A few days ago I had a birthday.

Today I baked cupcakes.

Next  Tuesday, December 7, is the sixth anniversary party for Cupcakes Take The Cake. $10

I will be attending Lavish in Atlanta from December 10-12. I will be moderating a panel on food.

Erin and Her Cello is having a fantastic holiday show  Friday, December 17th. FREE

I am judging the Second Annual Lower East Side Girls Club Cookie Swap on December18th. $15

As I get older,  I  get more introspective, more respective and trying to really figure out what make me tick.  But lately, I seem to focus more on the superficial and wonder, “what makes a hot chick?”

1. Confidence
2. Banging Body
3. If not, a banging body then wears the the clothes that perfectly fit her body type.
4. Wearing non-practical (sometimes painful)shoes like fuck me stilettos, go-go boots, etc.
5. Whips her hair back and forth, even if her hair is short and natural
6. Always packs a swimsuit whenever or wherever she travels.
7. Meticulous brow grooming.

Not an exhaustive list, but things I notice.  I am not a hot chick.  I have always aspired to be smart, funny and nice.

Lately, I have been thinking about how I am perceived by others. This can be dangerous. It could make me doubt myself or bring up old insecurities that I thought I left at high school. One easy way to see how people see me is to look at the Twitter Lists I am on.  Don’t sleep on Twitter Lists; they reveal a lot.  I create a few myself to curate tweets from foodiphiles and cool black people.

How do people describe me? Let me count the ways.  I am currently on 295 lists.

1. Conference-attendee: I have been doing lots of conferences this year.
2. Friend: Some people consider me a friend.
3. New York/Brooklyn: I am tagged by location.
4. Woman: I am tagged by gender
5. Black: I am tagged by race
6. Food: I tweet about food
7. Cupcakes: I am a cupcake enthusiast
8. Social Media: I practice the art of social media
9. Blogger: I have been blogging long time
10. Interesting:  I guess my tweets are interesting

I will be in Fort Greene this Saturday hosting a twitter scavenger hunt from 12-3PM with BlackAtlas.com. If you find the van, then you can win passes for dinner at Chef Marcus Samuelsson new restaurant in Harlem, Red Rooster on Monday, November 15. Follow me (Niche) and (Black_ Atlas) for clues.

Update: Saturday was a lovely day, and I had fun hanging at the Brooklyn Flea and Greene Grape Provisions with Kiratiana, the editor of Black Atlas.

Photo from Rosiana Fontes’ Tumblr

Vendy Awards. I am so excited to be a volunteer on the project. Next year, there will be Vendys in Los Angeles and Philadelphia as well as New York City. The Vendys celebrates delicious ethnic street vendor food which includes trucks and carts from all over the city.

On another note, I spotted it a few weeks ago, and now it is definitely a fashion trend.  It’s Mickey/Minnie Mouse fashion. Polka dots, red bow ties, and whimsy.  Forever 21 is streets ahead with Minnie Mouse trend with their collection, Minnie Muse.

On Monday,  I spoke at the Postling event for small business owners. It was held at the new Brooklyn Winery in Williamsburg. The discussion was about using social media, geo-location services, blogging and having a website.   Here’s some highlights.

Facebook

Nichelle: If you have a business, then you should have Facebook.  Facebook gives you more room than twitter.  People want to know where you are and what you’re selling.

Alexis: Your Facebook fans advertise for you.  It seems less pushy when other people praise you.

Twitter

Nichelle: The great thing about twitter is that it caters to a niche (like chocolate, clothing, beer).  The focusing is on listening and sharing, more than telling.  Make your twitter name as short as possible.

John: It’s really powerful to tweet at someone who is talking about your subject, but not directly to you.  Your goal has to be looking a year out, because it’s a snowball effect.  Brooklyn Winery doesn’t advertise with twitter, we use it to find people with similar interests.  Remember not to be entirely self-promotional.

Alexis: Think of it as a 90/10 rule:  10% of content is specific about your business; 90% is conversation, related topics, neighborhood discussions

Blogging

Nichelle: Blogging helps you quickly build your brand. Small businesses have an advantage with blogging—you can really put your personality out there.  A good blogger brings you into their thoughts.  A blog is your platform.  Have a blog as part of your website.  Blog about what you’re passionate about.

John: Blogging puts content out there that allows people to find you. Often, 80% of our traffic comes from related Google searches. We blog about things related to other wineries; visitors will come from that.  You never know–in the end you may end up with content for a book.  We started our website 10 months before we opened.

Thanks Alexis and Meaghin for having me speak. It was great to meet Amy from Greene Grape Provisions, Daniel from Fine and Raw Chocolate, Hamilton from Maia Yogurt and John from Brooklyn Winery.

If you want to know more about implementing social media into your business, then check out Postling’s Social Media Boot Camp.

I don’t know what is bigger news—Martha Stewart launching a cookie iPad app or her show will start having a regular twitter section for some of her live shows. Sixteen food/baking twitterers were invited to come tweet the show for Martha Stewart and leverage our followers’ engagement. It was an exciting show because the cookie iPad app is supercool, so tweeting using the hashtag #marthastweets was fun. Event television is great for live-tweeting, but it only works when the event is exciting and/or newsworthy. I hope #MarthasTweets will be used judiciously. To paraphase [clumsily] Jon Stewart–”If we hashtag everything, we hear nothing”.