…to remind myself that I will not have NOTHING to do.

• San Antonio!
• Paris!
• Munich!
• Alabama! (Okay. It’s a road trip.  I’m not quite as excited about it as I am about the other three)
• Reading books that have nothing to do with the election!
• Brain cells regained by not thinking about Sarah Palin!
• Cooking!
• Knitting! (I knit, did you know that? I do!)
• Not having an upset stomach or sleepless nights worrying about a stolen election (See: 2000)!
• More focus on my blogging!
• More focus on my career!
• Interesting career developments!

What are you looking forward to now that the election is over?

Pimp.

Are you thinking the purple-hatted, walking-stick wielding, oft-beater, protector and manager of prostitutes?

Or are you thinking about promotion or hawking?  Do you pimp your client’s latest project or special event?  Do you add widgets to your blog to pimp it out?

I love Twitter because on my list I have a broad spectrum of PR, Marketing and other people who just love to argue.  We do. Sorry.  But we do it nicely!

It started out as a discussion about Purple Trout, a company that specializes in SEO opimization.  @BarbaraKB wondered about the ethics of a white-hat SEO company whose blog is called Pimp My Keywords. @redkatblonde, @kate_the_great and @danieljohnsonjr and I disagree- I think the word “pimp” has evolved tremendously: from the medieval French “pimpant”, to dress elegantly (thank you @JohnAtkinson, founder of Pimp My News) . I know that American “pimps” try to dress elegantly, but “pimp” has moved from guys like the guy above (for the record, Pimp C, from mtv.com) into slang– very socially acceptable slang!– for “promote, hawk or present aggressively”.  It seems to have gained popularity with MTV’s “Pimp My Ride“, and now is fairly standard marketing, sales and journalistic jargon.

But do you use it with a client?  And how do you handle sites with names like Pimp My News, a great service that reads your favorite news sites for you, or profilactic, another great site that helps prevent online identity issues (and a service that’s valuable to anyone with multiple accounts in social networks).  @BarbaraKB argues that these businesses are going to fail because of the negative connotation of “pimp” and “prophylactic”. Perhaps it’s my mindset– I’m pretty liberal, and pretty young, and pretty fascinated by linguistics– but I disagree.  These names are catchy, memorable, and appeal to the people who really use social networking and really want to “pimp out” their online experience (the definition of “pimp out” in the MTV-sense: making something as good as it possibly can be, with all of the bells and whistles).  Prophylactic doesn’t necessarily mean “condom”, but means preventative– and profilactic prevents problems with online identities.  “Pimp My Keywords” does exactly that– makes the keywords bigger and better and more useful to the client.  “Pimp” has evolved out of the street and into the mainstream.

So how do you present this to your clients? You do it like anything else.  I’d never encourage my high school client to “Pimp My Prom”– though I have used the phrase “bling” in reference to prom before– it’s about knowing your audience.  Your senior care client won’t get it, and it’s not appropriate for your high school client.  Use your good sense and knowledge of your client to see if they’d appreciate the service, get past (or even, dare I say, embrace) the nomenclature and use the product as appropriate.

Words change. Meanings change.  Such is the beauty of the English language.  Remember what your high school english teacher taught you: remember your audience.

So I’m pretty excited to grab my copy of Pete Blackshaw’s new book. You see, a long time ago in a not-so-far away place, I worked for one of the venture capital firms that funded Planet Feedback, the very first consumer-driven feedback site. It was a revolutionary idea back in 1999, when they were working out of a loft on Main Street in the Digital Rhine, and it’s still revolutionary today. Whether your client is a Fortune 500 company, or the bakery down the street, their customers are what make them or break them. With the dawning of the social media, particulary sites like Planet Feedback, Yelp, and others, it is even more important that customers are satisfied– if they aren’t, the entire world can find out in just a few moments. This is why your company’s presence on social networks is so important– give your customers a place to give you feedback where you can see it, aggregate it, and respond, and also your customers can interact with your company in a way that feels very personal and very authentic on both sides.

With every passing day of using Twitter, I find that new users tend to forget a few simple rules of effective tweeting. I tend to treat the Internet like I would an interaction with anyone else out there in the “real world”: everything you learned in Kindergarten, plus a few more things that are peculiar to Twitter.

1. Block mass followers. You know the types– Following 3,203. Followers: 2. They seem to be peddling porn, or stealing other people’s tweets, or worse. Block them, so that they can’t see your tweets or find other people to follow from your list. The more you twitter, the more you attract these types. It’s sort of gratifying to block them.

2. Spread out your tweets. Don’t tweet five times in a row (though I think we have all done it before). The 140-character limitation leads to concise thought– if you need to tweet 5 times in a row (and they’re not @ someone else), write a blog entry.

3. Content, content, content. For me, at least, seeing a bunch of “ME TOO!” and “YEAH!” twitters are a big turnoff. Interacting with other Twitter users is important, but I want to see your thoughts, too. Don’t think it’s silly to post what you’re having for dinner, or what you’re doing at work. Just post! Twitter is social networking about nothing (sort of like Seinfeld), but you make some fantastic connections that way.

4. Decide whether you’re separating personal from professional– and stick to it! I Try not to duplicate posts to both your personal and professional accounts, particularly if lots of your followers follow both. Your professional followers may not care about what your kids are doing in soccer practice, and your personal followers may not care what you’re doing at work. ‘m on Twitter, but I only have one account. It is both professional and personal, though I censor it so that it isn’t too personal.

5. Don’t add too many people. I have no idea how some Twitter users interact with their 3,000+ followers. I just don’t. You can’t really form a meaningful relationship with everyone! Be selective in who you follow, and who you allow to follow you back.