When you want to share another person’s tweet, it’s important you cite who tweeted it in the first place.

This is called a retweet.

Placing “RT” before the user name and posting the tweet to your stream is the most common usage.

“RT @melissawalker Attending the @PSAMA networking on 1/25 http://bit.ly/com/86frtx”

This lets all my followers see that I am sharing this event, its link, and who tweeted it originally. They may be interested in following Melissa Walker, too, if they don’t already, not to mention how to learn more about the event. The tweet also virally spreads news of the event because my followers can also retweet it.

If you receive more email than you can deal with in a day, following an organization’s updates on Twitter is an easier way to stay current – and not miss out on great networking opportunities.

There is a trend emerging with organizations reducing their reliance on email marketing and web sites to communicate with their audiences.

Using Twitter provides a real-time tool that sends communications to people who choose to receive the organization’s news. The threshold to entry is very low and (for now) Twitter remains free with virtually no technical skills required.

Join the Conversations

The openness of Twitter enables any one to join a conversation.

When you want to contribute to the debate, don’t just promote yourself or your blog. Self-promotion is smarmy and unwelcome.

Instead, provide information that is useful and a link to where others can learn more. Pointing back only to content that you have created is a closed loop that is self-referential. If you are tweeting links to your blog, be sure your blog post is not purely promotional about you. The blog posting should have direct value and usability for the reader. For example, a how-to, a coupon, or analysis of a news story.

Enrich Your Tweets with Pictures and Sound

TwitPic.com works with Twitter to post links to your photos in combination with tweets.

This works great when you want to shoot pictures on the go with your cell phone. Whether on vacation, at a concert, or just with friends, adding a picture adds that extra impact to make your 140 characters have more depth.

Sign in with your Twitter log in and password to get a free account. It works in connection with the Twitter application on your cell phone or the TwitPic site.

You can upload the image from your computer on TwitPic’s site or email it to an address that the site will provide especially for you. If you email it, put your photo’s tag line the Subject line of your email – not the body of the email.

Other Twitter-related applications for cell phones have photography capabilities built in to insert a link to make your photo viewable online.

With millions of people to pick from, deciding who you should follow is no small task. Twitter blogged about discovering who to follow, and I recommend you read it before continuing this post.

Additional Sources for Follows: Journalists

Many columnists and reporters now post to Twitter throughout the day. The blog Journalistics provides a handy listing of sites that list journalists who use Twitter.

The publications and shows for which these journalists work also post tweets of interest. Refer to WeFollow.com for the top and local listings.

WeFollow.com is a directory where you can add yourself and select five keywords (hashtags) that define who you are. The site also provides major category directories of Twitter people ranked by the number of followers each has. This is a quick way to find top leaders in many fields, and a way for you to be found by others.

Add yourself to be easily found by others searching for Twitter people on your topics.

Look through your favorite news sources and you can find the publication’s user name or the reporter’s user name. You can also search for them by name on Twitter.

Don’t expect to be followed in return by each of these since they have huge followings – hundreds of thousands of people at times – so it’s not feasible for them to follow every one in return. That means you won’t be able to send a direct message to the person.

Now you can tweet at the user to share your opinions or feedback on stories.

Many news organizations are using this technique also to source information from their audiences to enrich their stories.

With shrinking budgets in news organizations, this substitute method of information gathering can provide a vital link that keeps viewers and readers informed through on-the-spot sources in real time.

Additional Sources for Follows: Twitter Directories

As with all popular sites, related sites appear on the scene to attract traffic and provide unique value.

MrTweet.com is another source for Twitter follows.

MrTweet examines your tweet history, followers, and follows to recommend others with similar activity.

While you will need to accumulate some followers and follows after you have been tweeting for a while to get the best results, the service is a good one to revisit periodically.

Be sure to follow @MrTweet, too, for tweets directed at you about new suggested follows.

These tools are free. Bookmark them and revisit every other month to expand your Twitter network.

When You Get a New Follower

Since Twitter is driven by content and influence, you need to demonstrate both at each opportunity.

When you get a new follower, send a reply “thank you” so that your current followers see who is following you. For example:

@bobthompson Thanks for the great speech last night and the follow!

Don’t thank the person through a direct message. You want to share with others who else follows you.

This is a viral technique to get one another’s followers to follow the two of you as well. Why? Because your follower thinks:

“If David Doe is following Jane McDoe now, then I bet David’s tweets are great like Jane’s. I will follow him, too.”

While some of this sounds like you are gaming the system to increase your follow count, that is not the purpose of these techniques. Your goal is to attract a quality network of people you can share with and influence.

If any of this strikes you as bragging or showing off, remember that the rules of engagement and standards for behavior are different in the world of Twitter. These are accepted norms and not actions that are viewed in poor taste.

How to Be of Value

The best contribution you can make is to answer questions posted by others. Similar to how the best and most popular news articles bubble to the surface based on how many people are sharing links to them on Twitter, the best answers to questions tend to bubble up, too.

These phenomena happen because we trust others in our networks more than information sources we do not know or trust as well.

A plumber may label himself “Five-Star Jim’s Plumbing” in a yellow pages ad, but does he really offer five-star service? I prefer to ask my neighbor who did the best job for him when he’s used plumbers in the past.

Word of mouth provides that unconscious third-party endorsement we like to find as a way to validate our choices.

Twitter debuted is new Lists feature in late 2009.

Lists let you organize the people you follow into groups. It is a way to group Twitterers into common topics to streamline your reading experience.

I use this tool to put all my technology follows on one list, while all of my social media follows are on another. When I read through my tweet stream, reading them grouped by similar topics focuses my attention and prevents the distraction of jumping from topic to topic.

By putting people on Lists, you streamline your experience of reading tweets. If you are like me, you like to mentally check off tasks as you complete them. By organizing people I follow into Lists, I can group their tweets for quicker consumption.

If you prefer to keep your follows in a single stream, you may find it hard to keep up with the various streams of conversation because each tweet will jump from one topic to another.

By grouping follows into Lists, you maintain a manageable degree of similarity from post to post so you don’t have to do so many mental acrobatics to follow the thread of a conversation.

Some Twitterers use the number of Lists on which they appear as a measure of their reach and influence. This is akin to the sheer number of follows and followers a Twitterer accumulates as a badge of their popularity, and can be a competitive effort to see who can appear on the most lists.

As I constantly say, focus on the quality of your content and contributions – not the quantity. Popularity rises and falls with the times but quality will endure.

You may find it useful to peruse the Lists of others as a way to find interesting new people to follow, especially when you are new to Twitter.

Lists can be made public or private, depending on your preference.

See the Twitter help page for detailed steps to creating a List and adding people to it at http://help.twitter.com/forums/10711/entries/76460.

A Tweet Before We Go

Twitter is a popular, easy-to-use tool that engages users with frequent updates to topics that interest them and simplifies the process of sharing information across your social network.

I recommend diving in feet first with Twitter to experience it in full, then decide to what degree you want to pull back to make it both useful and not overwhelming. Finding balance takes some exercise, but you will quickly gauge what works for you.

Twitter is an incredible resource that will endure and evolve but it can feel like drinking from a fire hydrant for new users. Learning to moderate is the key to enjoying your Twitter experience.

Contribute, engage, share and always be of value are the primary goals to remember as you tweet, tweet, tweet.

How Do You Tweet?

Tweet us a Comment and we’ll tweet you right back. Tweet me @geofftucker.

When you attend conferences and networking events, you may notice that people will write their Twitter handle on their nametag. This is a clever way to communicate their name and promote their Twitter feed. I recommend you do this for any event you attend where you think it’s applicable.

Let’s Tweet!

Writing your first tweet can be as confusing to write as your first blog posting. If you intend to tweet about a particular topic, now’s the right time to announce that. Some examples are below:

• “Tweeting today about the city mayor’s campaign updates. Vote Thompson 2010!”
• “Looking for professional bloggers to follow. Suggestions?”
• “Offering free math tutoring lessons for grade school kids in May. Tweet me for details.”

Enrich Your Tweets

Since Twitter is such a streamlined platform, you must do a lot with a little. One way to make your tweets more valuable is to share links to articles, videos, web sites, and other online content that is relevant to your typical tweets or your followers.

For example, professionals who follow the news in their industries will post links to articles throughout the day. This provides a rich reading list that is endorsed by your followers as worthwhile.

Let me sidestep for a moment regarding why this matters.

Rather than reading the newspaper cover to cover each day – still a great pastime for me – you can trust that your follows’ judgment is as good as yours when determining the value of a particular news story. This third-party endorsement filters popular stories to the top of the trend of topics throughout the day. The sum result is, “Everyone is tweeting about this. I should read it, too.”

This is not groupthink. Rather, it’s pulse-taking and a means for you to participate in the topics of the day. It also slims down your information intake on a daily basis to only key items if you want a quick digest instead of full, deep analysis.

We all suffer information overload, and cannot possibly read as much as we would like to each day. If we did, we would have no time left to do our jobs, engage in real life, and remember to take out the garbage. In short, be willing to skim, contribute, acknowledge, and move on when the conversation fizzles.

URL Shorteners

When you want to share a link to a news story, you probably copy the web site address from the address window in your browser and paste it into an email, then send that to your friends, colleagues, and others.

This limited form of sharing makes passing along information cumbersome. By using Twitter to share links, all of your followers see it and judge for themselves whether to click through. By tweeting, you did not add yet another email to a person’s inbox (remember how overwhelmed we already are with information?). By using Twitter you made it easy for your followers to share it to their followers (called a “retweet”).

So what happens when the web site link is more than 140 characters long? That leaves no room for your tweet itself.

The solution is to use a URL shortener service.

Here’s two popular, free services and how they work:

• TinyURL.com is a popular URL shortener, and an early entrant to this field. Simply copy the web site address, paste it into middle window, and click “Make TinyURL!” You are given a new URL named http://tinyurl.com/ followed by five random numbers and letters. Now your tweet has a link and room for your message. You can copy and paste this into your tweet.
• Bit.ly is a newer, more popular URL shortener. It’s popularity grew because it also provides statistics on your shortened URLs. If you like to know how popular your tweets are, it will show how many people clicked on the links you post. Again, copy and paste your link into the window to receive a shortened URL of http://bit.ly.com/ followed by six random letters and numbers.
• Like TinyURL, Bit.ly offers a drag-and-drop tool for our browser toolbar that turns the conversion process into a one-click step. Click on the Bit.ly toolbar button, and a side panel opens. The URL is already shortened and the Twitter field is pre-filled with the article’s headline. This makes tweeting an article almost effortless.

I prefer Bit.ly for its clean interface, the statistics it provides, and the easy tools it provides to tweet links. The traffic they attract also bears that they are now a dominant service provider for URL shortening.

Hashtags

Hashtags are another element to add your tweets. They are preceded by the pound symbol #.

Think of them as tags that highlight keywords in your tweet. Using this technique makes your tweets more searchable and easy for followers to find.

There are a few methods to using hashtags.

The most common is to enter them at the end of your tweet or in the body. For example:

• “Looking forward to tonight’s rally http://bit.ly.com/8wzEMF #Thompson #mayor #2010”
• “Looking forward to tonight’s @BobThompson2010  #ThompsonRally”

This tweet communicates what this user is involved in, her attitude toward it, and includes a link to the candidate’s web site in the first example, and the candidate’s Twitter handle in the second example, along with hashtags that make it easy for other supporters of Thompson to find each other.

Conferences and events have begun to include the hashtags that tweeters can add to their tweets. This provides a real-time tracking tool to follow the comments and thoughts of the crowd at an event. Some will post “What a great event tonight!” to “@BobThompson2010 ‘Let’s work for a new era in our city. #Thompson #mayor #2010.”

That second example is a very common type of tweet you will see. It shows that the tweeter is live at the event, and publishing quotes from the speaker as they happen.

This happens often at conferences as well. If you cannot attend an event, it makes a great substitute for live reporting from an event where you can follow along as events unfold.

Now that your profile and setting are optimized for the best experience for you and your followers, it’s time to join the game.

Find People to Follow

Twitter provides a simple tool that scans your email address book to find people you know who are already on Twitter. It then suggests them as people to follow.

This feature works with the online email services from Yahoo, Gmail, and AOL.

Click on the email service you use, and provide your username and password. Twitter only scans your email for email addresses that match those of users already registered for the service. Your privacy is protected and your email is secure. You can re-run this service periodically as you communicate with new people via email, too.

Once you provide your log in information, Twitter will quickly scan your email and return a list of people to follow. Review the list and pick which ones you want to follow by clicking the “Follow” button below their info.

Each person will get an email from Twitter alerting them that you are now following their tweets. It’s common courtesy in the land of Twitter to follow people in return when they follow you. That’s why you will find many of you follows will become your followers in return. Be sure to respect this convention as you use Twitter more and more.

I inspect each new follow as they happen. Yes, you will be followed by “get rich quick” schemes people, by people selling useless products, and other valueless content. Use your judgment to decide who you want to follow in return since you will see the tweets of all your follows in your stream. And if a person is blatantly spam, report them so Twitter can revoke the profile. A little shared policing action is good for the community.

Not enough for you?

The Twitter scan will also return a list of users in your email address book who are not on Twitter. You can send invitations inviting them to sign up and follow you.

If they ask you what the service is about, or why they should be using it, feel free to share this post with them.

Twitter also provides a list of Suggested Users. There are many people and companies who have tens of thousands of followers. For example, if you are shopping for computers and equipment, follow the Dell Outlet account @DellOutlet. They offer numerous Twitter-only deals throughout the day.

Prefer to shop local? Many independent businesses use Twitter to promote sales and events in their stores. By following their tweets, you can find excellent bargains from $1 coffee to big discount coupons. When you visit a local shop, look for a sign promoting their Twitter handle – and start following. Others are beginning to experiment with running contests as a combined way to attract followers, and people who engage with their brand while passively spreading the brand across their own networks.

Many bloggers, authors, actors, and other high profile people have Twitter accounts now. Simply search for their name to find their handle and to begin following them.

Twitter provides a simple double-O graphic as the default image for users. You are going to replace that with a photo of you.

Select a headshot of yourself that clearly shows your face, and is not a full body shot.

Avoid grainy images or taking the photo yourself. The perspective of a camera aimed down the arm toward the face is not a good choice. Pointing a camera into the mirror to take a photo is not a good choice either.

Have another person take your photo against a neutral background, and focus on your face. Give a nice smile and that’s it.

You want your followers to connect your tweets with your face.

Don’t skip this step by substituting a photo of your pet or kids, or your favorite sports team’s logo. Build a brand that is about YOU.

Background Design

Twitter offers a handful of background designs for your Twitter page. You can select from their default options, or tweak the color schemes to suit your tastes.

You can also build your own. Try Mashable’s how to for specific instructions. For now, choose one of the options that Twitter provides since this option is one of taste, and not one that impacts your activity.

Mobile

Twitter was built on the premise of being used mostly on cell phones.

Click the Mobile tab to set up your cell phone to access the service. Check with your cell phone provider to find out if or how they charge you for text messages and tweets before proceeding. If you have a high volume or unlimited text messaging plan, this should not be an issue.

Notifications

After you complete the set up process on your phone, Twitter will send a code via text message. Send that code to 40404 in the US, 21212 in Canada or +44 7624801423 in all other parts of the world.

This sets up your phone to send and receive tweets. Remember, though, that once you start following a lot of people, you will not want your phone going off every few minutes with updates. To prevent that, send the word “stop” or “quit” to the Twitter number for your part of the world (as noted in the paragraph above).

Twitter also provides a variety of notifications to you via email or cell phone when certain actions happen.

Among the choices available, opt in for when you receive a direct message from any follower. If you are not checking Twitter on your computer or phone regularly, this alerts you immediately to tweets that probably need your attention. You can reply from your phone or computer.

You can choose to allow selected users’ tweets to update your phone as they’re posted if you prefer. Simply send the message “on [username]” to the Twitter number. All tweets by that user will now appear on your phone as they are posted.

I recommend experimenting with this approach. You may have certain follows that you want to tweet with throughout the day when your phone is your only means of access. Having this feature on full-time will become tedious and time-consuming if you have too many updates coming through. Turn it on and off at will, based on your preference. The users you select for this feature will not know you are changing your settings.

Before you begin to tweet or follow other people, let’s work on your profile so that others will know who you are and what you are about.

When you follow a person, he receives an email from Twitter saying, “Jane Doe is now following you on Twitter” with a link to your profile. Most likely, he will click through to see who you are, especially if he doesn’t know you. Let’s make sure he gets the right impression when he clicks through.

Click the Settings link in the menu along the top of the screen.

Let’s start with the Name tab.

1. Enter your full name.
2. Enter your user name. Twitter will confirm if it is available or not.
3. Enter your password.
4. Enter your email address (more on this below). Choose if you want Twitter to send you updates about their service.
5. Enter the words the reCAPTCHA box to prove you are not a computer or spammer.

Twitter asks for your email address so it can send certain notifications to you. It is not shown publicly or accessible by others. Choose one that you use often to monitor when other people follow you or send you a direct message (more on this later).

See If Your Friends Are On Twitter

Click “Skip this step” for now. We want to fully prepare your profile before you begin tweeting, following others, and attracting followers. Why? When people start following you, you want them to find a fully developed profile when they click on your name to learn more about you.

Twitter will present you with a suggested list of people to follow. Click “Skip this step” again for the same reason.

Finish Up Your Profile Basics

Twitter will send an email to confirm that you are who you say you are. Be sure to click on the link in the mail to verify your identity, then continue with the steps below.

Your name and user name will be pre-filled on the screen. If you need to change your email address, you can do it from here.

Time Zone

Select your time zone. Note that all your tweets will be time-stamped with your local time as you post tweets. The same applies to all other Twitterers and tweets.

More Info Link

This link is an ideal spot to use your LinkedIn profile link. If you have a blog or personal web site, you can use it here instead. Keep in mind that you only get to post one link so choose wisely where you want people to learn more about you.

One Line Bio

So, tell me about you. In 160 characters or less.

As I said, Twitter is a master of brevity.

Refer to your LinkedIn Summary to select 3-4 words that define you. List them, then add one more that paints who you are as a person. Some examples are below:

“Financial advisor, sharp networker, MBA, and avid gardener to prune the weeds from your retirement.”

“Business writer, traveler (not tourist), operations manager, and frenetic dad of 4.”

Experiment with writing these one-liners about yourself, and add a little zing at the end to better stand out among a sea of weak efforts.

Location

Including your location can make you easier to find online, particularly if your local or target market is an important part of how you want to be known.

Twitter also offers to geotag your posts. This is a small bit of code that provides your geographical coordinates on the globe. By geotagging your tweets, Twitter makes tweets become hyperlocal. That is, you can search for what is going on among Twitterers in your immediate vicinity by radius. This is helpful for following people who are tweeting at conferences or events, or just surfing the collective conscience of those around you at any given moment. Try it from your favorite coffee shop sometime.

Language

Select your preferred language. Twitter has a handful of choices for now.

Privacy

The point of tweeting is to participate in conversations. You can choose to limit who sees your tweets to only people who follow you.

This narrow-casting approach has its merits for some.

Since you are focused on building your online presence, leave it blank for now.

With it, you can create a search agent that monitors the web 24/7 for any series of search terms you want to follow. Many people use this to follow specific news topics, celebrities, companies or sports teams.

Use it to monitor yourself, too.

You will need a Google account to use this feature. Sign up at:

http://www.google.com/alerts

Enter your name inside quotation marks. This Boolean search technique limits results to only instances of your name.

For example, “Todd Myers” yields only results with that particular spelling in that sequence.

Select “Comprehensive” for Type. This searches the broadest array of sources across the web.

For “How Often,” select the frequency you want to receive results.

Enter your preferred email address in “Deliver To.”

If you dislike any activity associated with your name, act to clean it up (whether it is you or not), and dissociate your reputation from your twin’s.

Found Your Doppelganger?

Yeah, that is a big word! Have you found any one with your name also but nefarious activity to boot? How do you distinguish yourself against the other person? Post your ideas in the Comments section for a response.

As businesses began to enter social networking sites to market their goods and services, it did not make sense for them to create Profiles like a person would. Instead, they did the next best thing and created Groups around their brands.

Groups were not meant to promote brands, however. They were meant to build communities and interaction around a given topic.

To rectify this, Facebook created Pages in 2009. Pages are like Profiles. Pages are for businesses like Profiles are for People. Instead of friending a Page, you Like it.

The functionality of Pages is more conducive to marketing and public relations efforts that brands employ to drive interest in their offerings.

By Liking a business’s Page, you access special offers directed at their Likers only. You are included on discussions and announcements that bypass the regular world. Many companies continue to discover how social networking sites like Facebook increase the reach of their brands with little to no cost beyond a dedicated staffer to conduct social media efforts.

Have a brand you love? Search for it, and Like their page. Whether it’s a consumer good, a community organization or your favorite coffee shop, by Liking their Page you become a part of the inner circle where you can participate in what the brand is.

As you find Pages you want to Like, don’t forget to suggest the Page to people in your network who you think would Like it also.

Viral Power

Remember that a key power underlying social networking and social media is its ability to spread virally. That is, your actions do not happen in a vacuum (unless you really nail down your privacy settings). What you say and do is shared back out to your network as a way to drive similar behavior in others. This herd mentality is a natural response we have to want to belong. Social networking capitalizes on this to drive its growth.

This is why I remind users to always think about their actions thoughtfully, and not act impulsively.

We do not have to censor our every action. We reserve the right to behave and think as we choose. We just have to remember that now every one else knows about it, so it pays to think ahead.

Apps, Games, Polls and More

One big draw on social networking sites is the applications, games and other add-ins you can add to your profile.

These are entertaining ways to explore the site and connect with others. However, not everyone is interested in giving you a sheep to complete your farm (search for FarmVille, with over 78 million daily users).

If casual gaming is your thing, then dive in. The myriad of games will keep you on the site for hours at a time if you like.

As mentioned before, use good judgment when including others in your game play. Speaking personally, I find these very annoying and not a request I would impose on anyone.

If you notice your Wall becoming clogged by game updates from people in your network, move your mouse over the user’s name in your Wall. The button labeled “Hide” will appear to the right of their name. This lets you hide all updates by this person from your Wall. In the case of games, it selectively removes only updates generated by games on the person’s Wall.

This is a gracious way to turn off the annoyance of game updates but retain the person in your network, and to see their updates – not their games’ updates.

Adding Games

To explore the casual games available on Facebook, click the Games link below your photo on the left-hand side.

This opens a directory of all games. The ones you subscribe to are listed first, followed by the ones your friends most recently used.

Below that you can see which of your friends are playing which games.

To add the game to your profile, click on its title. Facebook will request that you allow permission for the game to access your Profile (this is how it updates your Wall). From there you are taken to the game’s page and can learn how to play it, and start playing.

Adding Applications

Similar to games, Applications add specific functionalities to Facebook.

For example, you can add a birthdays application to round up all the birthdays of everyone in your network. You will see reminders in your Profile page, making it easy to send (real or electronic) birthday cards. Birthdays are easy to forget so I love this feature.

Chat in Real-Time

The Chat feature in Facebook is very similar to any other instant messaging system you may have used.

The Chat feature is located in the bottom right of the screen. The number next to it is how many people in your network are logged in to Facebook at a given moment.

Click on the Chat button and a list of these online users is loaded.

If you sorted your friends into Lists, they will be organized by Lists here, too.

To start chatting a person, click on their name and you’re done. Note that the ones with a green dot to the right of their name are the ones actively using the site. Those with a gray crescent icon are idle.

Unlike full-fledged instant messaging systems, there is no file sharing, screen sharing, video webcam or audio functionality with Facebook’s Chat feature.

More Than Just Friends

Facebook offers a constant stream of new tools, applications and features to keep the site fun, fresh, and engaging. Keep trying out the ones that interest you for a little variety, and find something different to share.

Want to Join the Game?
Looking for tips on the best Pages, popular games or apps? Just want to ask a question about this? Post your question in the Comments section for a response.

Etiquette Matters

Although social media is famous for having somewhat loose standards of formality, propriety does hold a central place in any society, like it or not. Every social media platform (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.) lays claim to its own particular cultural rules and mores. Be sure that you understand the customs and expectations of each platform before you make a gaffe, lest you cause tongues to wag, or worse, offend society.

Conversation Matters

The most prized currency in any refined society is the witty, charming conversation of its habitués. Your conversation may be clever and amusing, but do stop short of being overly self-promotional. It is a delicate balance, to be sure, but eminently achievable by the accomplished practitioner. How? Strive to focus on other people, be courteous, be helpful, be modest, be kind. Avoid gossip and vulgarity at all costs.

Connections Matter

No, you needn’t be the cousin of every A-list blogger or member of the Twitterati. Rather, you should strive to cultivate a true circle of friends who share your interests, whose trials and triumphs you can share, and with whose problems you can empathize. Try to make connections between people who should meet, but have not yet; be a matchmaker where one person’s needs and desires meet another person’s strengths and qualities. Create networks of friends who are sincerely glad to know each other, and give them frequent opportunities to connect and help each other.

Love Conquers All

Share your passion, and those who share your passion too will find you and follow you. Speak from your heart, do not endeavor to deceive, and all shall be well.

Which Fork Do You Use for Salad and Which for Entree?

Jane would tell you but she’s busy preparing for guests. Have an etiquette question or a pet peeve to share? Post your missive in the Comments section for a response.