5 Super Easy Snapchat Hacks To Make You Awesome

My Word Is My Bond

After a very satisfying Saturday morning run, I made quietly my way inside and headed for my shower. I was now ready to think about everyone else.

During my runs, I focus on myself, listen to a couple of podcasts and plan out my day. I basically visualize myself as Brain with plans for total world domination. If you don’t get that reference, you either weren’t a parent or kid tuned into Cartoon Network during the early 2000’s. That, I cannot help you with. But I can at least show you the theme song so you can get an idea.

Once I hit the shower, I shift gears and go over what I need to get done with the family. Every day I play catch and practice some baseball with my youngest. Sometimes I don’t want to, but I force myself. It’s a way for us both to have fun, be physical and it’s all about him. The hubby joins in on the fun sometimes as well, but mom is always game for a game. Get it? I know, too easy not to be cheesy. Ugh, sometimes I don’t know when to stop.

I take the kiddo to the batting cages every other day and we also have chat time most nights where he hops into the bed and we talk about school, friends, hopes, life, politics, world events and everything in between for a few minutes.

I’m going to be honest here, I rarely did this with my older son who is now grown and out of the house. And I regret it every day. I had no idea how fast childhood goes. I was so busy career & business building and being a baseball mom and carpooling that when I WAS home, I wasn’t really there. Then one day I blinked and he was gone, off to Afghanistan to fight in a war.

We had a lot of fun as a family and did spend quality time together, but I wasn’t quite as tuned in to the person he was becoming and enjoying him as I am with our youngest. We still did a great job, as today he is a man we are very proud to have raised. But how I wish I would have just hung out more with him and chatted or did silly stuff.

Seeing how fast the little kid giggles disappear have made me take immense strides to make sure I consume all of the joy that parenting can bring, even with the things we view as chores. Yesterday, my son asked me to show him how to stop his computer from running Skype every time he turns it on. I was in the middle of a project, so I told him that I would show him later. My project took longer than expected, and I didn’t get a chance to help him out before I went to bed.

Today, I sat down with him at his computer and walked him through the startup menu options in Windows and how to enable and disable programs. It may be a mundane thing to mention, but I see it as an honor. It’s an opportunity for me to teach my son while he still looks to me for guidance, and at 14, I know those days may be numbered. I also know that I have been able to stretch out the days of him still seeing me as wise and cool and fun to be around, because I actually work at being all those things for him.

When he is around his buddies, he doesn’t find the need to act like I’m stupid or annoying. Instead, he includes me in the conversations and so do his friends. And sometimes we all play catch together or talk about world events or dumb teenage jokes. And then my wisdom kicks in and I leave them alone so that I leave on a “cool mom” note.

Aside from stressing how important I truly think it is to spend genuine, quality time with your kids, I also have another point here. I said I would do something and I made sure I did it. By always keeping my word, I am teaching him a very important life lesson. Be a man of your word.

Think about all of the things you say you’ll do for your kids or with your kids and you just don’t get to it. We all do it, and we don’t really notice, because it’s our kids and we sacrifice a lot for them. But they are watching what you do so much more than what you say. So I challenge you to make a very concerted effort to really do what you say you will do for your kids. The effect is pretty amazing.

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Social Media Scheduling Tools

Every morning I stumble out of bed at 5:30 AM and brew myself a cup of pure magic. Once I take my first few sips and begin the path to cognizance, I sit down at my desk and check social media accounts and stats. I am a power user, handling multiple accounts, client accounts and team members, so I need powerful tools that let me do this efficiently. I work at ridiculous speeds and have zero patience for things that are not highly automated, so I tend to try out many solutions before I settle on the one I like. I learn the ins and outs because I’m geeky like that and it also helps when our team develops a strategy with the tools we’ve chosen if everyone is up to speed on our options.

One of my favorite tools for social media scheduling and listening is Hootsuite. This is not an affiliate post, nor am I getting anything out of this, so it is my sincere review of the tool based on our experience over several years of using it. We also use several other tools, since there are things that Hoostsuite doesn’t do for us.

The Pros

We’ve used Hootsuite for years and continue to do so simply because we can handle so many things in one place. Here are some of the things I really dig about using it.

• Manage multiple accounts (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Google+, LinkedIn, WordPress and Foursquare).
• Show any combination of streams including clients, competitors, hashtags, followers, ANYTHING!
• The search functionality is amazing.
• Instagram integration is good for now, looking forward to upgrades.
• Schedule using a calendar and ability to upload a csv file to mass schedule. The is HUGE.
• Customizable analytics with scheduled reports.

The Cons

There are several things that we would like to see in Hootsuite that currently aren’t there, like Pinterest integration. Here are a few of the things we need and can’t use Hootsuite for.

• What about Pinterest? There is still no Pinterest integration and it’s almost 2017!
• You are stuck with the ow.ly url shortener unless you want to cough up over $500 annually for each custom url. Most large clients are fine with this, but for the regular blogger and solopreneur, this is just a ridiculous cost.
• Unless you use your own custom url and use it consistently across all tools, you will not be able to get an accurate report of the activity on an account. For example, if you post natively or through other apps, you will not be able to track that in your reports.

Alternatives to Hootsuite

Here are a few alternatives worth mentioning. We use some of these as well.

• BufferApp Starts at Free or $9.99/month. Buffer has a mobile app and a browser extension, both of which I think are essential when managing your social accounts. It allows you to manage your Twitter, Facebook. LinkedIn, Google+, Pinterest and Instagram.
• TweetDeck If you need a tool to manage twitter only, then this is a great tool which is also free. You can manage multiple accounts and schedule tweets. As I said, it is only for twitter and owned by them too!
• SproutSocial Starts at $59/user/month. It’s a little pricey when starting out and only starts wiht 5 social profiles, but it has some nifty features like a built in CRM .

There you have it. If you’re in the market for a social media management tool, test these out and see what works for you. There are a lot of choices, so you’re bound to find what makes you happy.

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Snapchat for Grownups

Parents and fellow grown-ups, the time for you to be on Snapchat has arrived. While there is still a lot of “hooking-up” being done on the app, the Tinders of the world have stolen the booty-call thunder and left it to the teens to grow it. The teens made it famous, the Millenials grew it further and now it’s time for you to get snapping before you have to play catch-up.

The Demographic

Right now Snapchat’s user base is somewhere in the 12-32 age range. However, like all social media platforms, the demo changes. Currently, early adopters (that’s me) have taken to it in droves, and women in the 30+ range (that’s also me) are starting to use it more.

This means that now is the time to get on Snapchat if you aren’t already on it and start to learn about its features so that you can figure out how to market on it. It’s always best to learn a social platform early on so that you aren’t playing catch-up when it becomes more popular.

How Do I Get Started?

I’m not a fan of wheel re-creation, so I’ll give you a great resource to learn how to use Snapchat here. Leslie Samuel of BecomeABlogger.com does a great job of giving you the basics to get started.

A Few Warnings

Prepare to be silly.

Remember, this platform was first adopted by the kiddos and later Millenials, and they like quirky and silly and are really comfortable showing this part of themselves. Being real and spontaneous in your videos which can last u to 10 seconds is expected. Peronally, I’ve found that to be a challenge. Don’t get me wrong, I’m pretty quirky and am very comfortable showing that side in person, but I’ve never been one to vlog or document my personality on camera. So snapchat is definitely what I would call a necessary evil for me. So if you catch my ridiculous snaps, know that I’m still a work in progress. My aim is always to know the platform, its tools and its audience, but in this case, it has meant adopting the communication style too.

You WILL get x-rated pics and come-ons.

You’re going to get all kinds of weirdos hitting you up with naked pics, junk pics, you name it; both male and female. Luckily, Snapchat makes it easy to just block them. So just prepare yourself mentally and you’ll be fine.

Most Snapchatters are kids

Yes, if you are, like me, an actual grown person who has been “adulting” for at least a decade or two, you will feel pretty old when you see the other snapchatters. Just remember, you are doing this to learn and be an early adopter. Don’t wait until there are thousands of people hawking e-books about this. In the meantime, I have a few folks for you to start following so you won’t feel like Rip Van Winkle.

Who Should I Follow?

Like I said, it’s still a very young platform, but there are definitely some actual grown-ups you can follow. A couple of these are social media strategists and some are influencers. It’s just a quick list to get you started. There are a ton of articles about who you should follow, just Google that sucker.

Gary Vaynerchuck (garyvee)
Gary is someone you need to get to know for anything social, nad he has been pimping Snapchat. Granted, he is an investor in the company, but he also has walked the walk. He is a successful entrepreneur and social media expert. I love his no-nonsense attitude about what it really takes to succeed which includes him preaching two of my favorite terms “hustle” and “grind”.

Carlos Gil (thecarlosgil)
Carlos is fun to watch and very good at showing you how to use a Call-to-Action well on Snapchat. I really like his style of storytelling, and he is a fellow Cuban American in pursuit of his American Dream, which I dig.

Morgan Brown (morganb180)
Brown was an integral part of both Y Combinator powered TrueVault. He is a frequent snapchatter and offers some great Q&A sessions on growth marketing.

Vanessa Workman (theislandrum)
Vanessa doesn’t match my typical list of entrepreneurs, but as a lover of travel, I just love to view her snaps. A short contract job in a (Singapore) hospital initially landed her in Southeast Asia, where she decided to take a break from her medical career and travel. She is presently basing herself in Langkawi, Malaysia from where she continues her exploration of Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Burma, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia and other destinations on her bucket list.

Danay Escanaverino (danay74b)
You didn’t think I would leave yours truly out did you? I am a good example of an entrepreneur who is a Gen Xer (read: non-Millenial) who is storytelling on Snapchat without posting bra pics or pouty lips. Listen folks, I’m a mom, wife and a professional, and while I won’t judge anyone for doing those things, I prefer to keep it G.

Now, go get on Snapchat and start snapping. If you add me, send me a message so I know it’s you. I promise I won’t bite

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