App of the Week – Isn’t Really an “App”
While I discovered some cool iPhone and iPad apps this week, such as Reflekt, and Merriam Webster’s Scrabble Dictionary app, that I will talk about another time, I’ve been focusing on my business this week. The Done Nesting site is coming along nicely though you cannot see it from the page that currently displays. That will change soon. I wish I could tell you all about it, but it just isn’t quite time. What I can say is that much of the site will be free to access and use with a simple, no cost, registration. There will be other types of registration and offerings for private networking and services. I have plans to take care of my sage sistah’s needs better than those yucky old platforms that sell your info and bombard you with crap. Oh! I just can’t wait to share it all with you! Stay tuned, but in the mean time take care of YOUR needs using Google Plus, or Google+ –whatever lexical presentation you prefer.
I’m so excited! Why? Because the time is right for women of a certain age, and experience level, to move en masse to launch the cyber presence of the “old girl” network. Groups are launching all over the place, such as Facebook, dedicated to the Soccer Moms and Mommy Bloggers who are moving into a more versatile phase of life than the one dedicated to raising small children. We are stepping out from behind all those labels and doing for ourselves.
I wanted you to enjoy the Annie and Aretha tune of “Sistahs are Doing For Themselves” while you read on but I couldn’t find a legit copy to include so I’m including this legit awkward to use stream of interviews/music of Annie Lennox. To get to the video I whose message matches up with this post, hit play, then that you can get to that video by clicking the triangle at the bottom right side of the video inset which shows a play list and then select the EPK1 video in which Annie talks about the changes we women make to accomplish our goals and experience our joys. LOVE that woman. Whew. What a lot of work to get to this video. But hey, it is free and legit.
After you click play, click the triangle at the bottom right side of the video inset and select EPK1 video to get the video I mention in post.
In order to network effectively, all social media needs to be pulled together into a coherent stream of information coming from you. If you are an advocate for a group, a writer or blogger looking for readers, an entrepreneur or business owner you will want to effectively use each social media platform as best you can and focus on the ones that best support your goals. Twitter and Facebook awareness and use are fairly common place now. Pinterest, Instagram, and Tumblr are image heavy social media platforms that are also very popular.
Most people don’t really think of Google as social media, but Google+ is probably the most important social media platform. It integrates with all things Google. Google is the Goddess of search. Yes the internet is female, didn’t you know? Check out the Feminization of the Interwebs that I wrote in April. Google search partially bases its rank and relevancy search scores on the +1’s added. Adding a plus on a post is one of the most efficient and effrective ways to have your readership support your site. Google plus does everything all the other social media platforms do, and it taps into search. Now that most SEO is defunct and extremely difficult to game, use Google plus, Google+, to stay up on search, networking, and connecting in ways you define. For more basic info I recommend checking out this slideshow by Irina Shamaeva.
D is for Done Nesting
I’m Done Nesting is the blog I’ve been writing for a year or so. I like the name, the tone, the friends I’ve made through it, but it just doesn’t feel right for all my stuff. Done Nesting was a Google hosted blog via blogger at blogspot.com. I have the domain name, donenesting.com, too. And if you read back over all the stuff I’ve written the past few months you will find that I have changed the site a couple of times and planned for a launch a time or two. Too many irons in the fire, I suppose. But it feels like the cautionary tale about the nail. Or perhaps the old ditty called either “Dear Liza” or “A Hole in the Bucket.” Not sure and not going to check out the song right now. The nail saying I will share.
I wonder if I really just needed to have the empty nest blog while I was preparing for my daughter to leave town. Nothing has really changed in my life besides her moving two thousand miles away in the time I’ve been writing it. I think I might have known that I needed adjustment time in preparation for the new phase of my life without my daughter close by. I suspect so. I think I was just doing what I needed to do to not be sad in the many months as we prepared for her leaving.
I think this because as soon as she was settled in her new life I no longer felt the need to write in the empty nest blog and found myself wanting to create this blog that is more encompassing.
I am planning out the new and improved Done Nesting site and that one will not just be for me but also for any and all folks who are empty nesters, grandparents, or non -parents, or anti-natalists who are now of a certain age where we know there will be not be full-time child-rearing from now on.
The first aspect of the site will just be listings of community member blogs. Eventually it will be more with blog hops, networking and writing challenges for the “too old to be a Mommy Blogger” or “looking forward to being an empty nest blogger” bloggers among us. Grand-Mommy Bloggers just doesn’t cut it somehow.
Let me know what you think!
Not Quite Success, But NOT Failure
Trying. I’ve been trying… It has been trying. And I am tired, but happy.
Lots and lots of life events in the last few months Important visit from the East Coast family branch was of major importance. My daughter graduated from college and I helped her move across country. I also visited family and the area in which I grew up for the first time since my mother’s death. Now my hubby and I are negotiating the new rules for the empty nest. So in keeping with my usual modus operandi of trying to do too many things at a time, I decided to participate in the February Nablopomo challenge on BlogHer. I wrote some good pieces but didn’t make the whole month challenge. My hosting company troubles ate up my “buffer” posts I’d stored up. Then taxes and converting our personal finance tracking software to a different platform did in the blog challenge. But our taxes are filed, and that is a good thing.
I write a lot, but I write in so many different places, I don’t think I can showcase my writing to its best advantage because it is so dispersed.
I tried having all my blogs be scraped and posted to my business site, but with Google penalizing multiply posted content, I don’t think that is such a good idea. This added to the dormant state of some of my blogs that makes me question whether it is worth my time to post new posts when I have new ideas to those that do not have an active, current readership. Plus the posting of personal blog posts on my business site just did not seem like a good idea, and I ended up censoring content I really wanted to share.
So I’m back in the search for how to blog my multiple passions, showcase all my writing, and still maintain some professional polish for my business.
I’ll keep you posted on what I figure out. How do you balance and present your different voices.