It must be Friday. Time to catch up on what you missed with *FridayFavourites!

It must be Friday. Time to catch up on what you missed with *FridayFavourites!

Mick Sharpe of Bitingedge scopes the web to scoop the best. Fifty-second week of insight.

#webnews  

Originally shared by Mick Sharpe

Bon Anniversaire

Well here we are, No 52, one year of Google+ weekly roundups. There were times that I didn’t think I would make it and those times have been much more frequent in recent weeks as real work seems to have snowballed, but the finish line has been crossed! Don’t worry, there will be a #53, unless you tell me there’s no need ;-)

So on with the show.

Tools of the Trade for Bloggers was the topic for this week’s Blogging Warfare Show (http://goo.gl/5JtCYy) with the team of Robert Ryan, Thomas E. Hanna | BlogPhoto.tv and Carolyn Capern back together looking at all the things a blogger may need from the platform itself - Wordpress coming out on top there, through social listening tools to help you find new content ideaas and programs to help with the visuals. In the second half of the show the team were joined by Nicholas Cardot and the discussion moved into Wordpress plugins that can help get your content noticed and shared. Nick gave an overview of the new Social Warfare sharing plugin that addresses some of the shortfalls of the current crop of sharing plugins. Take a look it could be just what you need to give you the edge. My thanks to the team for providing some great advice through this series.

I have been a little remiss in not mentioning Bill and Ammon’s Bogus Hangout (http://goo.gl/7Sv8bR) until now - largely because it’s been one of the casualties of my recent time constraints. This Bill-less show features Ammon Johns, Kristin Drysdale, Ana Hoffman, John Moore, Manolis Sfinarolakis, Mark Traphagen and Nazim Beltran sharing a joke or two, cultural diversity (Haggis anyone?) and Brussel Sprouts! Totally unscripted this show can and does go anywhere, and is all the better for it. Favourite #squirrel in this show was the leapfrog from cats to Red Dwarf (one of the my favourite comedy series) You will be chuckling at this - Excellent!

Back to the small business

I’ve really enjoyed the UK Biz Hangouts hosted by Nick Rink and Lee Rickler (I’m won over by anything aimed at helping small business). The final show for this year, Content Marketing Essentials (http://goo.gl/BVM1rP) packs in some sound advice from two top content creators from the UK, Amy Harrison and James Dearsley. I particularly liked the content pyramid from James which clearly outlines the low hanging fruit that all small businesses can feast upon. Amy mentioned something that all businesses should heed - write for and about your customers and their needs. Writing about yourself will only attract your competitors looking to see what you’re up to! Looking forward to what this show will bring in the New Year. Is it too early to be talking about 2015?

Correcting course on the good ship Social

When passionate people get together in a Hangout it’s almost inevitable that the result will be eminently watchable and so it was with two shows featuring Guy Kawasaki and Peg Fitzpatrick talking about their latest book The Art of Social Media (launched this week). Jason T. Wiser called dibs on their first appearance for the #OnTrackTips show (http://goo.gl/HCcyTr) and sets the scene with his usual aplomb. Lots of great social media tips largely aimed at the #OnTrackTips small business audience.

Up next with Yifat Cohen in Solve the mysteries of social media with Guy & Peg  (http://goo.gl/zDMSTu). Some great takeaways from this including Guy’s Pay It Forward approach and that there is no one way to utilise Social Media. Test, test and test again always tweaking based on feedback. And as proof of the fact that we’re always learning, Guy and Peg find out that NOD3x allows scheduled posts to profiles in the latter half of the show.

Watch the shows, buy the book!

Don’t touch a dude and talk about how well he’s dressed!

That has to be the best advice of the week from Joey Giangola at the start of this week’s Fearlessly Questioning  *Your Sense of Humor* with martin shervington sharing his perspective on humour (I’ve put the ‘u’ back Alexandra Riecke-Gonzales). Surprisingly funny ;-) with another great piece of advice to make sure that you would be happy for your grandmother to hear or read anything you share. This always works unless your grandmother happens to work on an oil rig in the North Sea! Many thanks Joey and Martin for brightening up Thursday evening.

As I started with anniversaries I really should mention that Christine DeGraff is doing a one year on daily update of her inspired #31People project. I’ll leave you to find them on her profile but suffice to say they are some of the friendliest, most engaging people I have met here and would certainly be worth adding to your circles if you haven’t already - apart from a decidedly dodgy chap from the north east of England on December 20th!

Thinkers corner

I’ve been enjoying the for Dummies series from todd l lebeauc (http://goo.gl/eQEdPr) not only for the irreverent humour (I’m always a fan of that) but for the takeaway that we shouldn’t take all that happens in Social Media too seriously. I’m with Todd that the NERF gun is an essential tool for dealing with life, as well as social media.

Straight from the serendipity engine Bruce Marko was looking at influence from the other side in Be the Influencer (http://goo.gl/HKpv6T). Bruce speaks against the influence = popularity equation and invites us to be disruptive by being ourselves - that thing we are all uniquely qualified to be. This should be compulsory reading to all here and is something that we should all heed.

And finally…

I almost missed this special edition Dreaming with Entrepreneurs in Google+ (http://goo.gl/dgmJJF) featuring Eric Enge. David F Leopold always draws out something we didn’t know about his guests and so is always worth your viewing time. It’s always good to hear how and why people got started doing what they do and what influenced their development. Particularly interesting in this is the freedom that Eric Enge enjoyed in his early career and that empowerment he recommends for those employing others today. The biggest takeaway for me is make the decision, quickly, to either do or do not. A very valuable insight into a well known Plusser.


Have a great weekend wherever you are

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Created by Mick Sharpe of Bitingedge