Nice is the underlying attitude that the people on Facebook and YouTube are friends or fans, people on Twitter are followers and even on the more formal sites such as LinkedIn people are connected. Brands who understand social media language are mastering the art of nice by remembering that friends, fans and followers expect to be treated differently than clients or customers. Social niceties are not a surprise. They are expected. Acknowledging comments from fans, retweeting something special from a follower, saying happy birthday to a friend, solving a problem for a frustrated connection—these are the ways successful brands use social media to increase their social currency, develop brand evangelizers and promote positive feelings about their brand.

Gary Vaynerchuk understands Nice. So does philosophy, Queen of Your Own Life, Mari Smith, Zappos, and Ladies Who Launch.

There are unlimited strategies any brand can take to make sure Nice is at the heart of their social media marketing strategy. Here are five ideas to jumpstart brand nice-storming:

To read the entire article, including the five Nice-storming ideas, please visit Examiner.com.

Market Me Tweet is the new player in Twitter Tool Town and is here to make a mark of noticeable proportions. Why? How is this tool so different from all other ones already in massive use?

This is not your regular Twitter management tool, even though it does have the main manager features such as scheduling tweets, following and unfollowing, lists, searches and multiple account management. What this tool has in addition to “standard” features is the strategic marketing component. Yes! Market Me Tweet is THE ONLY ACTIVE marketing management Twitter tool that gives users the ability to create branded tweets and direct Twitter followers to a specific webpage.  This cutting edge Twitter tool allows users to fine tune their messages for effective PERSONAL BRANDING.

Let me explain what that means for the user. This means that every time you tweet you have the opportunity to attach your brand signature to each tweet, without taking away any of the 140 characters. Therefore, your personal brand is actively exposed and your tweets become a strategic messaging platform. Market Me Tweet includes a Brand Management feature that allows you to set up the application to show your signature as a clickable link.

← See the image.

Now you are exposing your brand to all who may find your tweets relevant and interesting. We found no other tool to be able to do this. That’s why we call Market Me Tweet “The Ultimate Twitter Game-Changer Marketing Tool”. This simple signature makes you “the supreme” Twitter marketing player.

You can setup your application for multiple Twitter accounts and multiple brands.

Another great feature of this product is the ability to create user controlled Reply Campaigns. What are “Reply Campaigns”? The Reply Campaigns are a way to target market your tweets based on the keywords you select. Market Me Tweet allows you to create multiple keywords real-time searches and by setting up the reply templates (pre-written tweets) enables “relevant” real time conversations. This is very helpful for targeted niche marketing and it helps tremendously with improving the quality of your engagement and community creation. A great addition to regular keywords you would select to target your search is the “negative keywords” selection tool that helps eliminate irrelevant words and search results. This is so exciting, because there is no time or effort wasted, and your campaigns become super targeted and results they create are conversations and engagements relevant to your niche.

The real super-power is in combining these two features: branding your tweets with targeted reply campaigns. When we tested with only 3 different reply campaigns, the click-through rate was amazingly high and even the conversion rate was very unexpected. Let me put that in numbers:

We sent out 30 targeted tweets by using 3 keyword reply campaigns (10 tweets for each keyword). During the duration of the campaign (couple of days) we had 64 clicks to our website and 17 new signups for our e-course. To track the tweets that included links, we used bit.ly, links shortening and tracking service.

Another what seems to be very “standard” feature we really like is Follow/Unfollow. The difference between this one and “following” feature with the rest of the tools out there is that Market Me Tweet’s Follow/Unfollow activity is based on your keyword reply campaigns settings. This means more responsive followers and community of peeps that speak the same language, and are interested in the same things.

At this point the only negative thing we can say about this Twitter tool is that it doesn’t show your own “sent” tweets. This is definitely not a deal breaker by any means. We asked Market Me Tweet development team about adding it to their functions, and they will be working on it, so no sweat – just patience.

There are hundreds of Twitter tools out there that are free of charge and pretty powerful management tools, but not single one does ACTIVE and strategic targeted marketing and brand promotion with every tweet. We found that the cost of $39.99 — one time download fee with unlimited lifetime updates, is very reasonable. With the download you also get the access to video tutorials.

To sum it all up, we really like this product so much that we’ve decided to become affiliates and promote it to our community.  We think that the modest one-time cost will pay dividends in terms of conversion rates, time and research capabilities.  This is the very first product created outside of our own company that we’ve decided to wholeheartedly endorse.  We really do think it has merit.

Watch the Tour Video – courtesy of Market Me Tweet

Create your own marketing magic, expose your brand and grow your business.

Download your own Market Me Tweet tool by clicking on our affiliate link below:

http://marketmetweet.com/supreme

What do you think about Market Me Tweet as a Twitter branding and marketing tool? Will you be using it to create branded Twitter presence and engaging conversations that are relevant to your niche?

Original review article published on Examiner.com

Collaboration isn’t the buzzword of the week. It’s the NEW Business and Workplace Model, because effective collaboration is intrinsic to how well an organization (big or small) will perform over time, and that includes inside collaboration across functional teams, departments or business units, as well as, collaboration with potential partners, contractors, suppliers, customers, and even at times, with competitors (referred to as co-petition).

Collaboration is often viewed of as “a nice to have” by businesses and entrepreneurs. But make no mistake: collaboration bring unbelievable competitive advantage to your business. Businesses and individuals that have learned to work collaboratively have seen startling results. They have greater agility, make better decisions and are way more productive.

Collaboration is simple to understand and should be second nature to all of us. It means we do something better, often bigger, when we do it together. When parties accomplish together what could not be done separately. Yet it is difficult to attain.

We are surrounded by potential partners in our every day lives: colleagues, neighbors, friends, fellow volunteers. But powerful partnerships – the kind in which you and a collaborator regularly work together, reach goals together you never could have accomplished apart, and gain the deep satisfaction only such an alliance can bring are elusive.

We are crowded in offices, airports, subways – frequently within arm’s reach of dozens of people – but often on a very lonely pursuit. Wired? Yes, Networked Yes, Collaborating? Not much.

Continue reading Why Collaborate?  and Internal Collaboration and Social Networking – Facebook-Like World Migrating to Business  on the Examiner.com

As social technologies approach universal participation, business owners need to change their attitudes. The question “Should I start?” is no longer relevant (you should). The new question is, “What are my customers open to, and what are my competitors doing?

The exploding numbers associated with the most popular sites like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube inspire awe in even the most jaded statisticians. Time spent on social networks increased 277% in the United States last year, according to media research firm Nielsen, and Twitter itself grew more than 500%.

Now the social media category is primed to emerge as the most significant business enabler since the Internet itself.    

It leaves little doubt that the way we communicate with our customers is changing. Communication has become a conversation and audiences are now communities. The use of social media marketing in a business can be a valuable tool and provide a competitive edge at zero cost or at a very lost cost of entry. With the use of social media, each and every business has the opportunity to rise in prominence, showcase their talents, products or services and reach a massive audience at once.  

Every business should be involved in social media, but they don’t necessarily need to be involved in every aspect of social media. Whether it is a blog, Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn or YouTube – different platforms serve different needs. 

Top Business Objectives for Social Media
Data: Deloitte Survey of 400+ Companies  

• Generate more word of mouth 38%
•  Increase customer loyalty 34%
• Increase product or brand awareness 30%
• Bring outside ideas into organizations 29%
• Improve customer support quality 23%
• Improve public relations effectiveness 20%
• Business model innovation 17%
• Reduce customer support costs 16%
• Reduce customer acquisition costs 15% 

We asked a few entrepreneurs how they intend to integrate social media into their marketing mix to boost their business and increase their reach.  Here’s what they had to say: (please feel free to contact them directly for additional information or questions)

Ryon Harms
Director, Executive Network at McDermott & Bull
http://www.thesocialexec.com/

Ryon is integrating social media into every aspect of his marketing and business development strategies. He sees no reason not to give his customers an opportunity to spread his message. Plus, he is a firm believer that a good blog with great content is *the* most powerful tool in any marketer’s arsenal. 

Continue reading this article on Examiner.com

Facebook Pages for Business

You’ve set up a Facebook Fan Page, using your name or your business name and a short business descriptor. You’ve uploaded either your photo or your corporate logo. You’ve become a fan of your own page so that the page updates show up in your profile stream for your friends to see and perhaps, then choose to become fans.

But you’re still struggling to grow your Facebook Fan base and put the pieces of the puzzle together to use this far reaching and powerful platform to take your brand message to the widest possible audience and ultimately incentivize your following to, dare we say it, purchase your offerings.

For the sake of this post, let’s assume that you’ve done all these basics.

1. Maximized the information box underneath your photo to contain a keyword rich description of your business, your product or service and your brand message.

2. Included a link to your website for more information.

3. Imported your blog posts to your Facebook Fan page using Networked Blogs, RSS Feed or the Notes application.

4. Added the Static FBML application to your page and used that to create a customized Welcome tab on your page. Under that tab you’ve given your potential fans much more description about your business and told them how to contact you.

5. Added an opt-in box under either this Welcome tab or on your Wall where you are offering your new fans an opportunity to:

a. Subscribe to your newsletter of tips and ideas

b. Download a free copy of your latest How-To video

c. Obtain something free which they can only get by subscribing to your list

Now it’s time to give your fans a reason to come back to your page often and to give potential new fans a reason to become fans. You must provide something of value to your growing fan base and prove to them that they made a good decision in choosing to become your fan. Here are a few tried and true ideas that we’ve observed can excite a fan base and help grow your following:

For more information about growing your fan base on Facebook pages and to read the rest of this article, please visit Cindy’s column at The Examiner.

With Twitter, you will have the opportunity for fast and direct conversations with your customers, and will be able to reach a new base of prospects.

Here are 10 ways you can use Twitter effectively for your business:

1. Create Brand Awareness. By learning to use Twitter properly and regularly and being strategic with your messages you create connections with industry leaders, your customers and your prospects. Share good content and become a resource of valuable information.
2. Direct Traffic. Use Twitter as your traffic directional tool. When you have a new blog post, event, or a sale, even a new video or pictures posted on your site, Facebook, or YouTube, by simply posting a tweet and attaching the link you are directing traffic. Take your followers to places where they will get valuable information, or fun experience.
3. Hire People. Whether you need a web designer or a real estate professional, all you need to do is send out couple tweets asking for recommendations. Hire individuals or companies for whom you have received good recommendations.
4. Research. Twitter is a great place to research products and services. You can ask for reviews, feedback and references.  In addition, Twitter is a perfect platform to preview prospects before you meet them. You can gain a lot of information by looking at their profile and their tweets.
5. Get News. Twitter is an amazing news aggregator. The first news about results of the presidential election were broadcast on Twitter. The Hudson River plane incident pictures and news came from Twitter. Many Twitter users share news stories by attaching links to articles.
6. Networking, Partnering and Friendships. Connect with local businesses, colleagues and customers and exchange ideas and experiences. Build relationships with vendors that can offer complimentary services or products. All the relationships that you create on Twitter will help you create a new community that will bring value to your business and your personal relationships.
7. Keep in Touch With Customers. Update your customers and clients about new events, policies, products, services, or prices. Twitter is an easy way to stay in touch.
8. Event Updates. One of the most popular activities on Twitter is following #hashtags tagged conversations from live events. This is how Twitter users become a part of a community by being interested in the same event. They share opinions and experiences, talk about take-aways and share commentaries.
9. Find Prospects. You can use Twitter to find potential customers or clients online. Use keywords that relate to your products or service in the Twitter Search feature to find out who is talking about it and then follow those that are talking about it.
10. Share and Build Credibility. The Twitter community appreciates those who share valuable information, articles and referrals. Help those that have problems, share tips related to your industry and your business, report industry latest news, link to articles and summarize the value of them in your tweets.

Remember, even though it’s such a simple concept, Twitter is one of the most powerful connection and conversation tools on the internet today. Do not underestimate the power of words and the speed information spreads today with the help of social media tools.

More articles that can help you create good presence on Twitter:

• The List of 30 Twitter Tools by Function
• Twitter Adds Local Trends Option
• Twitter FUNdamentals Webinar Questions Answered
• How to Upload Pictures and Share Videos on Twitter

Social media tools: powerful …highly effective … and yes unavoidable!

Marketing has changed, gone are the gatekeepers. Still think you are in control of your message? To a certain point you are, but so are your customers and your potential fans. Your message of providing a phenomenal product or indispensable service is your task to communicate but wouldn’t you rather have your evangelists spread your message, vision and mission?

The world is changing; people trust their friend’s opinions about brands far beyond what they’ll believe in an advertisement. It’s a two-way conversation where everyone has a voice and wants to be heard. As long as they’re sharing, let’s give them something to talk about.

If you (or your business brand) is not clearly established on a company blog, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube, then you are missing out on a golden opportunity.

Are you resistant to using social media? Maybe you are attracted to the idea of using social media for personal and business branding, yet you feel that you do not have the time, first to learn to use all of these new internet-based tools, and then to keep them in play with any measure of consistency. If you are a sole proprietor, solo-preneur or a small business owner, you already make up your entire management, labor, accounting, billing, advertising, marketing, and custodial staff (as well as any other chore your business requires), so how can you possibly take on an additional task?

Where will you find the time to learn and implement social media strategies, especially since social media doesn’t feel like any type of marketing you have ever done before nor is it clear how it could possibly contribute to your bottom line?

Continue reading this article at the Examiner.com  but before you go, are you using social media as part of your marketing mix?  We’d like to hear from you and invite you to share your ideas, tips and strategies.

A popular question we often hear at Supreme Social Media is “How do I get rid of those annoying Facebook applications my friends post on my  Personal Profile Wall?”

Here’s our Supreme Tip!

As lovely as the Heart, Drinks, Fruit, Burgers and Pillow gifts your friends send you on Facebook not everyone appreciates them and it can sometimes be perceived as annoying by crowding people’s Personal Profile Wall.  

If you like a few gifts but would rather not have them take up your entire wall, there is a way to stop these applications from showing up on your Personal Profile Wall. Sometimes the “Block Application” link below the gift on your profile page will be enough to block it. But we are sure that the following process will surely remove the applications for good. 

Simply click on the “Notification” icon (the little globe) on your Facebook navigation bar at the top of the page on your left and select the “See All Notifications” link at the bottom of the pop up box.  Once on the “Notification” page, look to the right column for “Other Applications” appearing under the “Show Notifications” and the “Applications you’ve authorized” headers. 

This section will show you a list of applications that your friends are currently posting to your page. Simply uncheck any of the applications to remove access to your Personal Profile page. While un-checking these applications will not remove previous posts of these applications, it will remove access to post any more.

Be sure to keep the following applications checked:
* Feed Comments – to see comments to feeds
* Like – to see when someone checks the “Like” option to your Status Update
and any others you enjoy seeing.

Be sure to check this page every so often to discover new applications that have gained access to your Personal Profile. Simply follow the process as detailed above to remove access.

This should do the trick!

If you have further questions or need more information, go ahead and post your comments below.

Sound familiar? I always reply, “Think about that for a second.  Would you hand your business cards to someone and tell them to pose as you at the next Chamber of Commerce or other networking event?”  “Don’t be silly, ” they say, “of course I wouldn’t!”  But that is exactly what you are doing if you outsource your social media conversations and engagment.

Social media engagement is not just about writing tweets and posts. Social networking is real networking in the traditional sense. Just like going to the local chamber of commerce networking meeting, the voice is your business message and you shouldn’t be so willing to hand that over to someone else.

When I started my first internet business, I knew nothing about social media so I hired someone to handle it for me. I searched for the best and least expensive person I could find and set them off on their way.

Shortly thereafter, I received a DM, direct message on twitter, from a friend in response to a tweet posted by my social media proxy. My friend alerted me that “my” message referenced another company, a competitor that had a similar name to my company! The person I hired to do my social media conversations was promoting a competitor!

A light bulb went off that day, and I vowed to learn all I could about social media. I spent nearly three years studying and perfecting the art of social media communications through trial and error and a huge investment of time. I came to appreciate the power that social media marketing can have to launch and expand businesses and I am now a passionate advocate for incorporating social media into a business marketing strategy. Yet I know from experience that not every business can afford to invest three years in learning this new medium.

I love showing serious professionals, entrepreneurs and small to medium sized businesses that YES, they can begin using social media to market their products and spread their brand message and they can do it themselves in just minutes per day using a simple formula I call the 3×15 formula.

The plan is so easy. Social media communications and marketing can be done 3 times per day for 15 minutes. That is all it takes to drive meaningful conversations on line. No one can afford to sit in front of a computer or be on a smart phone 24 hours per day/7 days per week. Using various social media organization tools such as Hootsuite to arrange and systemize your  social media activities is one way to streamline your efforts.  You can also just do it right from the different applications themselves and use the same formula and you can accomplish meaningful marketing and promotion goals in just 45 total minutes per day.

Start by finding a timer to install on your computer desktop. I found a freeware version called “time left” and it has a countdown clock. Start with your Facebook Fan Page:

• Scan your page for messages from fans and respond
• Post one new thought, quote or link to an interesting article your fans might find useful
• Invite any recent friends from your profile to join your fan page

Next go to your Facebook personal profile page:

• Respond to any friend requests
• Friend a few new people who might have similar interests
• Post one inspirational quote or thought

Next move to twitter:

• Look at who is following you and follow them back
• Answer your @ replies and direct messages.
• Retweet one influential person who is sharing good information
• Share one link to an interesting article your followers will find useful

Last but not least, go to Linkedin:

• Update your status
• Add some connections
• Check the “answers” section to see if there are any questions you are qualified to answer.
• Check your groups to see if there are any good discussions in which you can take part.

Here’s the point. You don’t have to do everything. You don’t have to participate in every discussion. Be strategic about where you participate and make sure you’re contributing content or information that your community members will find useful and that reflects positively on you, your business and your industry.

Social media activities do not have to be a major time-taker. It is the essential marketing tool and if you keep on a plan and schedule it doesn’t have to take much time at all. Make sure you stick to it. Set the timer for 15 min chunks and when the timer goes off, finish the last sentence and shut down. Pick it up again at lunch and then again either after dinner or before bedtime. You may find that you even enjoy social media when you limit yourself to a manageable time commitment!

If this still doesn’t work for you, there are plenty of ways to outsource social media properly. It will, however, take time and money. The best way to outsource is to hire what we call a “brand ambassador.” This person lives and breathes your company message, and then proceeds to carry it to the market.

Can a brand ambassador be someone already inside your company? Yes, as long as you train them and give them the proper tools and guidelines to succeed.

To become the conversation, you first have to be present and engaged in that conversation. You are your business. So think carefully about who you want to represent your business in the fast paced world of social media.

YouTube

Online video viewing continued to reach record levels with 33.2 billion videos being viewed during the month of December alone. Here in the U.S., 134.4 million viewers watched more than 13 billion videos on YouTube in December 2009, according to the latest data from comScore Video Metrix. In the U.K., 18.5 million unique visitors watch 2.4 billion videos on YouTube a month.

The beginning – Fact or Legend –  According to a story that has often been repeated in the media, Chad Hurley and Steve Chen developed the idea for YouTube during the early months of 2005, after they had experienced difficulty sharing videos that had been shot at a dinner party at Chen’s apartment in San Francisco. Jawed Karim did not attend the party and denied that it had occurred, while Chad Hurley commented that the idea that YouTube was founded after a dinner party “was probably very strengthened by marketing ideas around creating a story that was very digestible. To read more about the company history

YouTube.com was registered on February 15, 2005 by three PayPal alums: Chad Hurley, Steve Chen and Jawed karim. For more information about the three founders

Me at the Zoo  – April 2005 a 19 seconds video of Karim in front of the elephants at the San Diego Zoo is the first video posted to the site.

Nike was the first October 2005 – Nike became the first major corporation to embrace YouTube’s promotional potential. A video of Brazilian soccer star Ronaldinho dancing the samba with a ball is an instant viral hit with1,743,769 viewers to date.

Continue reading the story on the Examiner

Time to Broadcast Yourself!

But before you go,  please share your most favorite YouTube Videos with us!