Joe Ruiz

As I commented on her Web site, the lovely and talented Andi Narvaez (as well as one-third of the San Antonio Media/PR/Business Tweetup collaborators) has inspired me to change out my current Twitter background for one with far more information about me as a person, as well as touting the rest of my online identity.

Sure, the Chuck Taylors are a classic image, but it doesn’t say much about me, especially when you consider I haven’t actually worn a pair in many years. It’s time for a return of the new. If you’ve read this far, please continue as the lessons I’ve taken away should help you, too.

While it’s hard to see, you can see I had a personalized Twitter back when I was temporarily stationed at Local10.com in Miami, Fla., during impending Hurricane Ike coverage. I’m not sure exactly why I changed it, but Andi convinced me it’s time to return.

Like the TwitTip post says, your background is your first impression on Twitter. If anyone is debating whether to follow you or not a background can help them figure out whether they share a common interest with you and can give them a sense of what kind of person you are - professional, personable, fun, serious, etc. Customized backgrounds are one step towards establishing your personal brand as well. If you have a blog or other social network profiles it helps if your background matches or is somewhat cohesive with the rest of your online personalities. Multiple identities is something that many of us struggle with on the Web but the more time you invest in customizing each of those indentities in order to create some unity the easier it will be for others to wrap their heads around who you are.

Far be it for me to not take the opportunity to shameless self-promote, but I just wrote a post about personal branding (or as I explain in the post, online identity) as a teaser for the SAMPRB tweetup later this week. I won’t go into additional details, but that post can be found on the SAMPRB blog.

Back to my upcoming Twitter back, I will also use this time to clean up, update and organize various profiles and social networks where I can be found. My Facebook, LinkedIn, Wired Journalists, Flickr and Publish2 accounts will all be worked on this week as I also work on my Twitter background. I’ve also made the decision this weekend to use my Facebook account as more than just a personal way to stay connected with people. I will use it as another public profile instead (which mainly means removing my phone number except for certain friends and being a little more willing to accept friend requests than I have been in the past).

As I explained to Andi, I have a little less than seven days to complete this task (of the background, certainly, but the added online profile work, too) or I owe her a drink at Olmos Perk.

I mentioned to a friend last week if she’d like to have breakfast on Wednesday (her day off) once I finish a panel. She agreed, but I got a call today from her asking the particulars (7:30 a.m., on the 18th) and she gently asked if she actually had to listen to me speak. She knows my interests and still listens, but I reminded her I just wanted breakfast after. What does this all mean to you? Nothing in particular, but it gives me a chance to mention that I’ve been invited to speak at the Social Media Breakfast of San Antonio.

In planning for this, I had drinks with two of the panelists (Elaine Wolff of the San Antonio Current and Donna Tuttle of the San Antonio Business Journal — the very talented and web-savvy Laura Lorek of the San Antonio Express-News is the fourth panelist). It was great to get people from different media outlets together and start relating how we’re using Web 2.0 tools to reach our respective audiences. The diversity of our audiences means we’ll use different ideas and I think this will be a great panel. I’m really looking forward to getting ideas from people well-versed and comfortable with social and new media.

The next day will also be interesting. I’m speaking at Texas State University (how can I turn down Old Main?) about being Latino and working in the media for the school’s Dia de la communicacion event as part of the Center for Latino Media’s Latino Media Conference. Honestly, it’s a subject that I enjoy speaking of, especially since I can honestly say there’s been very little downside I’ve witnessed. Granted, it may be that I’ve worked in Texas all my life (and even moreso in San Antonio), but there have been some advantages to being Hispanic and working in the media. Omar Gallaga of the Austin American-Statesman and Lydia Saldaña with Texas Parks & Wildlife will be on the panel. I love reading Omar’s blog and I know I’d be honored to yield the floor to a guy with his knowledge and work.

A couple of days later, it’s the first (as far as I know) San Antonio Media Tweetup. So far, there are about 15 people who’ve told me they’re likely coming (12:30 p.m., 2/21, Olmos Bharmacy). If you’re in town, come on by, media or not… just beware that you’re probably going to hear some war stories. No RSVP is necessary, but I’d like a decent head-count.

We’ve talked and talked (well, I have) about a media tweetup for San Antonio, and it’s finally time.

I’ve suggested Saturday, Feb. 21, at 12:30 p.m., but I would be open to moving times/dates in case a lot of people can’t meet (I’ve been told there’s a Camp going on that day, too). Leave a comment if you’d like to RSVP or have suggestions.

While we call it the “media tweetup,” it’d certainly be open to anybody who’d like to attend. By the way, you can message or follow me on Twitter.

EDIT: The Olmos Bharmacy has also been suggested. I’m open to either, love both places, but let’s try to have this down by this weekend so people can make plans. The Bharmacy is located at 3902 McCullough Road.

EDIT No. 2: The Bharmacy seems to work for a lot of people, so it shall be there.

If you’ve stopped by to browse the fine content at JoeRuiz.net, you’ll immediately notice it’s not here! That’s because I decided to try some manual work on the site without first backing everything up. Once I got to an unhappy place with the site, I realized I’d gone past the point of no return and forced myself into a penance of rebuilding the site using Wordpress from scratch (I have the blog posts saved, so I’ll recreate those soon).

Hopefully that answers your question. Please feel free to comment over my mistake and toss out some thoughts on anything I should change from the old site now that it’s a fairly simple fix.