Some folks are really great at connecting with people. Shona Lepis from Eye Design Studio has figured it out. I got to know her through Twitter and have really enjoyed the links and projects she’s shared. How can you personally brand yourself through Twitter?

What’s your business?
I have a boutique design studio called Eye Design Studio. Eye Design Studio creates artisan handcrafted design for web and print. We work with lifestyle brands to build their business with creative design solutions. We work with a lot of small to medium sized business to help them build their brand.  Eye Design Studio focuses on Visual Identity suites (logo design, custom Web site design, branded social media, email templates, business cards, letterhead).

When did you start using social media and why?
I happen to be a bit of a technology geek and love to learn and try out new things. I was at first skeptical about how social media. I decided to keep current and relevant I really needed to just jump in and embrace social media. I have to say I love it and find that it has been an amazing resource. I love to share links and useful tools and resources I find.

Has social media changed your business?
Social media has allowed me to build my personal and business brand online. By frequently sharing tips, design projects I’m working on,etc. People get to know me a bit more personally so they know my design style. I’m a bit personal in what I share but believe if you are authentic people are interested and get to know me a little more so they can tell if my design style would be a good fit for them.

What are you looking forward to social media changing in the future?
I think social media will just become part of our social fabric and everyday life. I think as technology keeps moving it’s exciting to see how many new tools are there and that “there is an app for that”. I love how the tools keep us connected and like we are part of a community. I work with an international team of with colleges in Paris, France and Bali, Indonesia and the tools make it possible.

Have a social media story you’d like to share?
In fact I do have a funny antidote. I was recently at a Halloween party of a designer friend. The invite asked that we bring a dish to share. I had just gone to another holiday party with the food and of course tweeted about it. (Going to a pumpkin carving party w/ pumpkin cheesecake dip served in a carved pumpkin w/ ginger snaps. http://yfrog.com/iyv1lj) When I got to the party someone said hey “I think I follow you on twitter, I saw you post about the dip.”. It was a funny moment and a great example of how real life connections are made in person from sharing and building a community online.

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If you are active on BizNik in the Portland area, you’ve probably seen some good articles and activity from Kaya Singer. Kaya has a very unique background, she’s owned a pottery business, been a family therapist and is now a small business coach. She has recently launched her book, The Entrepreneur’s Handbook to Money & Freedom.

It’s impressive how active Kaya is in communicating with businesses through Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook. Read below and learn how powerful online communication can be for a business coach.

What’s your business?

Awakening Business Solutions – I offer tools, process and coaching programs to solo business owners to help them overcome obstacles and develop a business mind-set.

When did you start using social media? What made you decide to try it?

I began social media as soon as it was available. I was on e-mail before most people. Communication is my focus and I loved the immediacy and the ability to create community with people world-wide.

How has social media affected your business?

It has allowed me to market to people world-wide and develop strong communities and relationships with people I would never have met. It has allowed me to put articles all over the world and make a huge difference in people’s lives.

What is one tool that you use the most?

Not just one. My LinkedIn group – Awakening Women in Business, my blog, Facebook, Twitter, BizNik, EZine articles and I am getting ready to move forward developing a membership site.

Have a social media story you’d like to share?

I was part of an e-mail group called “Powerful Women Entrepreneurs“. There were hundreds of women and it ran as a Yahoo group. The woman who facilitated it decided to suddenly quit so there was no place for all these women to go.  On a whim- one morning when I was on LinkedIn, I began “Awake Women in Business” and I invited all the women from the other group. Many of them came and then I also invited  other women I knew and posted it on Facebook and Twitter. It was active and involved almost immediately!  I love it as I am a natural facilitator, and it is a way to build community with women in business. It is also giving me some training for my new membership site that is coming soon.  I love working with women too so this also fulfills that need.

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There’s been a lot of excitement about cupcakes the past few years and Portlanders love to indulge in heavenly desserts.

One of the cupcake businesses in town, Cupcake Jones, has done an impressive job with their online marketing. Here’s just a highlight of what they’ve been up to.

1) Every Tuesday is “Benefit Day” – a way they can give back 5% of their sales to a cause. Cupcake Jones is great about announcing the different causes each week on Twitter and Facebook.

2) If you go to their Facebook Fan page, they have their most current menu and lots of great photos of their customers eating cupcakes and of weddings they’ve catered. They are also on the ball and reply to messages on their wall quickly

3) They are pretty active on Twitter and have a nice, warm vibe to their tweets. One thing that was stood out to me is they shared photos of some of the trick-or-treaters that came to their shop, that’s pretty cute.

4) I was so impressed how many reviews they have on Yelp and how they averaged to be very positive. It sounds like they’ve made a lot of folks happy.

Overall – Cupcake Jones has built up a league of fans through promoting, being genuine, and communicating on a regular basis through social networking tools. I hope they keep up the good work!

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I was wondering when this fusion of social networking tools might happen. You can now update your LinkedIn status with your tweets.

It’s actually pretty easy, just login into LinkedIn and they sync up your Twitter account to your LinkedIn account. They also ask if you want all of your tweets on LinkedIn or just certain ones – you are able to sort out which tweets you want by adding a tag (#ln).

It’s that easy. Here’s some steps to help walk you through it

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Twitter lists are all the rage right now. Twitter lists are simply allowing you to list your followers into groups. You can visit that list and view the stream, but not necessarily follow these people. Very nifty solution that I think a lot of us have been waiting for.

For example, if there are people who you’d like to follow, but don’t want them in your main twitter stream, you can add them to a list and then check up on tweets. It’s a win-win solution and helps you consoldate information.

Your lists can either be public or private. One of the easiest ways to create a list is to go through the people who are following you and with the dropdown next to their profile, mark which list you’d like to add them to. Lists are limited to 500 people and each user can have up to 20 lists.

Lists can be made up of:

1) Your peers or colleagues. I find it’s hard to keep track of my peers and it would be nice to have all of them in a list. Maybe they will start talking with each other too.

2) Twitter information folks you follow that provide useful tip, resources, information? Why not throw those guys together in a list. It’s a great way to share that prime knowledge and give credit to the thought leaders you are reading.

3)Specialty Lists – Want to keep a list of all your food carts you are following? Lists are perfect for those.

4)Employees – Get your employees tweeting with each other through Twitter      by creating a list for them

5)Targeted marketing & research – it’s good to keep up with the latest news of business trends and companies you’d like to track.

http://mashable.com/2009/11/02/twitter-lists-guide/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/catherine-ventura/new-twitter-lists-open-ho_b_346523.html

http://thenextweb.com/2009/10/16/twitter-lists-work/

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