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Jason "Need more business?" Sanders - Business Networking Specialist

A Series of Poor Decisions: The Twitter Song

If you're a fan of disturbing story lines, and you like twitter, I bet you'll like this video. It definately made me smile, scratch my head, and laugh. Whoever conceived this idea is way more creative than me.


This video definately has the potential to go viral, so don't be surprised if you start seeing it everywhere. But don't forget you saw it here first! To give credit where credit is due, Brandon Mendelson (@BJMendelson on Twitter) introduced it to me. I hope you like it!


To get the full impact, make sure you enlarge the video to full screen size!


I can't wait to read your comments!



Jason Sanders

Business Networking Specialist


Business Networking
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What Michael Jackson Meant To Me

It was such a shock to get the news that Michael Jackson has died today. I found myself a lot more upset than I would've expected to be. There will be people who will continue to dwell on his flaws, scandals and the negative stories that have plagued his reputation. He wasn't perfect, but since those stories will no doubt be there, I'm choosing to dwell on what the man meant to me.

Thriller dropped in 1982. I was a 5 year old kid. The first time I heard the album in its entirety was on vinyl (ooooohhhh exotic!). As a kid Michael Jackson was everywhere. His songs were all over the radio. No one could hear them enough. But as powerful as the music was, it was only half of the experience.

Eeeee Heeee!! Oooowww!!!!

Watching Michael Jackson perform on TV was magical. I guess it was a coincedence that MTV was just getting started right as Michael Jackson was achieving mega super stardom and an international celebrity status. Through his videos, Michael Jackson blew my generations mind. He transformed his music into a multiple sensory experience! They were like mini movies with engaging plot lines and filled with dance moves that no one could have even imagined. Me and my friends were totally inspired and enthralled.

The first clothes I remember wanting were parachute pants and the Michael Jackson red leather jacket with the zippers everywhere. Instead I got a pair of fingerless gloves. The first thing I did was give one gloves to my best friend, because after all, you only needed one glove to be cool. I remember catching flack from my mom because I wanted to wear my penny loafers from church everywhere I went. Hey, Michael Jackson wore loafers everywhere, why couldn't I?

This isn't me, but I wanted it to be!

Bottom line, in the 80's Michael Jackson was King. He ruled the radio station airwaves, MTV, conversations everywhere, and little kids imaginations. Media was so different in the 80's. There was no internet. No 24 hour news coverage. Entertainment news was covered by Entertainment Tonight. To a large extent consumers didn't have as many options as they have now. If you wanted to hear a song, you waited for it to come up in rotation on the radio or on MTV. There wasn't the luxury of looking it up on YouTube or cuing it up on an iPod.

Michael Jackson no doubt benefitted from peaking at a time when the laws of supply and demand heavily favored the artist. But no one can deny that Michael Jackson the artist and performer knows no equal.

And as I sat getting choked up over the coverage of his passing on the news, I realized that, to me, Michael Jackson represented a place in time when I was a kid and where I was just discovering how big the world is, and the heights of what an individual can accomplish. Compared to artists before him, Michael was light years ahead. Michael Jackson was the pinnacle of entertainment. He changed the game for everyone who followed him. The biggest testament to his impact is that people all over the world are mourning the loss of his great talent. The loss of a piece of their childhood. People just like me all over the country are getting choked watching the television coverage. Many people, just like me, haven't played a Michael Jackson CD/MP3 in years, maybe decades, but that doesn't diminish the respect we have for his talent, the love we have for his music, and the love we have for what Michael Jackson, the artist, meant to our childhood.

Jason Sanders @ValuePagesGroup
Business Networking Specialist

www.TheValuePagesGroup.com

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TVPG Radio is Featuring Rich Bradley and "27 Ways For Businesses To Get Positive Publicity"

This Week's Guest: Rich Bradley

Rich Bradley, Business Marketing Specialist

TVPG Radio InformationThis weeks radio show promises to be excellent! Rich Bradley is this weeks guest on TVPG Radio's Get More Business Show! This week we are back to our normal time. Please Join me at 11:30am Eastern on Wednesday June 24, 2009 at http://www.blogtalkradio.com/get-more-business/2009/06/24/Get-More-Business-Featuring-Rich-Bradley-Business-Marketing-Specialist. Rich is the owner of Proforma Creative Services. Rich is a bundle of good ideas, positive energy, and funny jokes! He specializes in helping businesses create measurable marketing campaigns. For decades businesses solved their marketing problems by throwing money at them, but in the past 5 years, the market has changed drastically. Business owners need to be aware of their options and be able to maximize their return on investment. Rich taps his diverse background as a journalist, public relations specialist, and marketing and product development executive to help businesses make smart marketing choices.

On our show, Rich will be sharing his proprietary list of "27 Ways For Businesses to Get Positive Publicity" for the very first time! If you're looking for effective and measurable ways to promote your business, you owe it to yourself to listen to this weeks show.

Feel free to spread the word about this weeks guest and invite your friends to listen as well! If you have questions for Rich, have them ready and I'll make sure I get his answer for you. (You can email them to me, pose them in the chat room during the show, or buzz in on the call line and ask them live over the phone.)

(If you miss the live show, you can always listen to the recorded podcast later by clicking on the link above or by using the player below.)

Jason Sanders @ValuePagesGroup
Business Networking Specialist

www.TheValuePagesGroup.com

The One Click

TVPG Radio is Featuring Active Rain's Own Sheila O'Mara On The Get More Business Show!

This Week's Guest: Sheila O'Mara

Photobucket

TVPG Radio InformationI'm super excited to have Sheila O'Mara as my next guest on TVPG Radio's Get More Business Show! Please Join me at 1:30pm Eastern on Wednesday June 17, 2009 at http://www.blogtalkradio.com/get-more-business/2009/06/17/Get-More-Business-Featuring-Sheila-OMara-ASC-Owner-of-Staged-So-Right. Sheila is the owner of Staged So Right and a frequent Blogger here at Active Rain. If you have ever had the privilege of talking to Sheila, you know that she is a fireball of energy and enthusiasm. Sheila loves what she does and it shows. She is passionate about helping people and that passion spills over into everything she does. Equipped with a giving spirit, a knack for creativity and a gift for promotion, Sheila is doing the hardest thing a small business can do: Carve out a niche and create demand for a product no one knew they needed. Along the way she is energizing her community around projects that have a long lasting impact. Her brand of marketing is a model for any Small Business, Entrepreneur, or Solopreneur. If you can tie your business to projects, ideas, or movements that are bigger than you and your products or services, success will find you, instead of the other way around.

We are constantly hearing how social media is the future of marketing and how we have to put ourselves out there to be found. Often when it comes time for the rubber to hit the road, we become paralyzed by the following questions:

  • Where is my voice?
  • What do I have to say that's really important?
  • Why would people want to listen to me?
  • What sets me apart from the next guy?

In the social media age, content is king. It's hard, if not impossible to consistently generate content if all you're doing is setting behind your desk staring at your computer. If you can relate to any of these issues, please don't miss this show. Sheila and I will be talking in depth about strategies any business owner can use to generate free press for their business while really making a difference in your community....all with little to no money invested. If you want to know how Sheila is accomplishing all of this and would like to know how you could implement her strategies for your business, you need to listen to this weeks show!

Feel free to let your friends know about this show! If you have questions for Sheila, have them ready and I'll make sure I get her answer for you.

(If you miss the live show, you can always listen to the recorded podcast later by clicking on the link above or by using the player below.)

Jason Sanders @ValuePagesGroup
Business Networking Specialist

www.TheValuePagesGroup.com

The One Click

Twitter Tip - Reach More People W/Your Replies - Don't Limit The Reach Of Your Tweets

Find me on Twitter!Twitter is on the surface deceptively simple. When you first log in, it doesn't seem like there's too much to it. In fact, I didn't even totally understand how to use the Twitter interface for a very long time.

It took me experimenting with twitter applications such as TweetDeck and Seesmic Desktop for me to start to realize what the platform was actually capable of doing. In many cases I ended up reverse engineering the results I was getting from those applications in order to finally understand how to achieve the same thing through Twitter's online desktop. It often looks simpler than it actually is.

I picked up this tip I want to share with you from my latest guest on TVPG Radio's Get More Business Show through BlogTalkRadio. I was looking over Brandon Mendelson's Twitter account (@BJMendelson) and I noticed him prefacing his replies to other twitter users with an exclamation point.

Example:

! @ValuePagesGroupThe trick with Friendfeed is to create filters to organize everyone. Once you do that it's much easier to follow.

!!!Exclamation Point!!!Brandon is an extremely smart guy, so I started wondering why he was making this small alternation to his tweets. Then it hit me!

Whenever you reply to another user on Twitter, normally your tweet starts with: @ThatPersonsName. Twitter automatically recognizes any tweet beginning with "@" as a reply. Reply tweets are only received by the individual that you are addressing them to and anyone who may be following both you and the person you are sending the reply tweet to.

By adding the exclamation point to the beginning of the tweet, it takes what essentially is still a reply tweet and changes the way Twitter handles it, so that all of your followers can see that tweet, instead of only the followers who are following both you and the person you're talking to.

This simple tweak can get you message out to a lot more people!

A word of caution: I would recommend only using this when the message you're sending has potential value to more people than the person it's addressed to. In other words, don't abuse it. Not everyone wants to know where you're going for lunch, or how your bowling team is doing.

I hope this tip helps you use Twitter more effectively!

Jason Sanders @ValuePagesGroup
Business Networking Specialist

www.TheValuePagesGroup.com

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