For you tweeters, this headline must have caught your eye. After all, most of us are on Twitter to try to project a message about our place of business, our passions and the things that interest us. An increase in your following with increase your ability to spread your messages to a wider audience. My Twitter life has substantially increased since the first day I signed on to give it a whirl. I’m still figuring things out, but I have decided it’s a fun way to let everyone know what I’m up to and stay in contact with other professionals. If you are on Twitter, and you are interested in my adventures, my two accounts are AmandaNolz and BEEFMagazine.
Anyway, I found an article at the Poynter Institute titled, “10 Ways to Increase Your Twitter Followers.” The article was written by Kevin Rose, the founder of Digg and the cofounder of Pounce and Revision3. (Photo courtesy of Poynter Institute.) Kevin has over 88,000 followers on Twitter, and he is the second most followed person, after President Obama. Here is a little excerpt from this very useful article. I took home some important lessons from this article, and I hope you do, too!
1. Explain to your followers what retweeting is and encourage them to retweet your links. Retweeting pushes your @username into foreign social graphs, resulting in clicks back to your profile. Track your retweets using retweetist.
2. Fill out your bio. Your latest tweets and @replies don’t mean much to someone that doesn’t know you. Your bio is the only place you have to tell people who you are. Also, your bio is displayed on Twitter’s Suggested Users page. Leaving it blank or non-descriptive doesn’t encourage people to add you.
To read the entire article or learn more about Kevin Rose, link to Poynter Online.
After a busy week of tests and projects, I finally headed out of Brookings to start SDSU’s Spring Break. While I’m not headed to Cancun like a lot of my classmates, I have a week of fun things planned to do, both work and play. While I was on my way home yesterday, I stopped at Schlagel Farms to work on a story about their century old farm. Here is owner of the homestead, Mona Schlagel, at the original site near Raymond, S.D.
Established in 1899, the 160 acres of this plot was established during the Homestead Act. The Homestead Act allowed for a pioneer to own the land they settled on after five years if they built a house on it, plowed the land, dug up a well and actually lived there. The Schlagel family traveled from Illinois to South Dakota to pursue a new life, and in 1906, the homestead was finally theirs. Since then, this plot of land has continued to stay in the Schlagel family. In 2008, they were recognized at the South Dakota State Fair for their century farm.
Who would have thought that an aviation museum would be a good venue for a party? But the 
One of the very cool things was a great place for kids to play while the adults mingled. They even got their own special menu of pizza and chicken nuggets! 
The president and COO of 
The world faces some serious challenges… as pointed out in a Farm Foundation report released last December (see 
He says he’s grown old with the Dixie Deer Classic. But Bruce Blackwell, General Manager, doesn’t look old to me. I caught up with him relaxing on a golf cart this afternoon. I made him get up for a picture though. He says the show started in 1981. He says the easiest way to describe the show is, “a great big convention for hunters and outdoorsmen.” The exhibits haven’t changed but there are more of them that include outfitters, equipment and art.
The 
Our friends at 
Here’s another case of the shooter getting shot. And I don’t mean Deer or Deere.
I don’t know is he’s really called the Deer Measurer but he is one and he says, “Have tape measure, Will travel.” He’s Dave Boland and he’s an official measurer for Pope & Young, Boone & Crockett, Long Hunter Society and the North American Shed Hunters Club. He explained the process for coming up with the measurement to score deer racks. I’ve got a bunch of racks but I’ve never had mine measured or mounted. I’m still waiting to get one that’s worth it.
I didn’t know that media room services were already changing. Apparently at