Blogging is a Fashionable Business!

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Fashion and beauty bloggers with popular blogs which have diverse and engaged audiences are the newest influencers making them sought after partners for fashion and beauty brands.  These bloggers post photos of themselves wearing the free clothes, accessories and cosmetics that brands send them, host parties for brands, walk runways and even star in television commercials like Lindsay Calla of Saucy Glossie.  Fashion blogging has become a serious business!

Check out the links below to learn more about the business of blogging:

• The Business of Fashion Blogging

• Fashion Blogging is Creating a New Era of Influencers

• Fashion Bloggers are the New Fashion Icons

• Fashion Bloggers, Posted and Represented

• The Business of Blogging | Elin Kling (See Kling's blog, here and a video Kling did with H&M, here)

• Who's The New Judge of America’s Next Top Model? BryanBoy! (See BryanBoy's blog, here)

• Fairchild Fashion Media Buys Blogger Network of BryanBoy, Elin Kling, Rumi Neely and Anna Dello Russo

• Fashion’s Top Bloggers Make It Work For The Gap

• Beauty Bloggers Design a Color Collection for MAC

• Fashion Bloggers on the Runway

• Marriage of fashion and social media

• How a Blogging Duo Is Changing Fashion Photography With Animated Cinemagraphs

• Straight Talk: A New Breed of Fashion Bloggers

• What I Wore's, Jessica Quirk wrote a book based on her blog

• In 2010, fashion blogger Gabi Fresh became MTV's first Twitter jockey

 

More on using your social media influence for good

Tweet We blogged previously about using your social media influence for good.  Since then, we noticed a few more articles about ways non-profits can connect with donors and volunteers in the digital space who are looking to use their social media influence to do good:

• Why Social Media Is a Game-Changer for Causes
• How can philanthropists make the most of social media?
• 11 Innovative Crowdfunding Platforms for Social Good
• Can UNAIDS Crowdsource a Strategy to Combat HIV/AIDS?
• 3 Innovative Ways Non-Profits Are Leveraging Blogs 
• Do Celebrities Really Help Online Causes?
• 1MillionShirts Leverages Social Media to Help Clothe Africa

More Halloween fun using technology

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If you want to add a Halloween theme to your website or blog, check out Mashable's 8 Spooky Sets of Social Halloween Icons - See one example below:

 

Use your social media influence for good

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Social networkers, are you using you social media influence to get others to do good?  Starting today, Mashable is hosting the Social Good Summit in partnership with the UN Foundation in New York.  On Wednesday, September 21st, Mashable and (RED) present Social Good Day and invite us all to join the movement to use social media for social good. 

Here are some tips from Mashable on how you can share hare your ideas for social good:

• Sign up to attend or organize your own Social Good Day meetup on September 23 on Mashable’s Meetup Everywhere page.
• Tweet about what your solution is using the #socialgood hashtag. We’d love to hear your solutions @mashable & @joinred. (RED) will host a stream of tweets including the hashtag on its website.
• Share your solution in the comments on Mashable's blog.
• Write a blog post and share it.
• Post to Facebook about what you or your company is doing.
• Record a video about your solution and upload it to YouTube with the #socialgood tag
• Join (RED) on Facebook and Twitter to share your ideas on how to help fight AIDS in Africa using social media.
• Get inspired by watching the 30-minute Spike Jonze and Lance Bangs documentary The Lazarus Effect on YouTube. Presented by (RED) and HBO, the film follows the story of HIV-positive people in Africa who undergo a remarkable transformation in as few as 40 days thanks to access to treatment.

More on social good:

• Social Media's Power As A Tool For Good | Care2 Causes
• The Power of the Crowd - Social Good - The Chronicle of Philanthropy
• 70+ Essential Resources for Making a Difference on the Social Web
• M.B.A. Programs Invest in Social Good - MBA Admissions: Strictly Business (usnews.com)

More on digital philanthropy:

• Digital philanthropy: Study shows organizational websites trump social media & giving portals | Suzanne Hawkes  --- Go direct to study, here.
• How the UN Foundation Plans to Meet Its Goals With the Help of Social Media
• The Digital Future of Philanthropy: Engaging Your Donors with Online Video (PDF)
• Foundation communication goes digital | Philanthropy Journal
• Going digital: how donors are clicking and choosing new technology | Philanthropy UK

More on social media influence:

• The 6 Factors of Social Media Influence: Influence Analytics 1
• The Social Media 'Cool Club' - What's Your Online Influence? | Social Media Today
• Social Media Influence The AAA Rating | Career Management and Workplace Culture Blog | TalentCulture.com
• 5 Tools That Help Measure Your Social Media Influence | Social Media Examiner

Are you a "connector?"

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Are you a "connector?"  In his book, The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell defines "Connectors" as "people with a truly extraordinary knack of making friends and acquaintances."  With 65% of adult internet users using social networks, we have to wonder at the number of new connections being made on-line every day!


Read more about how Americas are connecting on the web:

• Social networking sites and our lives
• Neighbors online
• The Social Side of the Internet
• Connect with potential employers on-line

How to use social media to find a job!

Tweet Just as a negative social media presence can harm your chances of being hired by a prospective employer, a positive social media presence can help you land a dream job!  With so many Americans currently unemployed, job seekers must find a way to stand out in the crowd, here are a few ways to use social media to gain a noticeable social media presence:

Twitter

• Find recruiters or industry leaders with Twitter accounts, follow them and occasionally engage with them to learn more about them and the companies for which they work.  Developing a good relationship here can lead to an invitation for an off-line meeting.
• Re-tweet or share any industry-relevant information that you find.
• Post links to your blog posts.
• Learn more at  Mashable's "How to: Find a Job on Twitter"
  

Facebook

• Be sure your personal Facebook page has the appropriate privacy settings so any questionable content there cannot be found by a potential employer.
• Create a business page focused on your job search where you should post your resume and links to any professional web content you have created or any articles written by or about you.
• Use the Notes section as a blog where you can post ideas and points of view about your industry.
• Be sure to update your status regularly.
• Get your friends to "like" your page and spread the word about your job search!

Blog

• Start or update a blog regularly to showcase your expertise and point of view.
•  You may want to import your blog into Facebook's Notes.
• Follow other relevant blogs and comment on any interesting posts to engage with industry peers.

Video

• This may not be appropriate for all industries, but creating and sharing online videos that highlight your talents, expertise, creativity and points of view may help you to get noticed by hiring managers.

LinkedIn

• The ultimate social network for job hunting - Erik Qualman's Socialnomics video tells us that "80% of companies use social media for recruitment" with 95% of those companies using LinkedIn!
• Be sure to create or update your existing profile with your work history, education and other relevant experience as well as links to your blog, Twitter or Facebook page.
• Write a thoughtful and descriptive headline for your profile.
• Be sure to connect with anyone in your address book that currently has a LinkedIn page and ask them for recommendations.
• Join (or start) industry groups and post an ad describing the job you are searching for in the jobs section of each group.  Be sure to actively participate in any group you join by sharing great ideas and information with your peers and it is a great way to get noticed by potential employers.
  
• Add applications to your profile that will pull your blog posts, Twitter updates or even presentations that you have created and shared online.
• Post and answers questions.

Social media resume

• This is a virtual copy of your resume that can be hosted on your website or your blog.
• Add video, audio or images that showcase your expertise.
• Make your resume shareable by adding a sharing utility such as Share This, Add to Any or Add This that site visitors can access readily to share with others.
  

Social media: Manage and update all your social media outlets from one source

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If you are a business owner hoping to tap into social media to market your business  there are some shortcuts to help you reach out to your audience on the various social networking platforms (Blogger, WordPress, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.) without taking too much time from your already busy schedule.  Sites like Postling, Posterous, Ping.fm, Hellotxt and desktop applications like TweetDeck offer you a one-stop way of posting to all your social media accounts at once or just a select few at a time.  Many of these sites can also be accessed directly via your mobile phone or by using a downloadable mobile appication.  An added benefit from these services is that you can create and preschedule your blog posts and status updates to post at a desired time so you don't have to worry about being at your computer at the desired posting time.

Social Media: What is social bookmarking?

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Wikipedia defines social bookmarking as " a method for Internet users to organize, store, manage and search for bookmarks of resources online. Unlike file sharing, the resources themselves aren't shared, merely bookmarks that reference them.

Descriptions may be added to these bookmarks in the form of metadata, so users may understand the content of the resource without first needing to download it for themselves. Such descriptions may be free text comments, votes in favour of or against its quality, or tags that collectively or collaboratively become a folksonomy. Folksonomy is also called social tagging, 'the process by which many users add metadata in the form of keywords to shared content.'

In a social bookmarking system, users save links to web pages that they want to remember and/or share. These bookmarks are usually public, and can be saved privately, shared only with specified people or groups, shared only inside certain networks, or another combination of public and private domains. The allowed people can usually view these bookmarks chronologically, by category or tags, or via a search engine."

Check out some of the many bookmarking sites available to help you share resources with friends and colleagues - many of them have applications that allow you to post your bookmarks on Facebook :

• Delicious
• Digg
• Fark
• Google Buzz / Google Bookmarks
• Newsvine
• Reddit
• StumbleUpon
• Twitter (of course!)
• Yahoo! Buzz  / Yahoo! Bookmarks

Social Media: How to Podcast

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According to Wikipedia, a podcast “is a series of digital media files (either audio or video) that are released episodically and often downloaded through web syndication.  The word usurped webcast in common vernacular, due to rising popularity of the iPod and the innovation of web feeds.  The mode of delivery differentiates podcasting from other means of accessing media files over the Internet, such as direct download, or streamed webcasting. A list of all the audio or video files currently associated with a given series is maintained centrally on the distributor's server as a web feed, and the listener or viewer employs special client application software known as a podcatcher that can access this web feed, check it for updates, and download any new files in the series.  This process can be automated so that new files are downloaded automatically.  Files are stored locally on the user's computer or other device ready for offline use, giving simple and convenient access to episodic content. Commonly used audio file formats are Ogg Vorbis and MP3.”

The definition above seems a bit complicated but podcasts are fairly easy to produce for personal or business purposes.  Here’s what you will need to create audio podcasts from your home or office.

1. You will need a computer with active internet connection, a microphone, and audio recoding software such as Audacity which is available for free download and is compatible with both Macs and PC’s.  Be sure to download the associated mp3 encoder from the Audacity website.
2. Record, edit and save your audio file using Audacity.  You may consider creating an “intro” for your podcast series – this can be a script that you recite at the beginning of each podcast or music (look for royalty free music) that plays before your podcast starts.
3. Upload your podcast file to an online hosting service – OurMedia.org offers a free hosting service for podcasts but you can find other free podcast hosting sites with a simple search on Google. If you have an existing website hosting service where you can store your mp3 podcast files, you may still want to consider using a free service like OurMedia.org to store your files if you do not have an unlimited hosting plan.
4. Next you will need to create an RSS feed for your blog, you can use Google's FeedBurner for free if you have a blog that links to your mp3 podcasts but there are software programs available to help you create the XML files needed to create an RSS feed.
5. Submit your podcast’s RSS feed to iTunes and online directories to reach potential listeners.  Be sure to add a button or widget on your website or blog to allow people to subscribe to your RSS feed.
6. Publish your podcast:
• Check with your web hosting provider or web designer to find out how to add podcasts to your website
• Podcasting with Blogger
• Podcasting with WordPress
• Podcasting with TypePad

If you want to have the opportunity to interact live with an audience in real-time, you may want to host a live-call in webcast using a service such as BlogTalkRadio requiring you to have only a computer and a telephone (with good reception, of course!).  The benefit - shows are streamed live but are also archived as downloadable podcasts that you can publish via RSS feed!

For info on creating a video podcast (also know as vodcast) check out:

• MacWorld's How to create a vodcast for Macs
• Georgia State Univeristy's instructions on creating a video podcast, using a Windows PC

Here are some great tips from Apple on sharing podcasts via iTunes:

•  How to publish to iTunes
• Tips on Podcasts from iTunes

Social Media: Blogging for your business

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Blogging is yet another way you can tap into social media to market your business and engage with current and potential new customers.  You can incorporate a blog into your company's existing website or have a stand alone blog (some companies just opt for a blog instead of a website).  many opt for a free blog hosted by Google's Blogspot (Blogger), TypePad or WordPress.   The key thing to remember if you start a blog for your business is this - content is king - so be sure to keep it interesting, keep it informative and keep it relevant!

Below are some short tutorials that we found to help you get setup with a new blog using Blogger, TypePad or WordPress.


Blogger



Word Press



Type Pad

Social Media: Marketing your business with YouTube

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You may have heard about the viral success of videos from Old Spice, Gillette, Blendtec and IKEA on YouTube, each with millions of views to date.  More and more, companies are looking to online video as a way to market their goods and services while also providing entertaining and informative content to consumers that stands apart form their competition.  Posting videos to YouTube is ideal for businesses large and small. The service is free and your videos can live online as long as you'd like, so a small initial investment to produce a video can result in long term returns.  An additional benefit to posting videos to YouTube - you don't have to worry about bandwidth issues on your own website - you can simply embed the code for your desired YouTube video and it will play on your website!

Some tips to making YouTube videos work for your business:

• Investing in expensive equipment to produce a video is simply not necessary - YouTube videos are just 320 x 400 pixels.  We recommend that you invest in a user-friendly video camera for under $500.
• Proper lighting while recording is important and doesn't have to be expensive.  (Read Bill Moyer's video lighting secrets for your home studio.)
• Choose a descriptive user name - this will become the name of your YouTube channel and you will not be able to change it.
• Be sure to include your website URL in your video.
• Videos must be under 10 minutes in length - but your video does not have to be that long!
• Give a good deal of thought to your choice of video name, your video description and the keywords you associate with your video, you want search engines to be able to find your video so chose keywords that best fit your business offerings and niche.
• Let your contacts know about your YouTube channel, notify them via email or on a social network such as Facebook or Twitter and be sure to post the URL on all your marketing materials and include the link in your email signature.
• Interact with other YouTube users - comment on relevant videos and subscribe to other channels in order to drive some traffic to your channel.

For more tips on making your YouTube videos a success, check out Social Media Examiner's 16 Tips for Successful Online Video Marketing.

Let us know if you are using online video to market your business, leave us a comment below with the URL for your videos.
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See for yourself why the videos from Old Spice, Gillette, Blendtec and IKEA went viral!

Old Spice


Gillette


Blendtec


IKEA

Social Media: Twitter and "tweeting"

Tweet Twitter is a free micro-blogging service where users post notes or "tweets" in 140 characters or less. If you are new to Twitter or curious about how you can use it to share information and opinions with others or to market your business, take a look at Twitter 101: How should I get started using Twitter? to learn how to set-up an account, "tweet" and "re-tweet" and discover others users to "follow." [See our blog about shortening URL's, this is a great way to help you stay within Twitter's 140 character limit]

As mentioned in our post about using social media for business, many business have had success using Twitter to generate business, check out Twitter's case studies to learn how companies, large and small, are engaging with customers, gaining invaluable word-of-mouth advertising and growing their businesses using this service.

Follow NMC on Twitter, @nmc2004

For lists of celebrities, musicians, news outlets and other interesting Twitter users to follow, check out wefollow.com
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Check out Twitter's YouTube video: "Twitter: discover what's new in your world"

Social Media: Hongkiat.com's 20 Facebook Tips/Tricks You Might Not Know

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Check out Hongkiat.com's Facebook tips and tricks, including:

• Updating Facebook using sites like hellotxt and Ping.fm

• Downloading Facebook Photo Albums using FacePAD: Facebook Photo Album Downloader

• Scheduling your Facebook messages using Sendible

• Synchronizingphotos of your Facebook friends with your MS Outlook contacts

• Deleting, Canceling and Terminating your  Facebook Account and Profile

For the full list of tips and tricks, click here.

Social Networking beyond Facebook and Twitter

Tweet By now, many professionals are using of Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn to reach clients, network with industry peers and market their businesses. But they can also tap into many niche social networking sites that cater to individuals based on interest or profession.

Here is a list of just a few of the social networking sites specifically for real estate professionals:

* Real Town - For consumers looking for buyer and seller information and real estate professional seeking resources and networking opportunities
* Active Rain - A social network and marketing site
* RealEstateVoices - A social real estate news site
* Zolve - Connect buyers, sellers and owners with information provided by real estate professionals
* Broker Agent Social - "A peer to peer community open to real estate professionals of all types: Real Estate Sales, Mortgage, Title, and all those who provide support to the Real Estate Industry"

We found a list of many niche social networks broken down by industry/interest on Social Media Answers - many of the sites listed are built using Ning, a site that allows you to create your own social network.

Is Social Media right for your business?

Tweet 2.6 million users "checking in" on FourSquare

27.9 million+ bloggers in the US

Facebook has over 103+ million users (including 300,000+ business pages)

Nearly 106 million people "tweeting" on Twitter

143.2 million unique viewers on YouTube in June 2010 alone!

These numbers are staggering! More importantly, they represent the number of people that are a potential audience for your business if you use one of these sites. But is social media the right avenue to engage with your current clients and promote your brand to gain new clients?

While a social media strategy may not be right for every business, there are many that can positively measure the impact of a Facebook page or Twitter account on their bottom lines! Erik Qualman gives some great examples of businesses (large and small) that had great success using social media in his video Social Media ROI: Socialnomics. The New York Times also tells us some success stories of small businesses who saw a great return on investment from their Twitter marketing efforts.

If your company has a small (or non-existent) ad budget, social media may be the answer. Most social networking sites are free to use so for only the cost of your time, devoting a few minutes a day to "tweet" on Twitter, post an informative blog relevant to your product/service or share interesting links or photos on Facebook can result in increased exposure for your company and increased sales. So are you ready to embrace social media for your business?!

NMC has gone social, follow us on Twitter and "like" us on Facebook)

Is Social Media just a fad?

Tweet Did you ever think that social media was just a fad? Check out this video for Erik Qualman's book "Socialnomics: How Social Media Transforms the Way We Live and Do Business" for some surprising stats on how social media has changed the world! If you are ready to embrace the world of social media, give us a call at 212-851-8426