The thrill of social media has brought me out of the frozen silence

It has been a winter around here that would chase polar bears away. The cold and dark have seeped into everything, including my blogging gene, hence the long silence. (Just letting you know that the only big C that I am currently dealing with, as far as I know, is the cold, not cancer.) What finally brought me back to the keyboard was a visit today to a University of Omaha marketing class, where I heard a great speaker: Bryan Jennewein (Director of Social Media at Infogroup). His tips would work for any cancer patients and their families who are considering integrating social media to spread the word about their condition, treatment, and recovery. Some notes that I took:
-use all privacy settings available on social media such as Facebook. If you want only your selected family and friends to read about your cancer experiences, limit the access. If you are doing a fund raiser, maybe you want a new page to announce the event(s), rather than open up your main Facebook page to strangers.
-if you wish to find out your standing in the blog community, you can check it out at Technorati [http://technorati.com], but you will probably have to make a claim on it first through your account. You can also check to see how your blog shows up by searching through Google Blogs, like this one I did for mine: [http://blogsearch.google.com/blogsearch?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&q=cheeky+librarian&btnG=Search+Blogs].
-get others to link to your social media account, if you are trying to get the word out.
-involve your readers by asking for comments (I live by them, folks! It gets lonely out here.), and even holding contests if you can.

We truly aren't alone, but it takes a bit of work to stay connected using every bit of technology available. Thanks for hanging in there while I have been silent - I feel a thaw coming on! Stay tuned...and now, I will leave you with a photo from warmer weather.