I registered on Klout this week – are you on that yet? It analysed my performance across social media platforms and told me I am “a networker” – which is actually what Carol’s always said since we worked together in the late 80s, when the term social networking was still decades away. Klout says about me: “You know how to connect to the right people and share what’s important to your audience. You generously share your network to help your followers. You have a high level of engagement and an influential audience.” Cool. It’s nice to know someone’s actually paying attention to me… Then the following day my rating had mysteriously doubled and it told me I’m now “a specialist”: “Within your area of expertise your opinion is second to none with a focused, highly-engaged audience.” I like that. So what topics am I influential and engaging about? Well, apparently, music – although Sue, Gill and Deedub might have something to say about that…
Luckily, I’m also influential about SEO, which is excellent news, as I write it!! If you didn’t know, I don’t just write this blog – I do get paid to write for other people too. The SEO raises them in search engine rankings, so they’re happy, and turning random concepts into marketing content is, in some way, good practice for my next book (which you’ll be pleased to hear will be safely backed-up and floating on my cloud).
Floating on a different sort of cloud… on a sad, and maybe a bit morbid note, last week marked the 28th anniversary of policewoman Yvonne Fletcher’s murder. Only my generation is likely to recall this event – the Libyan embassy siege. I remember 
very clearly walking round St James’s Square early on the day she died. I have no idea why I was there first thing in the morning, and I don’t remember noticing any ‘peaceful’ protest taking place, but I do know I was wearing bright orange shoes and swinging a matching handbag – weird how the trivial, often totally meaningless stuff sticks in our minds. I’m mentioning it because she wasn’t that much older than me and, at the time, I thought she must have been so heroic. And writing this made me wonder who Google actually classes as a heroic woman. A search brought up a strange and eclectic array of women through history, from the obvious Boudicca and Mother Theresa through authors, politicians and pilots. The list even includes Pocahontas, buried just a mere 50km from my home.
And as the lovely Virginian-born princess so wisely said, ‘If you walk the footsteps of a stranger, you’ll learn things you never knew you never knew.’ You probably wouldn’t want to walk in my footsteps, but you’re very welcome to follow… Click on the Twitter link, and leave a message below 🙂
Leave a Reply