10 Signs You Are You Addicted To Social Media

Join the Revolution - addiction? 

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the page while there!

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Its addictive, informative and can be lots of fun Jeff Bullas should know? 

It was years ago and my children would spend hours either on MySpace or instant messaging and I wondered why they would want to spend so much time on the computer communicating on social media channels. Five years ago the term ‘Social Media Marketing” hadn't even been invented yet but now our obsession with social media has moved on to include business social media activities s well as personal use. So now we can justify the time spent on social media as a business activity just to salve our conscience.

To put a few activities into perspective let’s check in on our social media and digital activities for signs of  addiction and obsession by asking some pertinent questions.

Do you have following symptoms?

1. When you leave your iPhone behind at home do you feel a sense of loss and isolation becasue you can’t check your Facebook or Twitter updates while out and about
2. You check your Facebook account 20 times a day
3. If you don’t receive a comment on your latest blog post within 12 hours you have suicidal thoughts
4. You go away for a weekend without your laptop and your suffer severe heart palpitations?
5. You have more social media icons on you iPhone than productivity apps?
6. You stood in line for an Apple iPad for 24 hours just so you could update your Facebook on a bigger screen while on the move
7. You have more online friends than you have in real life
8. You Tweet on your mobile while walking
9. You log on to Facebook before you have brushed your teeth in the morning
10. You check your Facebook or Twitter updates ‘after’ going to bed

There are also some revealing  graphics from  Retrev0 who commissioned a study of 1,000 online individuals to provide an insight into our digital proclivities.

The first provides some comparison between 3 types of users, under 25′s, over 25′s and iPhone users on Twitter and Facebook check ins.

Do you check/update Twitter, Facebook first thing in the morning!

The other graphic on digital addiction that I found rather revealing was “Can you be interrupted for an online message anytime?” which provides some revealing inclinations.

On the question who is the most social media obsessed country in the world in terms of time spent on average per month, that dubious award belongs to the Australians with the UK second, Italy third, the USA  in fourth place and Spain holding down fifth spot.

Graphic courtesy of Nielsen Online Social Media report 2010

So what is your social media obsessions that have your partner or friends considering booking you into a specialist social media addiction clinic?

http://tiny.cc/iswlww  = Interesting Stories & Topical Posts 

http://www.jeffbullas.com/2010/06/23/10-signs-you-are-you-addicted-to-social-media/

Don’t Stop Yourself from Making Money Quick

What is the number one thing that stops you from making money quick on the Internet? Yourself. Most people are so afraid of failure that they never even get started.
Are you one of those people who bought a ton of e-books and Internet marketing courses, but haven’t made any money online yet? In most cases it is because you haven’t done everything they told you to do in the marketing course.

How do you expect to make any money if you don’t follow through with what you’re learned? The number one reason most people don’t follow through is a fear of failure. I’ve done a lot of research on the subject in the last few months and I have come to a conclusion that I think is the true reason for this dilemma.
You don’t take action because if you do and you fail all of your hopes and dreams could be lost.
The one thing that you can hold onto is hope. Once hope is lost, you feel like any chance for success is lost forever.

If you just buy the books and learn things, you feel good about yourself. You feel like you are making an effort. But this is just an illusion.
You Can’t Learn Without Taking Action!
You fear that if you take action and fail, you have nothing to fall back on. All hope is lost. You fear that if you try and fail, you will no longer ba able to tell your family that someday I will make us tons of money from our own internet business.

Image: healingdream / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Well I have something to tell you. Hope can never be lost as long as you keep trying. The key to keeping your hopes and dreams alive is actually to fail. I know that may sound weird, but failure really is the key to success.
Without failure, you cannot learn and grow as a person. So from now on, instead of being afraid of failure, embrace it and welcome it. Every failure brings you one step closer to success.
Most people believe that failure equals the death of hope. But the exact opposite is true. The more you fail, the more you’re actually trying. And the more you’re trying, the better chance you have of succeeding.
Failure actually sows the seeds of hope. Inaction and procrastination are the true killers of your hopes and dreams. Not failure
Take action today if you want to be making  money quick on the Internet. And if you fail the first time don’t worry about it. Get a big smile on your face, pat yourself on the back and realize that you are now one step closer to making your dreams come true.

I Am Closer to Success Because I Took Action!

http://blog.glancenetworks.com/2010/06/fail-forward-fast-the-key-to-success-in-sales-business-or-life-is-to-overcome-fear-and-act-boldly.html 
By Doug / Make Quick Money Online

The home working revolution continues

Labour Force Survey shows continued rise through decade

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A new analysis of data from the UK Labour Force Survey shows a continued rise in the number of people working mainly from home*.

At the end of 2009, 12.8% of the workforce (3.7 million people) worked mainly at or from home. This is a 21% increase since 2001.

The region with the highest level of homeworking is the South West, at 15.6%, followed by the South East (15.2%) and the East of England (14%).

The lowest levels are in Scotland (9.8%), North East of England (10.1%) and the North West and Northern Ireland (11%).

The link with self-employment

Despite the increasing numbers of companies offering their employees the chance to work from home, around two-thirds of homeworkers are self-employed.  This is probably part of the explanation of the difference between regions, with areas that have lower levels of self-employment likely also to have less homeworking.

Homeworking is more prevalent in rural areas in the UK. At the end of 2009, 18.88% of the rural workforce was working at/from home, compared to 11.24% of
the urban workforce. The proportion of rural workers who are self-employed homeworkers is 12.24%, almost double the urban figure of 6.75%. At least two-thirds of rural homeworkers are self-employed. 

London is the main exception to this rule, where 13.6% of the workforce are homeworkers.  In London, some 16.3% of the workforce are self-employed.

Between 2001 and 2009, the number of home-based businesses (self-employed and mainly working from home) rose by 22% (2.3 million people in 2009).

What about employees?

The figure for self-employment excludes those who run limited companies from home. Many previously self-employed people have chosen to run their businesses as registered companies in the last ten years. A study on freelancing in 2009 for the Professional Contractors Group by Kingston University found that the number of freelancers (self-employed, plus directors of limited companies with no employees, plus freelancers working under a PAYE umbrella company) was around 4 million people, and grew 20% between 1998 and 2008 (Kitching & Smallbone, 2009).

Around 5% of employees in the workforce work mainly from home.  And this includes a proportion of those who are freelancers (etc) who have set themselves up as a company.

However, the number of employees who work part of the time from home is now at around the 20% mark.  We expect this to be an area of substantial future growth as more employees work part-time from home, and some who now work part-time increase the number of days they spend away from the office

http://www.flexibility.co.uk/flexwork/location/homeworking-statistics-2009.htm

Ten of the best ... ways to make money from your desk

Is money too tight to mention? Jasmine Birtles suggests some ways to earn extra readies in your lunchtime

Use your time online to make money.

1. Get paid to surf the net

You surf the net all the time so why not make money every time you click on "search"? Yahoo powers searches which pay a small amount every time you run one – it is willing to do so because it wants to break down Google's domination. There is a search at Moneymagpiesearch.com. If you recommend your friends you will also make commission on their searches. The payments are small but we know people who have made around £30 in two months by searching regularly. You can choose whether you receive your money through PayPal or by bank transfer.

2. Take part in online surveys

Again, this is pocket money while you're on the internet, but it can be fun too. It is simply a case of answering questions about a particular product or company, or about your shopping habits. Be careful which surveys you use – some are fraudulent. Among the best of the genuine ones is panelbase.net, which will pay between 50p and £3 a survey, Valued Opinions, which pays between £1 and £5 a survey, and Ciao-surveys.co.uk, which pays up to £5.

3. Get paid for social networking

You can make money by keeping in touch with friends, and making more friends, on social networking site Yuwie. Set up a profile, write a blog, upload photos and videos and do what you usually do with any networking site. The difference with Yuwie is that it pays you to do all these things using advertising revenue. The amount you get paid depends on the number of times you and your friends view your pages. If you have lots of friends the views mount up and you can make some worthwhile cash.

4. Recycle your mobile

Have you got a useless old mobile in your desk drawer? Most of us have at least one hanging around the office or house, so make money from yours. Send it to Mopay and make between £2.50 and £200 depending on its make and condition. Even rubbishy old battered models can be worth a few quid if they can be sold on for spare parts.

5. Sell adverts on your blog

If you are a regular blogger and have built up a bit of a following, you could make money selling advertising around your posts. You can make cash quickly by putting Google Adsense on it. If you get enough traffic you make money every time people click on the ads. Blogs are also great for selling any products you have, promoting your services (it could be anything from sales training to web development or maternity care) and selling eBooks you have created yourself.

6. Sell your photos

If you have a nice collection of digital photos you could sell them over and over again through online agencies. Send them in to one or more agencies and any they like they will upload to the site. When people buy them you get a commission; you could end up getting paid for years to come. Picturenation say many of their photographers make hundreds of pounds a month, and some are simply good amateurs. Also try Fotolia and iStockphoto.

7. Rent out your stuff

Everyone knows about selling stuff on eBay, but how about renting it and making money over and over again? Sites like RentNotBuy.co.uk and RentRino will let you advertise anything from a baby bath to a ball gown. It is a new phenomenon, so it could be a while before anyone rents your power tools or your DVD player, but if you have a spare minute upload your details and later on you could make some regular cash.

8. Complain to gain

We don't complain enough in this country, which is one of the reasons why service can be so bad. However, those who complain constructively have worked out they can even make money through it. A well-crafted, reasonable letter including a request for financial compensation can make you money. Write to a company's CEO explaining the problem and set out the amount you feel you should receive in compensation. If it is refused write again, and even write a third time if necessary. Usually by the second or third letter they cave in and give you about half of what you were asking for.

9. Answer text questions

If you're a bit of a trivia king or queen you could make money by answering people's text questions. It is flexible work and you just have to be a bit knowledgeable and quick at searching the net (make extra by following point 1 above). On average, question answerers make about £10 an hour. The questions vary enormously: you could get anything from "Where's the nearest pizza place?" to "Who won the 1962 world cup?" and "Will I ever find love?". Visit ansanow or Textperts to see if you are quick enough to be part of their teams of knowledge hunters.

10. Get cashback

If you use your lunch hour to buy essentials, make sure you get paid to do it. Shop around first to find the best deals, then look on cashback sites to see if you could get money back by buying through them. Start with sites that give you instant cash just by signing up, such as Rpoints, which gives you £5, Cashback Shopper, which gives you £5, and ecashback, which gives you £2.50 immediately.

  http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2009/mar/12/make-money-on-the-internet