Lucky for me twitter recently released a much needed report as spam feature. You simply go to the profile page of the spammer and the click the Report for spam button on the right tool bar. Here’s a picture of my brothers profile for reference (btw he’s not a spammer, this is just an example)

This should come in super handy. I’m going report as spam crazy over the next few days. You can find twitter’s post on the topic here.

Photo Credit: ‘Pong

Photo Credit: Sabino .

I believe a far better way to measure your effectiveness on twitter is around the idea of influence and interaction. How many people retweet or ‘@reply’ you? How many folks are talking about you or with you? Those are the real questions you should be asking. Your goal on twitter should be an authentic community, not a huge fake following.

*Twitalyzer is a great app for analyzing your twitter influence.

Photo Credit: woofer_kyyiv

I’ve never been to Teavana but apparently they’re doing a wonderful job of telling their story. How do I know? A close friend of mine recently showed up at the office with a brand new tea set in his hands and a fantastic tale on his lips. He’s a hard core coffee drinker but before I knew it he was spinning tales of ancient chinese tea secrets, the benefits of steeping in cast iron pots, and the fact that the freshness of loose leaf tea’s can be examined with the naked eye. He was absolutely raving and couldn’t wait to try out some of his new teas. Three days later I’m at my brothers house when out of nowhere he says, “You’ll never believe what I bought today!” Before I can blink he’s telling me the same story and letting me hold the beautifully designed cast iron pot, cups, and saucers. The enchantment was all around us, I found myself dreaming of sipping tea with the Dali Lama and other people full of wisdom and vitality.

Any company can make up a story as part of some marketing intiative but they’re quickly found out as frauds (especially with the rise of the internet where information travels faster than lightening). The best companies absolutely believe and embody their stories. They feel it down to their toes. For them marketing isn’t something that’s slapped on at the end and design isn’t an after-thought. Everything about the business is done intentionally, each piece a chapter in their grand narrative. Moleskine, The North Face, TOMS Shoes, and 37 Signals all have a story to tell and they’re doing a heck-of-a-job of telling it.

How about you? What story is your company telling?

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Two great books on this topic are Design by Tom Peters and All Marketers Are Liars by Seth Godin.

Photo Credit: vociferous.

Sometimes we think we can get through life saying yes to everyone. We hate the idea of letting people down so whoever is currently asking us for time or energy gets whatever they want, which gives us the illusion that we never say no. This is bull. The reality is that we’re saying no all the time, and even worse than that we’re lettings ourselves be bullied by the urgent and missing what’s most important. The key is to know your priorities and choose those each and every day.

Photo Credit: Ferran.

I think we begin the day with a certain amount of creative capacity, and our only job each day is to get that out of us. If you’re passionate about writing then you need to sit down and write, if you love sales then you won’t feel settled until you’ve called a potential client, if you’re a developer then the only way you’ll be happy is to hammer out a few divs. The weekends are no exception either because our creative capacity doesn’t take a day off. (I suggest doing something different on the weekends because mental rejuvenation is important, but you still need to create).

We were born to create, to try new things, to stretch ourselves just a bit each day. It can be difficult though because part of us just wants to just sit on our butts and do nothing. A part of us seems to think, “the less I do the more happy I’ll be!” Trust me, that’s a lie. For the sake of your own happiness leave nothing uncreated, empty yourself each day.

Photo Credit: fotologic

8 Personal Branding Leaders

Dan Schawbel

• Personal branding expert and author of Me 2.0
• Blog: Personal Branding Blog
• Twitter: @danschawbel

Luke Harvey Palmer

• Executive personal branding consultant in Australia & Founder of Buzzle
• Blog: The Chief Brand Officer
• Twitter: @lukefrombuzzle

Chris Brogan

• Advises businesses, organizations, and individuals how to use social media to build relationships and deliver value
• Blog: Chris Brogan
• Twitter: @chrisbrogan

Gary Vaynerchuk

• Owner of the Wine Library and wildly popular blogger/speaker
• Blog: Gary Vaynerchuk
• Twitter: @garyvee

3 Personal Branding Resources

• TweetTrak - Use this free service to track keywords on Twitter. Very helpful to track your own Twitter @ name to keep track of any replies or notes about you.
• Google Alerts - Similar to TweetTrak but in a broader sense. Google Alerts can track virtually anything said on the web or blogs and email them to you as they happen or in daily/weekly doses. You might use this to track your own name or general topics such as “personal branding”.
• Google Reader - A great tool to assemble and organize your favorite blogs. Google Reader lets you categorize your RSS feeds with tags which makes it easy to quickly get updates on a particular topic or category of information.