What If You Awakened & Twitter Was Gone | Lifestyle

by RickLondon

Recently, I was twittering away, taking the Internet for granted as usual, and suddenly it hit me. Imagine there's no Twitter. Easy but you'll cry. No Google below us, Bing could run dry. Imagine all the surfers stuck back on MySpace. You may say I'm a dreamer...but I retweet more than once......

It's obviously a bad parody of my favorite song, but it easily could be the case. Twitter, facebook, and all the other technological goodies were invented and run by humans. This means they can be here today, gone tomorrow. Yet many have latched on to the social networking scene, in fact, made it their lives, (I guess they have none outside of such online networks), and deem themselves gurus, life coaches, and any other vacuum cleaner with the hose aimed at your and my wallet.

Two years ago I started learning Twitter as my social media platform to do business. I was befriended by so many beautiful, wonderful, friendly people who "only wanted the best for me". They said they were at Twitter "to make friends". I think "to make friends" is a Latin term which means "to suck you dry of every penny they can figure out how to legally (or illegally if need be) from your pocket.

Fortunately most twitterers are not rip offs. It just turned out that many are so and they are loud, obnocious, steal ideas (and money if they can) and have to be reported. My wife and I often do so if confronted with it Once you are able to pull yourself out of that quagmire, you can start making individual friends with similar interests, conducting a search.twitter.com keyword search to find like-minded persons.

Of course there will always be people running all kinds of scams on Twitter and every other social network. That is the nature of humanity. If they are empty, and refused to get educated or learn a trade, they will sell "themselves" and "themselves" may be very toxic and hazardous to to your well-being.

It does not take long to find out who "the good guys are". They are consistent, supportive, honest, and often overflow off of Twitter into your life via phone or travel simply because you get along that well.

But even the best can get fooled. Last month an established publication called "Fast Company" or @fastcompany on Twitter. They truly used a lot of people to click on their own links which gave the participants more influence which turned out to mean absolutely nothing except we had a big name magazine who obviously was in trouble and trying to stay afloat. Tech Crunch exposed it and all the winners as well as Fast Company were suddenly silent. Very very silent.

Social networks remind me of The Boy Scouts in some ways; at least one in particular; "Be Prepared". That means, have your business built before you arrive. If you come shooting from the hip, it appears that you have come shooting from the hip, and are so scattered that the idea of focusing on any one thing that you do is beyond your scope. If this is the case, one is not ready for social networking, no matter how much one may rebel and call me on it. You can quote me on that.

For decades I have been developing products and graphics, or a viable service, with real testimonials and hundreds if not thousands of clients. i was ready for social media a long time ago; before it existed in fact, but only because I did my homework. I truly have something to sell. No snake oil. My products get delivered and have a 100% positive rating with over 10,000 transactions. You are actually ready if you are just starting, as long as you tell the truth, and ask for help instead of "giving it"; that is "ruining others businesses" or causing them great pain. A lot of self-proclaimed PR agents and life coaches are masters at this. Don't let them fool you. A real PR professional stays very much in the background and their clients are the focus. if a person says he/she is a public relations executive on Twitter, he/she is probably not. If someone else says so with a positive review, he/she probably is. If a 'pr agent" has to tell you how his work saved lives, he probably, again is not a pr agent, much less a person of character. I know countless people on Twitter and facebook who saved lives who've never made any public statement. In fact most, if they are of any substance at all.

My cartoon firm has over 125,000 manufactured products and we are partners with U.S. Keds and a chocolate company and my love quote shoes partners with Keds and has over 1200 pair that I digitally designed by hand. My main website has had over 8.7 million loyal visitors and features over 5000 color offbeat cartoons. My wife has over 15,000 digitally designed products under her brand from shoes to mouse pads. She is an amazing talent; much of it art, much of it photography and it lands on tees, mugs, and so much more.

I say this not for bragging rights, but to let you know none of this was an overnight success. I had worked 13 years in cartooning before things began to break, and my wife Lee had worked as an Ebay Powerseller for 10 years with a 100% positive rating with over 10,000 transactions. Not everyone has to have this record to be on Twitter and many have much better backgrounds than ours. I only mention this to prepare you so that you don't try to pretend to be an expert at something you are not; or, that you are an expert at something you may not have thought you were. Please don't get me wrong. You do not have to accomplish what Lee and I have to be in social media. My point is, wherever you are in your career, own it. Don't let a snake-oil life coach give you "The Secret" for $5000 or more and wipe you out. Know your accomplishments and be proud of them. If you own them, really own them, nobody can take them away from you.

DISCLAIMER: This article is provided as information only and is not to be taken as financial advice.

Londons Times Cartoons is Google and MSN #1 ranked offbeat gifts and intellectual cartoons since 2005 This article, What If You Awakened & Twitter Was Gone is available for free reprint.