you aware of all of your customers and their needs? Does your ego get the best of you? Are you clear in your directions and do your employees listen to you? Do you pay for performance? Do you pay yourself well? Are you a defeatist? Are you satisfied?

The old "David and Goliath" Marketing Strategy!

In this article Dan goes on to demonstrate that how this played out with a twitter post entitled: “Twitter plans to Mangle ReTweets.” He sets up the belief structure about how twitter is wrong and so, plays the villian. People identify with Dan and other tweeters as the victim and then act on Dan's request to fight back. The old David and Goliath strategy!

I actually read about this years ago from Guy Kawasaki about the making of software "evangelists" for Apple. He called it "blowing smoke up the nose" or some such thing. Obviously, Microsoft was the nose. Blowing smoke was to get PR and everyone who heard about it became the evangelists for the cause/company.

Who is your Goliath in your service/industry? How can you set up a belief system and use social media to blow the smoke? Thoughts? Share them by retweeting this now!!!

clipped from danzarrella.com Us vs them is one of the oldest, and most powerful marketing ideas. Apple is a quintessential example: from their beginnings they’ve portrayed themselves as the small guy against the big powerful bully. In 1983 it was IBM and more recently its been Microsoft. The company turns customers into evangelists who are more than happy to spread the word about the good fight, but how exactly does it work? If the listener accepts statements S1 through S99 they will act on S100.This is how many religions work, the belief system is the bait and attached to it is an evangelism hook. The letter then explores a more subtle variation based on a simple structure: The villain is wronging the victim. If the listener believes this statement, and believes that the victim deserves to be saved and if the villain is bigger or more powerful than them they will realize that the only way to effectively challenge the villain is to recruit more people to help. The evangelism hook is implicit, subtle and powerful.