Western Mass Homes Lesley Lambert

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On Friendship, Social Media and the Power in Numbers – For Clint Miller

The last two days have been sad for me as I heard that my friend Clint Miller is struggling with cancer and is in ICU. The outpouring of love and support for him on the internet has been amazing. We are using the hashtag #weloveclint on Twitter and there is a prayer group on Facebook.

A fundraising webpage was created for Clint and his family and today our friend Ken Cook is dedicating his radio show to support Clint.

Clint and I met through Twitter and formed a wonderful friendship. He has brought laughter, love, support, caring and kindness to me over the years. I share some thoughts here…please listen:

Clint was a huge supporter and inspiration when I first started blogging. He would give me amazing feedback and it is largely because of his encouragement that I found my voice in blogging. Clint worries about others and he does something about it. He calls, he messages, he comments, he engages and shares himself with so many.

Though we have yet to meet in person, Clint Miller is counted amongst my closest friends and I have spent the last two days sending him healing light, prayers and lots and lots of love. Clint is a fighter who has overcome amazing hurdles and remained positive and good. I know that later he will look on this as another obstacle he overcame. Please join me in praying for his speedy recovery from aggressive cancer. He gives so much and now it is our turn to give to Clint. There is power in social media, there is power in friendship and there is even more power when friends bond together in large numbers for the same cause.

Clint, get well and know that you are loved. I love you and so many others share that feeling.

Auto DMs on Twitter?

A fellow Western MA business person sent me an automated response via direct message on Twitter yesterday. This is a practice that I really dislike and shared my opinion with the person.

It got me to thinking, I wonder what other people think of automated DM’s?

Well, what do you think?

Create your free online surveys with SurveyMonkey, the world’s leading questionnaire tool.

“We are smart and we have boobs” A PodCamp Boston 5 Tale

“We are smart, AND we have boobs.”

THAT was my favorite part of Pod Camp Boston 5.

I love un-conferences, I love the energy, the opportunity and the people. I love hearing smart people share their wit and wisdom and I especially love the opportunity to share some of what I know.

This conference was especially good for several reasons.

#1- I got to go with my sweetie, Morriss Partee.

#2- I got to teach advanced Twitter to rockstars.

#3- I met some extremely smart people who happen to have boobs.

I want to spend some time with the third item on my list: the #smartboobs.

On Saturday morning I saw a tweet in the #pcb5 stream from Rakiesha Chase @rawrmeans143 who said she wanted to put together a “Girl Power” session during lunch. I was intrigued enough to commit and after lunch I wandered out to the patio to meet the other women who were curious, too. It was a small, but wonderful gathering of about 7 women and our conversation was stimulating and fun, but far too brief. We decided that we would re-convene the following day, but start earlier and allow time to really broaden our conversations. Rakiesha had initiated a conversation about a Twitter article about women that she had seen and we all agreed was insulting and limiting.

The following day we started to gather, and gather and gather. People just kept coming in (men and women alike) until the room was full with both our original group plus lots and lots more. This lively and intelligent conversation was by far the highlight of #pcb5 for me. How invigorating to be in a room with so many intelligent, caring, forward thinking people! They gave me the opportunity to tell the #TwitterQueens story (xox), too! We didn’t all agree (which is part of the fun), but everyone was respectful and open. This engaging conversation was both enlightening and entertaining and has given me many things to consider and work on. If you want to meet these power house PodCampers you can go on Twitter and search the hashtag: #smartboobs…designated by Tamsen McMahon. After someone commented in the session that we are smart and just happen to have boobs, this hashtag was quickly adopted by the crowd.

While I did attend sessions and learned lots from soooooo many brilliant and generous minds, my favorite parts of Pod Camp Boston 5 happened out of the sessions. In addition to “girl power”, there was dinner with a small, but special group of people and lots of fabulous hallway chats. I made real friends with several people who I found exciting and wonderful and I can’t wait to grow our little seedling friendship into one big, giant, social media tree.

A final thought. At the opening of the camp Chris Brogan and Chris Penn challenged us to ask for the help we needed and to give help where we could. This isn’t just a good Pod Camp thought, this is a great way of being. So I will close by telling my Pod Camp friends and readers of this blog that I am here for you. I know a lot about real estate, quite a bit about social media, I can teach dance and am a terrific listener. Let me know if you need me and I will do the same.

Excited for PodCamp Boston 5

Steve Sherlock and I running the registration at #pcwm2
I am very excited to be attending PodCamp Boston 5 this weekend. I am not new to PodCamp or unconference Camps at all, but this is my first PodCamp Boston and since it was the originator, I am extra excited to attend.

The real energy of a camp is the opportunity to meet new people (and revisit old friends) who share a common interest and a goal of sharing their knowledge with other attendees. The meetings started pre-camp for me via Twitter and the #pcb5 hashtag and was further facilitated by Chris Penn’s “Follow Friday” list today (I followed all of you!), but I really can’t wait to meet you in person!

As a REALTOR in Western Massachusetts, I have been exploring the use of social media for business and personal growth for a few years now. I love the fact that this journey is never-ending as the new media space expands, changes and adapts to the needs of the users. I have had an amazing journey with social media and am ever grateful for the gifts it has brought me.

I look forward to facilitating a discussion on “All Things Twitter” on Sunday. I love to discuss how I have utilized Twitter to meet people in my area who have become my friends and clients (and a boyfriend). I especially enjoy talking about “Taking Twitter Face to Face” and how to move off the online world and into a real meeting.

The thing I most look forward to is sharing discussions on things like Twitter with others who embrace the same ideals of networking and learning something new from them. If you are going to be there, be sure to say hello!

Real Estate Geek Girl

Many of you know that I am not only a real estate agent at Park Square Realty in Westfield, MA, but a total geek girl and that I love using social media for developing friendships in real life. I have been blessed with so many wonderful new friends and clients and even an amazing boyfriend because of my use of social media that I can’t help but share my success stories and encourage others to try using social media to grow their business and personal lives, too.

Recently I wrote a post for my column at Agent Genius Magazine that shared the truth, that most of my closed real estate transactions in 2010 came to me through social media in one form or another. The post got some attention within real estate circles, but I was floored last week when out of the blue Mike Myatt of N2Growth sent this tweet:

The link provided led to a blog post about people who have social media influence and included the likes of Chris Brogan, Gary Vaynerchuck and Dell Computers. Within the post was a video which included a highlighted quote from the Agent Genius post mentioned above. Watch this short and entertaining video which highlights Social Media Influence and includes yours truly:

This week I was featured in another blog about QR (quick read) Codes. The post was describing the multitude of applications for using a QR Code and featured this video about my use of QR Codes for marketing real estate in Western MA made for me by my talented and wonderful boyfriend, Morriss Partee. I learned about QR code technology at PodCamp Western MA and have been incorporating it into the marketing of my homes for sale in Westfield, Ma and the surrounding Pioneer Valley towns. This video crafted by Morriss explains what a QR code is and how I am using it to help my homes for sale stand out and get homes sold.

I am proud, excited and thrilled to see that my use of social media isn’t just improving my life, but I am able to share some of my hard earned knowledge to help other people working to use these tools.

If you are a fellow real estate agent looking to use social media as a tool in your marketing and prospecting you can read my contributions to Agent Genius Magazine.

If you are a consumer looking for real estate news and advice you can visit:

My personal blog
My real estate blog
My Masslive blog