For our 12 week Social Media adventure, we have setup a Twitter account called Meedeeah. Currently it is a blank slate. Since we will use this account over the coming weeks as a way of reaching out to people, we need to start following some key tweeters. The easiest way to do this is to break down what we will be covering and do some searches to find the key leaders in those fields.

I’ve listed below our twelve week outline by keywords. Lets take a look at the subject areas.

1. Twitter
2. Facebook
3. LinkedIn
4. Wordpress
5. Personality
6. Passion
7. Purpose
8. Path
9. People
10. Problem Solving
11. Place
12. Social Media

Since Twitter now has a list feature, we can set up individual lists that correspond to our subject areas. Each week we can find at least ten people to follow in each group.

For week one we need to get started by finding 10 great people that know a lot about Twitter. Lets start by doing a Google search… top ten tweeters.

Here are the results that came up on multiple lists…

Chris Brogan: @chrisbrogan

Mari Smith: @marismith

Liz Strauss: @lizstrauss

Gary Vaynerchuk: @garyvee

Michael Hyatt: @michaelhyatt

Guy Kawasaki: @guykawasaki

Brian Solis: @briansolis

Jim Long: @newmediajim

Laura Fitton: @Pistachio

Nicole Nicolay: @nik_nik

Let’s create a list called Twitter on our Meedeeah account and follow the 10 people above. Our Twitter page is looking better…

This will get us started with week one. Each week we will find some key people to follow for each of our subject areas. If you are new to Twitter, the list above is a good starting place. Some of the people tweet quite a lot, so your tweet list will grow quickly. As we go on, we will look at some cool ways to use Twitter and install some additional software. For today… enjoy your new tweet list.

The seven different areas are

1. Occupation
2. Bio
3. Location
4. New Sign Ups
5. Industry
6. Competition
7. Trending Photos

So how can we use these scripts to add to our Twitter experience?

1. Finding People To Follow: If you are new to Twitter, one of the first things you want to do is find people in your particular niche or interest area that are tweeting about subjects that are of interest you.
For Example, let’s say you are a writer and want to find other writers on twitter…
intitle:”writer* on twitter” site:twitter.com
will give you a great list of fellow writers to follow by searching by occupation.
intext:”bio * writer” site:twitter.com
will search the “bio” field in Twitter and list people that have the word writer in their bio line. This pulls up a lot of aspiring writers.

2. Find Tweeters Near You: As a writer, it’s always nice to get together with other writers for feedback and inspiration. Using this query (intitle:”writer * on twitter” OR intext:”bio * writer”) intext:”location * CA” site:twitter.com
will give me a list of people that have “writer” in their title or bio and list California as their location. You can refine this down by city or other prominent location. This would be a powerful way to organize a local writer’s group.

3. Find Newbies: Since Twitter is updated every second, the information is much more timely than other search engines. You can use Google Alerts with the queries above, to e-mail you or send you an RSS feed when a new person joins Twitter with the criteria you have chosen. As an example, if you are a publisher, this would be a great way to find new writers in your particular niche.

4. Filter The Noise: If you have ever looked at a general Twitter search, you have probably noticed that you get a lot of noise and misappropriated results. By using a filter, you can more specifically target your key areas. The Twitter query
“writer” OR “publisher” OR “book deal” filter:links
will filter by three keywords and only return a result if there is a URL link in the tweet. This cuts out the noise and give you important links to more information.

5. See Both Sides of the Conversation: When you look at an unfiltered Twitter stream it may not make much sense since many times you are looking at one side of a conversation. By using a from-to filter with the tweeter’s name, you’ll have a much more complete picture. For example…
from:chrisbrogan OR to:chrisbrogan
results in a much more complete picture of what is going on with Social Media guru, Chris Brogan.

Clicking on the “show conversation” button in the search results will highlight the entire conversation for an even better view of that particular tweeting exchange.

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As you can see, John’s queries are very powerful. Just replace the keywords we used above with your own for powerful results. In our next post we’ll use some of these queries to find 100 cool people to follow on Twitter.

For a business or personal niche site, you’ll want a customized background that lists your name, contact information, and a blurb about your product, service or niche.

There area few common ways to do this. You can go to one of the popular Twitter background sites and download one of their free offerings, create one in a high end graphics program like Photoshop, or have a designer create a custom one for you.

Unfortunately, most people don’t have Photoshop and spending a hundred dollars on a custom background is probably out of the budget range, so many people go with a free background that has a branded logo on it.

If you have Powerpoint on your computer though, you can create a custom background design in just minutes with all of your data on it along with a photo of your choice. You can pick from literally thousands of backgrounds, fonts and colors.

Here are the steps to create one. I’m using Powerpoint 2007 on a PC for this tutorial.

1. Open Powerpoint and select a blank slide.

2. From the layout menu, select the blank slide theme.

3. From the design tab, select page setup

4. From the page setup menu, select On-screen show 16:10 for widescreen monitors or On-screen Show 4:3 for standard monitors. I’m using a widescreen monitor for this tutorial.

5. For this tutorial, pick the Apex theme from the design menu. You should now have a blank slide with a grey sunburst design as a background.

6. From the insert menu, click the shapes button and pick the rounded rectangle.

7. Click and drag a vertical rounded rectangle in the approximate size and shape as shown above, near the left border of the slide.

8. Click on the rounded rectangle you created above and then click on the Quick Styles Menu located on the Home tab. Select the black fill box with the white outline. This will format your rounded rectangle as shown.

9. Right click on your icon and select edit text. This will put a cursor on your rectangle. Enter the text you want for your background. You can change the font and font size from the menu on the home tab.

10. To add a picture, click the picture icon from the insert menu. Select a picture from photos stored on your computer. Once the photo opens, resize the picture smaller so it fits on the top of our rectangle as shown below.

11. Right click on the picture and select a custom frame from the picture Tools format menu. You can adjust the color and line weight from the menu.

12. Save your Powerpoint presentation on your computer and then hit the F5 button to view your finished slide. It should look similar to the one above. If it looks good to you, save it to your computer clipboard by hitting the Print Scr button at the top right side of your keyboard. If you need to continue editing, hit the escape key to go back to the main screen.

13. Once you have captured the screen to your clipboard with Print Scr, we need a way to save it to our computer. Unfortunately Powerpoint does not do a good job of saving JPEGs. The best way to get our screen saved is to paste it into a paint program. With most versions of windows the built in “paint” program works well for this task.

14. To open MS Paint, go to your start menu, select all programs, select accessories, and then select paint. Once paint opens, click on the blank screen and then hit control-V on your computer to paste your clipboard into the program. You should see your created page open in the program like the picture above.

15. From here we can save it to our computer as a jpeg. From the file menu in paint, select save as and save it to your computer as a jpg with a file name you recognize. Make sure the save as type is JPEG.

16. Now we can open Twitter and save it as our custom background. Login to your Twitter account, click settings and click on the design button. At the bottom of the page select Change Background.

Please Note! Changing The Background File in Twitter Will Replace The Old Background File and The Previous Background File Is NOT Saved. Please make sure you want to change the background before saving the new file. There is No UNDO Button!

Select the file you saved on your computer and click the save button. You’ll now have a new custom background

17. Now you have a custom background. If you need to make changes, just reload the Powerpoint file, edit the text, and follow steps 12-16 again.

Lets set one up for our new Meedeeah domain name that we setup yesterday.

Step One: Open a web browser and go to http://twitter.com

You’ll see the following login screen. Since we don’t have a login yet let’s click on the sign up now button.

On the next screen you’ll be asked for your login information. Sign up as follows…

Once we click the sign up button, a confirmation e-mail message will be sent to the e-mail account we signed up with. Click the confirmation link to complete the signup process.

Step Two: Setup your profile.

Login to your new account and click on the settings button in the top menu.

Click on the profile tab and fill in your unique information.

Step Three: Final Setup

Now you are almost ready to start communication with the world.

You have a 140 characters…

Tomorrow we will make our profile better by creating a unique custom background, and then start following some people.

Then we will start tweeting.

Stay tuned…

But what if you have a common name like mine. There are thousands of John Richardson’s around the world and all facets of that name have been used multiple times. As a blogger for five years, I have quite a bit of traffic to my site, yet I fall on page three or four on Google when searching for my name. I tell people all the time to search for “goal setting” instead of my name to find me.

In any type of web presence, an easy to remember domain name is a must. It should be as short as possible and contain keywords that match your business or niche. It should be a dot.com if at all possible. Having your name available is a huge plus. But what if your name or keywords aren’t available in a dot.com name?

You do have some options…

1. You can purchase a dot.org or dot.net or if you do video a dot.tv. The problem with these names is Google tends to rate them lower than dot.coms and most people will not remember the other extension.

2. You can buy a domain with three or more keywords. For example, if we wanted a unique name in the social media niche we might come up with socialmediaadventure.com or socialmediagrandadventure.com to use on our sites. The problem with these names is they are long and somewhat hard to remember. The longer a name, the more apt they are to be misspelled. The other problem is they do not lend themselves well to a login name.

3. You can use fewer words and use dashes to separate them. You might find social-media-adventure.com is available when the no dash version is not. The problem with these is that people can’t figure out what character is a dash and you may have a conflict with another web site.

4. You can make up your own custom name and use this as your domain name. Names like Google, Viddler, Flickr, are some popular variants of this idea. While you can get a rather short name this way, you will probably have to tell people how to spell it and most will not contain a keyword. The good news is, you will not need a URL shortener for Twitter.

Here is where a dictionary comes in…

Lets take a look at some popular keywords and their pronunciations in a popular online dictionary. These sound out words are all currently available at GoDaddy.

social = soh-shul

media = mee-dee-uh

adventure = ad-ven-char

millionaire = mil-yuh-nair

social media adventure = social-media-adventure

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For our 12 Week Adventure we went with MEEDEEAH.COM

Meedeeah will make a great login name and is only eight characters long. It is a sound out word and is instantly recognizable as replacement for media.

Over the next few weeks we will setup a blog and other social media using our new domain name.

Question: What alternative domain name would you choose for your niche?

Over the next Twelve weeks, I want to take you on an adventure through the amazing land of social media. We’ll discover Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and end up in the emerald city of Wordpress.

Along the way, we’ll meet some amazing people who have created impressive businesses, raised money for compelling causes, and created unique niches that never existed before.

Take a look at the video above and then get ready for adventure.

I’ve been pitched enough faulty products, unworkable MLM businesses, and million dollar get rich schemes, that I am skeptical about anything that seems too easy or doesn’t require much time and effort.

Yet… what if someone handed you a cool new product and wanted you to endorse it… would you have enough faith to do it?

This is what heavyweight boxer George Foreman faced when his boxing career was coming to an end. A small little kitchen appliance company wanted him to endorse a little two sided electric grill and put his name on it.

The company gave George a sample grill and wanted him to use it. But George, just put the grill on the back shelf and never bothered to try it. He though it was a gimmick. The company called month after month and George just brushed them off. It wasn’t until George’s wife pulled the grill off the shelf and gave it a whirl, that she realized what a great product it was. “George, you gotta see this,” she said.

She told George how easy it was to use, and that he should give it a try. After months of ignorance, George finally tried a hamburger on it. It cooked quickly and both sides were done at the same time. It turned out juicy and full of flavor. George made a decision right then and there that would change his life forever. That day the George Foreman grill was born.

This little grill took off slowly, but with George as the pitchman, it soon became a household name. Almost everyone has a George Forman grill of some sort and we all have George’s wife to thank for the discovery. The George Forman Grill became the best selling electric appliance in history.

Yet without a stroke of luck, George Foreman, would have left that billion dollar product on the shelf. It begs the question…

Do you have a billion dollar product or idea sitting on a shelf somewhere?

A great way to explore your options is to pick up George’s new book, Knockout Entrepreneur. He gives a great outline on what it takes to be successful through the analogy of a heavyweight fight. He tells you who needs to be in your corner and what obstacles you face in your bout. It’s a great read, and if you are a blogger, you can get his book (and others like it) for free through “Book Sneeze.”

I highly recommend the book to anyone starting a business, especially the guys who love boxing. He’ll take you round by round and help you take on the world.

In each case you have to imagine Doing the action and then putting a huge red circle with a slash through it.

Imagine saying to yourself all day… I can’t have ice cream, I can’t have ice cream, I can’t have ice cream…

What are you really focusing on… Ice Cream.

The definition of diet is…

A selection or a limitation on the amount a person eats for reducing weight: No pie for me, I’m on a diet.

Instead of focusing on what you CAN’T have… why not create a diet checklist of what you can have.

As you partake of each healthy item throughout the day you can check it off the list. This way you are focusing on eating good food, and the great items you’ll get later in the day.

Make your checklist enticing with adjectives that describe your food in a positive light.

Breakfast: Warm aromatic oatmeal with ripe red strawberries

Snack: A sweet ripe banana

Lunch: Delicious Turkey Sandwich with a flavorful side salad

Dinner: Amazing Apple Glazed Chicken Breast with sautéed mushrooms.

If you stick to your checklist, you’ll eat great food and stick to your calorie goals. You’ll be thinking in a POSITIVE manner all through the day.

Here is to your checklist success!

Question: What Items Would Be On Your List?

I personally would like to see a few things included that will make this one of the most revolutionary products of all time.

For iBooks to be a success they should have…

1. Clear and Easy To Read Fonts. This should be a no-brainer but Apple has used a different font technology in the past that has resulted in slightly blurry text. This can be hard on the eyes after a short period and I truly hope they research this thoroughly before releasing their first book. Give us a choice, but make them razor sharp.

2. Full Color. As much as I like the e-paper technology of the Kindle, I think Apple can blow this one out of the water with easy on the eyes color backgrounds and contrast levels. Give us parchment, paper, and other smooth textures that give us a sense of the real book. Give us full screen and highly tested contrast and brightness levels that will allow us to read for hours at a time.

3. Sound. Give us the option of ambient sound effects to set the ambiance of the chapter we are reading. If we are in a forest, give us birds chirping and leaves rustling. If we are in the city, give us traffic sounds and distant conversations. This feature, will be used to great effect by some people, but others will HATE it… so please Apple… give us a way to turn it OFF.

4. Video. Give us interactive video clips. This can be huge for how-to books. Imagine turning a page on your iBook and having a video clip open up with someone showing you step-by-step how to complete a project. Imagine a fiction book that takes place in New York. Give us a video clip of the area to set the stage for action that will take place in our minds. Video will truly set this device apart if it is done right.

5. Voice Activation. Say turn the page and have the iPad turn the page for you. This simple addition will make all sorts of hands free activities possible. Imagine putting the iPad on your kitchen counter in it’s holder and having Rachel Ray take you step by step through her latest recipe. Just say “Turn” when you are ready to go on, and the onions you are chopping won’t get all over the screen. This will also keep the touch screen much cleaner during normal reading.

6. Note Taking. Give us a simple command to have the iPad record our voice for note taking and annotation. It should also be easy to highlight and save passages for later review using bookmarks, and be certain to allow at least some cut-and-paste for blog excerpts and quotations.

These are six things I want to see in this new device. How about you?

What features would you like to see in Apple’s new iBook reader?

Here are three quick ones that come to mind from my life experience.

1. Savings Plan. Save at least 10% of what you earn.

2. Set Long Term Goals. Write them down and plan action steps to complete them.

3. Faith. For me, faith in God is so very important. Everything else revolves around it.

These are three that would be at the top of my list. What about you?

What Items would you include on a Success Checklist?