The Sunday Salon and... Are We the Sum of Our Tweets? Connecting via Social Media

Welcome to The Sunday Salon and The Sunday Post! It's that day of the week bloggers from all over the internet get together virtually in a large gathering place called The Sunday Salon and talk books!  And at The Sunday Post, which is a weekly meme hosted by The Caffeinated Book Reviewer, in which more bloggers share their bookish news!!

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I was thinking the other day about Twitter and those short inspired tweets that we put out there for people to read. And it's just not any people, it's the people who have chosen to listen to you. Of course, I'm a blogger and I blog about books, so most of my followers are bookish people. Do they know me just from my tweets?! Are we the sum of our tweets? Now we mix in other social media, such as Facebook, which somehow through the glory of whoever, now tweets what I post there, which has become more "personal" through time. Originally I started my Facebook account as a way to connect with my readers from Chick with Books. But of course, Facebook is a place to connect with friends and relatives, my non-reader peeps. (Okay, yes, everyone is obligated to read Chick with Books even if they are friends and relatives, probably more so actually) In any case, a friend of mine tweeted me and said I need to post some photos on Facebook. Why?! It's my book thing, not my personal thing. Well, okay, I post a photo... and with that one photo I start to connect with people in an entirely different way. There is a face behind the "Chick with Books". Now, every once in a while I post about, dare I say, personal things... and eventually over the last few years, there is more to me than just my Tweets. And there is more to me than just books.


Facebook is the place to connect. Pinterest is the place to pin. Linkedln is the place for the professionals. Meetup, Tumblr, Reddit, Myspace (I can't believe this still exists!) all are social media places that welcome you with open arms... but do you have time for all this socializing in front of your computer screen... or phone... or iPad... or whatever that connects you to the World Wide Web?!

I have to admit that I have enjoyed reconnecting with people I've lost while growing up, and meeting people who share my bookish passions, and I've even indulged in watching a few cute kitten videos. My only wish would be that instead of the "virtual reality" we have with all our social media outlets, we could have more "reality" places to say hello.

Please keep the tweets coming, and the photos and the links and the sharing of your daily lives. Because we are more than our tweets! And I have enjoyed getting to know all of you!

Question? What social media outlets do you use? And do you get "personal" or go strickly by the book (no pun intended)?

10 Things I Learned During Bloggiesta! And My Bloggiesta Wrap-up!

Bloggiesta 4 Wrap-up!

Almost 76 hours later and the 4th Edition of Bloggiesta is almost over! Wow, what a fun weekend! OK, work, but fun! Not only did I learn a whole bunch of great new things, I met some great bloggers and visited equally great blogs that I discovered while tweeting and participating in #bloggiesta with the 200 plus other bloggers!

Now, nursing a strained knee (and a fur baby who is recuperating from major surgery) meant I was homebound this weekend, so this year I was able to devote a lot of time to Bloggiesta. So, here are the highlights of...

10 Things I learned during Bloggiesta 4

1. Labels & Tags Challenge... This mini-challenge was all about labeling your posts so people could easily search your blog for relevant information. ( and for us bloggers that happens in the footer of our posts) What I did was create a tab at the top of the blog for "Author Interviews", and "Reviews", and have been slowly adding authors/books with links so readers have one place to look for these. Thanks to Beth @ Beth Fish Reads for hosting this challenge!

2.Google Forms Challenge... This Challenge was all about learning how to use Google Docs to create forms. You need a gmail account, which I have, and what I did for this challenge was to create a form for future giveaways. You can see a sample of this type of form on my recent Sunday Salon. I also created a "contact me" form, you can find by clicking on the "contact me" button in my sidebar. Thanks to Jen @ Devourer of Books for hosting this challenge!

3. Organize Thy Books Challenge... This Challenge was all about organizing the books you receive for review and that you review, but it could easily help anyone who buys books! Jenn of Jenn's Bookshelves talks about using Google Docs to make a spreadsheet to keep track of your books, and using a virtual bookshelf, such as LibraryThing, to keep track of your books. What I did was create a spreadsheet in Google Docs with info to keep track of the when, where and who of the books I receive. Thanks to Jenn @ Jenn's Bookself for hosting this challenge!

4. Mr.Linky/Linky Tools Challenge... This Challenge was all about learning how to create "Linky's" for your blog events. Helpful for reading challenges, and link-ups. I learned how to create both types of Linky tools Thanks to Jen @Teach Mentor Texts. Thanks for hosting!

5. Backing up your Blog flashback mini-challenge... This mini-challenge is called a flashback because it was from last years bloggiesta, but there are always links to the previous challenges that were particularly helpful, and backing up your blog is definitely helpful! In 3 easy steps I was able to back-up my blog "just in case". Thanks to Farm Lane Books for hosting this challenge!

6. Anchors Away flashback Challenge... This flashback challenge was about using good descriptive text to link to the actual location in your blog posts. Instead of writing Here is Chick with Books and creating the link with "Here", it's better to write Here is Chick with Books and linking with the actual location. Lots of blogging reasons for doing this and Thanks to Michelle @ Galleysmith for hosting this challenge!

7. Google Alerts Challenge... This flashback challenge was about setting up Google's search engine to email you with current information posted on the WWW on a particular topic of your choosing. Anyone with a google account can do this, topics range from your favorite football team to "your blog". Thanks to Emily @ Emily's Reading Room for hosting this challenge.

8.Designing You Own Buttons/Banners mini-challenge... This challenge was to make either a button or banner for your blog. Callista of SMS Book Reviews listed some great free sites to help accomplish this. What I did was make a "Contact Me?" button, put it on my sidebar and linked it to a form that allowed someone to contact me. Callista @ SMS Book Reviews hosted this challenge!

9. Best Email Practices Challenge... Trish of Hey Lady Whatcha Readin'? offers 11 great tips on keeping your email organized! And gives us 5 reasons why gmail is the best email server. This is great advice for ANYONE who has an email account. I spent some time over the weekend cleaning up my email, although I have more work to do to organize it better. Thanks Trish for hosting this challenge!

10. Your Review Policy Challenge... This challenge is for solely for bloggers. It's a great post, and very informative about what you should include in your review policy that is typically somewhere in your blog, either a separate heading or included in "About Me". This is something I am working on. I tend to be a little anal about these kind of things and it will take me a little more time than this weekend to put it together, BUT I want to Thank Girls Gone Reading for hosting this challenge!

I did visit lots of blogs! And took a peek at all the challenges and mini-challenges! All the challenges were creative and fun! I wish there were more time to participate in all of them! Thank you to all the Challenge hosts for taking the time to write great & informative posts! Thanks to Natasha of Maw Books Blog for organizing & hosting this wonderful blogging event! Thanks to everyone who stopped by this weekend to offer help, a hello and a "you go girl"!

Did you participate in Bloggiesta 4? What challenges did you find the most helpful?! Have a great rest of the weekend! There's still a little time left for challenges, so have fun to anyone still counting down the time to the end at 8am monday morning!

Get Ready for the 4th Edition of Bloggiesta!

Bloggers Get Ready for the 4th Edition of Bloggiesta!

Are you a Blogger? Then this is the event you've been waiting for! The 4th Edition of Bloggiesta! It's 76 hours of Planning, Editing, Developing, and basically working on your blog! It's a blogging marathon with 169 bloggers (and counting) that are participating!

Here's How to Participate:

*The dates are: Friday January 21st, Saturday the 22nd and Sunday the 23rd. You can really start whenever you want within that time but official hours are 8am to 8am (wherever you are). That is a total of 76 hours, the hours spent on the challenge do NOT need to be in a row. Use the entire 76 hour time frame and see what you can do with it.

*It’s your call as to how much you want to put into it. But you have to put something into it or it’s not a challenge. So stay up all night or sleep and take care of kids when you need to.

*When you start the challenge, go to Maw Books Blog ,(she's graciously hosting this BIG event), and to the “starting line” post and link to your specific post about beginning the challenge which is posted on your blog. That way I’ll be able to track participants and know who’s really at the party.

*How many updates (if any) you want to do is up to you. Make it work for you.

*There will be bloggers hosting mini-challenges as well. These are great to learn new information. To get an idea of the mini-challenges last time, check out the list.

*If you are on Twitter, use the hashtag #bloggiesta to join the chatter.

*Your final summary post needs to be posted no later than end of the day Monday, January 24th. Come back to the finish line and link to your specific summary post (again- can be that same post you’ve been updating). Your summary should include the number of hours spent on the challenge, what you accomplished, links to mini-challenge hosts if you completed them and any other experiences you’d like to add.

This is such a fun event for bloggers to share, inform and work on their blogs! Blogging is a year round fiesta, because we are constantly tweaking, redesigning and sharing with our readers, but Bloggiesta is especially fun because so many bloggers participate together. If you're not a blogger, you can still participate by visiting blogs and cheering us on as we work together to create the best blogs we can together!

Happy Bloggiesta!