As part of Chris’ continuing 100 Social Media tips, he posted some great tips for freelancers on how to leverage social media tools and techniques for more business/profile:

Summary

If you’re a freelancer hoping to use social media to get work, here’s a quick summary:

• Make your blog your storefront.
• Kill all the extraneous stuff from it.
• Write posts that establish your experience and abilities in the industry.
• Write other posts that promote other people, too.
• Contribute beyond the walls of your blog.
• Attend real time events, too.
• Consider if you want to add audio and video.
• Give to get.
• Ask for the sale.

What else do you successful freelancers ( a strong segment of people who come to my site) want to share with people seeking Starter Moves? What’s your take on this advice? What can YOU do to help freelancers? Source: Social Media Starter Moves for Freelancers | chrisbrogan.com

It’s pretty clear to me that these aren’t just good tips for the freelancer but also any blogger or social media wonk.

I think the hardest thing, as someone who blogs everyday (don’t forget I do this not only for fun, but as part of b5media we need to post everyday), is writing interesting things that people want to read and not just pass over in your RSS reader.

You might have noticed that I’ve increased how many posts I’ve been writing per day here.  Why you ask?  I realized that I used to write a lot and when I did, the ideas and connections to other blogger started to come in more and more.

That said, I need to follow Chris’ advice and get out of my bubble more.  Comment more.  Stumble more. Bookmark more.

Now to check twitter, RSS, and leave a few comments.

Ready to take your blog and blogging to the “next level” (whatever that means to you)?  Chris Brogan has seven really simple things you can do to help you improve your blog and blogging:

• Hire an editor
• Be the About
• Use FeedBurner 
• Pay attention to the FORMAT of your writing
• Make it easy to comment
• Tell us something new
• Start storing up posts for rainy days

Source: Seven Blog Improvements You Can Make Today | chrisbrogan.com

I try to work with the “if you can’t be first, be smarter” mantra (I know I’ve said that here before).  If you’re going to take the time to read this blog, I do want to make it worth your time.

One thing I like to do for a better (I think) blog and post is to stop and think.  Challenge yourself.  Are you contributing or parroting.  I read what lots of others are saying and either connect the dots or fill in the gaps.  Not always easy, and that’s why often I don’t post “big news” until later in the day.

For blog format, I should put more pictures into my stuff, but I forget.  I like the writing part, but a picture or two can really make a post pop out.

If you had to give your seven tips or add to these … what would yours be?

Next week I’ll be at the Affiliate Summit in Las Vegas.  Yeah, no I won’t be gambling.  I would like to ride that roller coaster on the top of the building though.  Regardless I’m on what is going to be a kick-butt panel talking about social media to affiliate marketers.

How kick butt?  Check out who is on it from Steph’s post yesterday:

In other news…it’s time for Affiliate Summit! I’ll be arriving in Vegas this Saturday, and excited about the Social Media Panel, which I will be on with the following Twitterati: Sam Harrelson (moderator), Deborah Schultz, Chris Brogan, Tris Hussey, and iJustine. Don’t forget to follow @AffiliateSummit and @asw08 (group account) on Twitter.

InternetGeekGirl will also be the hostess with the most-ess in the blog lounge, so we’ll pass them out there as well.Refreshments provided by B5 Media. Source: InternetGeekGirl gets ready for Affiliate Summit in Vegas, Feb 24 - 26

Justine Ezarik is a new member of the panel, which means we are even more kick butt than we were before and we have gender parity.  You might not think gender parity is a big deal, but it is especially at tech conferences.

As a bit of fun for the panel, like we weren’t going to have fun anyway, we’re all going to wear at least one of our favourite Web 2.0 t-shirts.  I think I’ll have on two or three so I can peel one off at a time (I think geekyfantastic will be first, last being b5media).  That’s not all … we want to toss out shirts to the audience during the panel, but not our shirts or shirts from our companies (okay I will have a bunch of b5 shirts), but your shirts.  Specifically I would like some Canadian start up/Web 2.0 shirts to toss out.

You can send shirts to Steph at her hotel (the info is in her post) or to me at mine:

Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino
3667 Las Vegas Blvd South
Las Vegas, NV 89109 United States

The panel is Tuesday, late afternoon, but I’m not staying at the Rio where the conference is so if you want to send them to me they have to be there Monday night.

I am looking forward to this panel more than any other that I’ve been on.  Heck I’ve been excited about it since I was asked to be on it after BlogWorld.  Not only do we have six of the brightest social media folks around, but we have six (okay maybe five if you leave me out) of the funniest and most engaging speakers around.  I don’t know if Sam is going to be able to keep us all in check (I see Brogan, Deb, and I being real troublemakers).

I had the chance to hear Justine speak, but only briefly, at BlogWorld so I am looking forward to hearing more of her thoughts and insights.

Pictures?  Oh you can bet on that.  Video?  Maybe.  I’m told that if I want to video in the casino I need a shadow/handler at $75/hr.  Now outside, that’s a horse of a different colour.

I’ll have a press pass as well and b5 is sponsoring the refreshments in the blogger lounge so count on some coverage, yes even live, from the event.

Boy good thing I just got new glasses/sunglasses…

All pictures by Brian Solis.

I saw this post earlier from Chris Brogan–Tools Restrict Your Thinking : [chrisbrogan.com]–and it got me thinking about work and how you get things done.

Chris is right, riffing off his idea if I got it right, the tools you choose to do your work defines how the work will be done.

Think about how you write a blog post or read RSS or even fix something around the house.  What do you use to get the job done?  Of course there is the right tool for the job, but sometimes I’ve found that just trying a new way is the key to inspiration.

I was trying NitroDesk today.  It’s a cool app, in beta, that lets you move pics from say Flickr to Facebook just with dragging and dropping.  It handles the leg work of transferring in the background.  Interesting … just moving data around like that.

There is my favourite mindmapping, which I know some people don’t get.  My daughter doesn’t nor does my best friend, neither of them think like that but…

Showing them a mindmap I did for my daughter’s project helped them focus on the ideas.  New tool, new way of doing things.

Maybe we should all take a sec and think about how we get things done and then see if there is another way.  If you post to your blog online, maybe try an offline editor.  If you read RSS through a client app (like I do) maybe trying Google Reader for a little while would be good (I’m going to to test the new aideRSS tool they have in private beta).

A tool is a means to an end and the end is the completed work.  Don’t let your tool become a barrier to that.