facebook

Oh My! What A Big Following You Have

/ crazytraintotinkytown / 29 Comments

As most of you know I am a huge Twitter fan and find it other than blogging an engaging form of social media. Like most things it took me a while to get to grips with it. It’s easy to dip in and out, picking up conversations from one day to another and is fairly low maintenance (a bit like me).

My pet Twitter peeves are Tweeps who follow and then unfollow you within seconds of you returning the favour in order to drive up their following. Additionally, I hate those automated direct messages urging you to subscribe to their You Tube Channel, like their Facebook Page, buy their book. Now that’s just a bit forward when you haven’t even been formally introduced!

Likewise I prefer not to interact with those whose tweets continually scream “it’s all about me, at least pretend to be interested in others; didn’t their mothers teach them it’s rude not to share? In my opinion any form of social media needs some sort of interaction or sharing to make it worthwhile. A lot of people who I follow are animal lovers, small businesses that I enjoy giving a little plug to, my fellow bloggers, animal rescues or other like-minded individuals. I’m always going to be a sucker for a wicked sense of humour!

I make no apologies for retweeting an animal on the euth list looking for a home because social media has been proven to save a life in some of these situations and you never know whether a potential home or rescue will pick up a tweet and provide that poor animal with a last-minute reprieve. I get exasperated with people who pointlessly tweet cute animal pictures all day, every day but can’t slot in a rescue animal in need of a good home; are they any less cute? If every Tweep retweeted just one homeless pet a week think of the audience that animal or the rescue shelter would reach and it’s such a small thing to ask. I also think it’s important to share any missing family members (after all that could be us one day) and charity events. I think Twitter etiquette decrees if someone retweets you that you return the favour; after all variety is the spice of life and it would indeed be a boring world if we all had the same interests. In addition I also like to retweet you, my fellow bloggers when I’m online as I’m more than happy to promote your books or posts, give a shout out to any small businesses so I like to think I’m well-balanced; there are, of course, those that would disagree with that including my family.

One of things I enjoy the most is the interaction particularly when you are short of time as I have been recently. It takes a few seconds to drop a tweet to check on somebody whether it’s an injury, family illness or loss of a loved one. A kind word via a tweet costs nothing & can make all the difference in someone’s day. Don’t believe me? Give it a try.

For those of you on Twitter, I’ll see you on the other side but in the meantime, what are your social media peeves?

social media

Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter

/ crazytraintotinkytown / 24 Comments

Like many of you I have a love/hate relationship with Facebook.  Whilst, I think that it has certain advantages for keeping in touch with family & friends located in faraway places and as a writer it does have obvious benefits but for many it’s a bit of a dual-edged sword. Too often I have come across inappropriate posts and videos which in my opinion have no place on a social networking site. It is alleged that this week Facebook have failed to remove a video of a helpless & vulnerable kitten being deliberately doused in fuel and set alight; what purpose does that video serve? I also fail to see why you would want to give the sociopaths that committed this heinous and cowardly act their fifteen minutes of fame. Furthermore, you have to ask yourself why certain Facebookers would feel the need to “like” this type of post. Whilst Facebook insist that they had reviewed the clip, which they insisted had met its guidelines, by simply doing nothing are they green lighting other evil-minded individuals?

Surely there has to be a more stringent policy where pictures of extreme cruelty are removed in a timely fashion and by timely, I mean immediately. Derogatory pictures and borderline slanderous statements that will obviously cause emotional distress to others also have no place. I have personally fallen foul of an anonymous user, who superimposed my head from my profile picture, along with several other girls onto the bodies of girls in stills from adult films accompanied by crass taglines and my complaint wasn’t upheld, subsequently, Facebook refused to remove them. Imagine the distress that this caused me and my family and likewise for all the other girls. It is inconceivable that some malicious individual could randomly target your profile picture in this way because they are not regulated. It begs the question that if any of us had been celebrities would Facebook fearing legal reprisals have taken a different stance or were we simply not important enough to merit their protection from internet trolls.

You don’t have to be a public relations expert to determine what is right and wrong most of us learn that as children but one wonders sometimes whether integrity is an out-dated principle for many multi-million organisations.  So if you’re listening Facebook you need to man up and grow a set along with some morals; your users will love you for it!

The world is a dangerous place to live. Not because of the people who are evil; but because of the people who don’t do anything about it.

We’re All Gifted, We Just Unwrap Our Packages At Different Times

/ crazytraintotinkytown / 8 Comments

Hello friends, it’s been a while. This past month well real life has taken over, I even had my bestie for a visit and her new-found hobby of roller skating was the focus for a week; but that really is a story for another day.

Sadly these days I’m up at 5am to start work and return to be carer, gardener, scrubber, shopper extraordinaire. I don’t get to spend as much time blogging as I would like but I think of you all often but ironically when we’re up against it, the thing we enjoy the most tends to be the thing which is sidelined. I’d love to keep up with you all so you can find me on either Twitter or Facebook. My other announcement is that I have started serialising “The Honeymoon Stories” on Wattpad. It’s still early days and I certainly couldn’t have done it without two years of support and encouragement from the best bloggers in the world (you might want to check out the dedication on Chapter One)

As I’m late to the Wattpad party, I would be happy to hear from any of you that are frequent users and have any tips or suggestions for me.

So signing off for now but I hope you all find time to do what makes you happy this weekend.

With fondest thoughts and a grateful heart, your blogging friend Dallas

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Paying It Forward

/ crazytraintotinkytown / 51 Comments

I remember starting this blog in a dusty little shop in Turkey when I had started a new life in a foreign land with few friends to call upon. It was then that the wonderful world of blogging brought all these amazing new friends into my life from all corners of the globe and introduced this shop girl to a world of infinite possibilities.

In just under two years I have made some amazing friends, shared tears & laughter, become a better writer and fought the good fight against bullies and the like. I started this year determined to make a change and take the time to celebrate successes. For example did you know that in recent weeks Kitt Crescendo @ theinnerwildkat published her book, Kerry Aslan over @ Earth Laughs in Flowers launched a hugely popular Home Cooking for Expats Facebook Page, Marianne @ East of Malaga needed our votes

Marinanne's entry

Marinanne’s entry

and Megan & everybody’s favourite little man Tedstar @ Cowboys and Crossbones filmed a pilot for a reality TV show?

I have been so fortunate with the support that I have received from all of you that it has become important to me to pay it back in some way, so without further ado I announce the launch of the 2014 Club which I hope will encompass all of our triumphs and accomplishments. To be included in the month’s Roll of Honour, please email me your good news to crazytraintotinkytown@hotmail.com (what else) or a request for help from our fellow bloggers and each month I will run a post acknowledging all our outstanding achievements and good news. I hope that it will inspire, motivate and encourage the rest of us into working a little harder to achieve our dreams and also remind us that anything & everything is possible.

Dreams are illustrations from the book your soul is writing about you

Megan & Tedstar Reality TV Stars

Megan & Tedstar Reality TV Stars