Self awareness is the gift of age. I’ve experienced a lot. I’ve tried, succeeded, failed, fallen, tried again for more than three decades. I’ve learned volumes about myself. You’ve probably done the same. Lately, keeping all the balls in the air has gotten harder than ever. I share this because I know I am not alone feeling this way. I hear it in your tweets and status updates. You’re with me on this.

I know I don’t ration well, tending to bite off more than I can chew with regularity.  I want to do, create, give back and live so much. Temperance doesn’t come easily for me which is why my being a mom, wife, photographer, writer, speaker, teacher and adventurer will always be a precarious balancing act. A house of cards.

I never pretend to be perfect. On the contrary, I’m ok with a target just shy of really good. I’ve learned to laugh at myself.  Accept who I am and the cards I’m delt.

I’ve learned to place more credence in the honesty of real life than the quest for the illusion of perfection.  My scale of balance isn’t the least bit graceful.  On the contrary, it’s scrappy, wiggly and full of daring. Now as I juggle my family, career, physical wellness, and my aspirations I know something that helps me take it all less seriously.

Life is a house of cards. A difficult balance. A daring act. One that you may watch topple a few times, gather up resiliently and build again. But therein lies the fun.

At times I find myself Twitter’s round the clock cheerleader. I love this place!

Part of why I love it is that it educates me, introduces me to great friends, and makes me better.  That and it has totally exploded my small business, fleur de leigh photography. So this blog is for the sceptics, the naysayers who think that small business can’t benefit from places like Twitter and Facebook.  Here’s a true story.

Late one evening fully sate with Pinot Noir and bad hair that was driving me crazy, I decided to wield the scissors. I know. I know… Having seen the wreckage the next morning, I tweeted:

Being the savvy marketer that she is, Cindy who manages the Twitter account for Michael’s Salon & Spa (@MichaelsSalon), a beautiful local salon who follows me retweeted mine tweet and ALSO sent me a DM saying. “We’d be happy to fix those bangs for you. Give us a call and we’ll fit you in quickly.” Which I immediately did.  Kinley (shown above) fixed my bangs…free of charge!   Now several months later, I am a faithful client. I switched salons because she reached out deliberately with an act of kindness that CONNECTED with me.  Now Michael’s earns the $150+ month business for my hair care. (being blond isn’t cheap) Thank you Cindy, (@CynthiaDeVelvis) you ROCK!

This is just one way the Big Bang Theory grew business through social media. Here are 3 ways to springboard your local social media connections deliberately.

1. Pointed search: Utilize Twitter search for your local people. (ie; enter words like Dayton, Centerville, hair) and follow people who appeal to you or your brand. Then use tools like Listorious to access lists people have made related to your search terms.

2. Reach out: Having followers you don’t communicate with is akin to window shopping. You get nothing of value in your bag.  Say hello to people. Take time every day commenting/engaging/befriending people (or potential clients) you follow. You’ll find that these people will return your follow, engage with you, and potential become advocates for you.  Beware of the hard sell. Build relationships earnestly that’s what makes friends that sometimes become clients for you.

3.  Be a community evangelist: Share the successes, inspiration, stories of your community (people you follow) through RTs.  Attend or coordinate Tweet ups (where you can come face to face with your tweeple!) Tweetvite is a great way to find or initiate your own tweetup.  Embrace those in your community who are advocates of social media universes like Twitter.

Dig in and try it. While I can’t guarantee your business will prosper for it, I can predict that you’ll probably make a friend or two. Which isn’t all bad

Germinate, Cultivate, Celebrate

I have learned this year that Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and YouTube function as a petry dish teaming with organic potential for relationship cultivation.  Fertile.  Ripe for the picking. I want to share with you one connection that has bore fruit in ways I never imagined.

I owe my career success to Amanda Hite and her team at Talent Revolution.  (And I blame & thank her for my addiction to this social media playground. She introduced me to Twitter.)  Amanda, @sexythinker, coined as a change agent has transformed my passion for photography into my profession. She’s taught me that pursuing your passion while almost never easy, is the only way. Her faith in me from the get-go was catalytic and her continued support for my quest of the ultimate career lifestyle unrelenting.  Likewise, I eagerly help this visionary, genuine, rockstar in any way I can.  Our careers are so intertwined that way.  So when Amanda learned that my finances wouldn’t allow me access to the photography industry’s largest international trade show, WPPI 2010 in Vegas with the opportunity to learn about my trade, it’s people and make my online connections  in real life….she made it happen. She booked my flight.  Immediately.

My trip to WPPI is a dream come true and is totally made possible by Amanda, my friends, clients, ambassadors, savants, teachers, and idols at Talent Revolution.  Which.  Freeking.  Rocks!

A few from the TR Team:  Susan Fawcett @culturebabe, Chris Reed @c_reed, THE sexythinker, Bill Campion @culturedude, Kami Woodworth @kamiwood

At this moment, I am boarding a plane to Vegas knowing that Amanda not only believes in my career potential but is willing to take food off her plate to nourish me.   In the last year, she has opened doors for me by social media mentorship connecting me to incredible people like Gilbert Melott, Scott Stratten, Joni Doolan, and Kat Cole.  When I look back at the origins of this symbiotic relationship between me, Amanda and the whole community at Talent Revolution I see that we watered it regularly, provided it with abundant sunshine and fruit now hangs from its branches.

I wish everyone could have their own Amanda.  A champion.  She is the very first person I call to celebrate life’s good stuff because I know her role in it.  (Besides the fact she understands how cool it is when Chris Brogan retweets you and will call you all hours of the night to let you know when it happens.)  Just wanted to take the time to say thank you and to pass around a plate of happy fruit in sweet celebration of the people who grow us.

Thanks Amanda for this trip, your business and your friendship. I encourage you to take a few moments today to let someone know, that you know, that they have provided you sunshine, nourishment and water when you needed it.

He and the crew at Showit are making my to-do list grow like mad.  1) update website 2) watch tutorials & how to’s 3) add website to facbook 4) create gallery slideshows 5) have Darrin Ballman, my mentor, come over to help with all the the above way to technical stuff. Personally, I have been amazed with their service, innovation (almost like mind reading what tools we need) and commitment to making photography cooler & easier.  Trust me, they are on fire!

Off to play with some of the new ShowIt stuff now.  Here is a slideshow Darrin put together with Showit from Emily & Ben’s wedding we shot together.

Before I could finish the lyrics to silent night, the season passed me by. Had a marvelous time photographing the darling families this season. Eventually, I’ll get around to revising the website to include my most favorites of all the season.  Eventually.  Feels like I just got the tree up…

If you are a family photographer during the holidays you may have felt the blur I did and you’re probably vowing to do it differently next year.  And you’re probably, right now, reaquainting yourself with your own family

More from the Hearn gallery here.

When I received the call from my childhood best friend, my emotional levee broke.  She called for reassurance knowing that I’d undergone a needle biopsy of my own.  “Think positively. They are probably just ruling out Cancer.”  With cracky voice, she agreed and assured me she would call back tomorrow with the results.  No call. I knew.

This is the part where I wish I could claim valor, strength, courage. I wish I could tell the story of a friend who zoomed down to Cinci right after finding out my best friend had breast cancer.  Tell you all that I was there at her double masectomy and after with support. Instead, I failed her and me.

Breast cancer looms large in my psyche stalking like the grim reaper patiently waiting.  Unlike Heather, I got good news a clean bill of health from my doctor after biopsy analysis.  So I am safe for now.  Having a maternal grandmother (my namesake) fight and lose to cancer before I got to meet her will leave a mark.  This is me trying to justify why I cowered when Heather got her news.

Now she is doing very well and I am coming to terms with my not being a good friend then in the face of my own fears.  In her honor and my grandmother’s, I have started Project Pink Photos.  Just me right now. Hopefully others in 2010.  What I can do for people, like Heather, is take family photographs at no charge.  This year I have selected a handful of individuals affected with breast cancer and offered them my photography service.  This way I am doing something for them and doing something to overcome my own inner fear.

More from Heather’s family gallery here.

Later this year, I will compile a gallery of these special images and share with you all inviting you to do the same in your neck of the woods if you choose.  You will hear more from me about Project Pink Photo in the spring of 2010. Till then, I hope you all stay healthy and wrestle your own fears back to size.

Leigh

I’m not going to lie to you and tell you that social media doesn’t fit me to a T.  By nature social (middle child,) prone to marketing (my lemonade stand was the bomb!) and inherently extroverted (to follow me is to well, know everything about me,) I’m not going to gloss over the fact that I hold my followers dear and have no inhibition about broadcasting in their excellence or going to them for advice in an instant. True blue friends flank me now that weren’t here pre-Twitter. Clients seek me that were otherwise unknown to me.  Alliances thrive because of it.

I am not going to claim that the interchange that happens in 140 characters doesn’t soothe the ego or make happy surge. I am going to tell you that the education that I have received about my field of photography, small business ownership, social media, motherhood, and life in general in this incredible teeming forum in 2009 is remarkable.  I’m not going to pretend that my penchant for social media hasn’t caused tension in my marriage to a non-Twitterer (aka, “the twitter police” pictured above And I wish I could put into words the impact of Twitter in the last year for me personally.  I am a writer by trade…yet I have no good words for this.

Instead. I will start with what I know has cultivated the social media harvest I enjoy now. My advice to you.

1. Be You. You are the only one of you out there.  There is an appropriate mix of “you-ness” to add which I do not know because I talk about cheese, super-heroism, camera love-a-doveness, beer, unbelievably stupid stuff I do WAY to much to be an authority on what AMOUNT of you to sprinkle into your tweets. But I know this. People relate to you, when you’re genuinely unapologetically, you.  I regularly remind myself to also provide tweets with value otherwise I wouldn’t even want to follow me. Be yourself, be a positive value.

2. Make contact. We all fall into categories whether we want to or not. I am a photographer. Not a renown one at all but I have a community of my peers because I walked up to many of them (metaphorically speaking) and said hello on the playground. Make the introductions and you will make friends and make and impact on others. Cross borders delving into other categories too. If you have any questions on this, DM me. I am here for you. I had 67 followers (last year) most of whom I knew in real life the others I revered in the photography community when I started retweeting and @replying. This may sound so simple but it is the CRUX of Twitter.  When my tweet stream became less journal and more two way street my destination got interesting. Engage. Scott Stratten @unmarketing single handily taught me this. Follow him and look for his daily reminder.  It was nothing short of Twitter metamorphosis for me.

3. Do good. There is NO better universal world wide classroom than social media. Believe me. That appeals to me as an ENFJ, a teacher. On Twitter, 10K people are opting to tune into my (98% wacky) message here and there.  Mostly, I see my role as one that can a) unify my #photography community and enhance my craft  b) provide humor and slice of life-ness to masses and c) genuine touch someone and alter their course toward positive.  Each of us can make an individual difference. I’ve seen it. Take time to make some connections, spread coolness, illuminate the beautiful and you’ll feel good.  May be as simple as a “Hey look at this rockin website.” that becomes a daymaker for someone else. Twitter is not a numbers game, it’s an opportunity to connect human spirit for greater good. Never forget that.

That’s my two cents.  I feel grateful for the connections, education and support I have gained from Twitter and want to share simply what allowed me that privilege. Thank you for your connection, your follow and your retweet of this message.

Just 100% me,

Leigh

social-write-tographer

For more images from this gallery, click here.

Had a chance to second shoot for Darrin Ballman @darrinballman in Cincy for the gorgeous couple, Emily & Ben’s, wedding this past weekend.  Lemme tell ya. They have some serious dancy-dance skills between them.  I am still editing images and will have a gallery coming soon on the new website.

Seniors amaze me.  They’ve suddenly become so self assured, so pliable as models and so incredibly fun to photograph.  Hilary walked on to the court with a quite yet confident grace. …and put down two bags of clothes and shoes including a purple Versace ensemble she picked up on the last trip to Chicago.  Part tennis player, part fashionista Hilary was a joy to have on the other side of the lens. Playful and poised.  We rattled through three locations and finished up just in time for the sun flares to come out.

She was all “OMG, I love ‘em”  about the photos and I can’t wait to sit down again with this charming gal for our product consultation.  Starbucks of course.