Old dog, more new tricks

"Maybe I can retire before I have to learn this." That's a thought that actually ran through my mind in the 1990s when the Internet was new and I was struggling to figure out the brand new technology. 

That memory popped to mind this past week as I struggled to figure out Twitter. I signed up for Twitter because I know social media is critical to effective book marketing these days.

From a book marketing workshop run by Melissa Foster, I learned that effective tweeting requires posts a dozen times a day! And your Twitter effort can be accomplished in 30 minutes a day. Ha! Ha!  Just thinking of a dozen worthwhile things to say in a day boggles my mind. Melissa provided tips and tools (Tweetdeck) and a community (World Literary Cafe) to help make the task doable.

Right now, I'm bordering on overload. I spend more like an hour and a half a day on Twitter, which does not count the time I lay awake in the middle of the night trying to think of ways to fit my normally wordy self into 140 characters or fewer. Egads!

But, I did learn to use the Internet and from there, I set up my own website - a must for any author. Then I learned Facebook. Then blogging. With each new platform came new vocabulary and new skills. Now Twitter. I must believe I'll learn this one, too. And still find time in the day to write my novel.

I've always said that everyday that I learn something new is a good day. I guess this has been a really GOOD week!  Now that I have the Internet, I could no more imagine living without it than live without breathing. And that's hardly an exaggeration.

Will Twitter be like that? As I prepare another round of Tweets, I can only hope so.  In the meantime, I'd be honored if you followed me on Twitter - @CABodensteiner

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Melissa Foster is a best-selling author of several books, including  COME BACK TO ME. She founded World Literary Cafe, a supportive on-line author community,

Learning from others' crises

When I was in college, I took a self defense class during which I learned to ward off an attacker, break a fall, and use common objects to defend myself. Over and over again, the instructor threw me to the ground, attacked me from the front, back, side. We practiced until my reactions were second nature. The point was to be prepared, to learn the moves before an attack occurred. What I did in that class is no different than a company preparing for a crisis.

When a crisis happens to someone else, businesses have many reactions. The first is generally relief - Thank god that didn't happen to us! Some also express naive denial - Thank god that could never happen to us! What they would be wise to think is - What if something like that did happen to us?

Whenever a crisis happens, I find myself thinking, "What would I have done? How would I have advised that client had I been their public relations counselor?" The media are full of opportunities to exercise this thinking. The mental equivalent of my self defense class.

I guest blogged this week on ReasonedPR.com - discussing what went wrong from a public relations standpoint in the Susan G. Komen For the Cure - Planned Parenthood blow up.

The rules of crisis communication include: Telling it all. Telling it fast. Keep on telling it. A fourth is to Tell your own story. You can't always control whether a crisis happens to you, but you can always control how you communicate about it.

It's easier, I admit, to be on the sidelines for one of these exercises than in the frying pan. On the outside, I don't have the pressure of media breathing down my neck, the public banging on the social media door, or the CEO and board demanding, what do we do? Being on the outside also means I don't have all the insider info.

But there are guidelines to successfully navigating a crisis. It's best if you don't have to figure out what those moves are after a crisis hits.