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

 

Want to know when Facebook users are most active?

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Right now, Wednesdays at 3pm Eastern time!!!

Here are some key findings reported by Mashable of a study by Vitrue on the times when Facebook's users are most active:

• The three biggest usage spikes tend to occur on weekdays at 11:00 a.m., 3:00 p.m. and 8:00 p.m. ET.
• The biggest spike occurs at 3:00 p.m. ET on weekdays.
• Weekday usage is pretty steady, however Wednesday at 3:00 pm ET is consistently the busiest period.
• Fans are less active on Sunday compared to all other days of the week.

Great news for businesses wanting to know the ideal times to post status updates on their Facebook pages.  Read more of Mashable's summary of the Vitrue study, here.
See also: 3 Twitter Tools to Determine the Best Time to Tweet

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.
  

Could your online activity be costing you a job? Learn how to manage your online identity!

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According to a New York Times article entitled "The Web Means the End of Forgetting," a Microsoft study found that "75 percent of U.S. recruiters and human-resource professionals report that their companies require them to do online research about candidates, and many use a range of sites when scrutinizing applicants — including search engines, social-networking sites, photo- and video-sharing sites, personal Web sites and blogs, Twitter and online-gaming sites. Seventy percent of U.S. recruiters report that they have rejected candidates because of information found online, like photos and discussion-board conversations and membership in controversial groups."  If you are even considering applying for a new job, now is the time to ensure that your online presence only shows you in the most positive light!

Here is a summary of tips from ReputationDefender.com, to help you discover what information is linked to you on the web but also ways to manage any negative information/activity that might scare off a potential employer.

• Edit the privacy settings for all your social network accounts to limit the information that others can view about you.
• Google yourself to find out what, if any, negative content might exist about you on the web.
• Edit or delete any poorly written, inappropriate, or defamatory blog posts, forum comments that you have made - especially if they are about a former employer!
• If there are photos of you doing anything that an employer might find questionable on Facebook or Flickr, untag yourself.
• If it's not possible to remove the embrassing content on any website on your own, try requesting that the person that posted the content remove it.
• In extreme cases, you may need to hire a repuation management firm to manage your online reputation.
• In the event that someone with a similar name has questionable content on the web, be sure to explain to potential employers at the beginning of the interview process - or even in your cover letter.
• There is a chance that you may not be able to avoid being linked to negative content on the web so proactively maintaining your personal brand on the web by writing a blog showcasing your expertise or by posting about topics and news related to your profession on Twitter is great way to help counteract any negative content that may be posted about you.

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: Do your customers geo-location tools to "check-in" when they visit your business?

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According to a study conducted by the Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project, 81% of cell phone owners use their phones to report where they are or to check someone else’s location.  The same number of survey respondents indicated that they use their cell phones to coordinate where they are to meet someone. 

If you own a store, restaurant, professional offices or any business where customers can visit your establishment, tapping into this trend may be a profitable way to market your business.   Using a geo-location or "check-in" services and mobile applications such as Foursquare, Gowalla, Brightkite, Loopt, Shopkick, Facebook Places and even Twitter may help new customers discover your business.  In addition, your loyal customers can leave invaluable positive feedback (yes, you do open yourself up for some negative feedback as well!) and you can further engage with them by offering discounts and other benefits.  Many of these services are "geo-social," combining social networking with their "check-in" service like the fast-growing Foursquare which give "mayorships" to the person checking in most often to their business and even offering freebies - with competition for "mayorships" and rewards to be had,  no wonder Foursquare is so popular.

Check out these articles to learn more about how you can use geo-location tools to market your business:

• Geolocation 101: How it works, the Apps, and Your Privacy
• Ways Small Businesses Can Offer Location Based Deals
• Cellphone in New Role: Loyalty Card
• How to Leverage Foursquare for Business
• How Powerful is Foursquare for Local Businesses?
• Use Facebook Places to Boost Business and Life Sales
• The Video Guide to Facebook Places for Business
• 3 Reasons Why Twitter's Geolocation Feature is Cool

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"

This week's tech tips and news

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Here's this week's roundup of helpful technology tips and interesting news!

TECH TIPS

• Email:

How to use the “Send to” feature in Windows 7

Three New Tricks for Gmail’s Priority Inbox

Controlling Amazon E-Mail

Email links – the devil is in the detail! – How to check the destination of links in your email before following on them

• Eliminate Spam from Search

• Google Chrome Tips, Tricks and Shortcuts

• Automatically back up your flash drive

• Music fans:

Album Reminder Keeps Track of Your Favorite Artists So You Don't Have To

Finding the Missing Music in iTunes

Install iTunes 10 Without the Extra Bloatware

 

TECH NEWS

• Internet Explorer 9:

The Register’s review of Internet Explorer 9

No Planned Support for IE9 on XP

• Social Media:

Social Networks Exhibit Senior Appeal

Twitter Tweaks Website to Show More Photos, Video

Courier App Easily Uploads Your Files To Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and More

• Customer Loyalty:

How to Get Loyalty Card Prices Without Loyalty Cards

How Your Likes Are Turning Facebook Into the 'Loyalty Card of the Internet'

• Gamers Better at Fast Decision-Making - Maybe all those hours kids spend playing games aren't wasted!

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?!

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