Facebook users from all over the world were connecting with each other, giving exposure to their brands as well as growing the excitement for Mari’s webinar; the livestream feed was flying!  Using the hashtag ”#10fbtips,” people were tweeting promoting the event and experience for others to join.  Within 20 minutes, there was over 4,000 users tuned in to hear her expertise.  It was absolutely insane how much BRAND CHATTER™ was going on through all the different channels and I was super excited to be taking part in the action.

“When marketers move on, users move out. Don’t become a marketer. Be one of the members, humanize with others”. – Mari Smith, the “Queen of Facebook”

Below are some great little nuggets from the awesome experience:

• 28% social media users will buy from a brand that creates relationships with the user by responding and building that connection between them.
• Invest in a credible team to manage your social media to create an experience for your users. (Can anyone say BRAND CHATTER™ BOOST?)
• Alternate posting content on the fly as well as using a third party app, but don’t always rely on a third party app.  You may lose the integrity of your content by losing the ability to share with others.
• Utilize your cover page and update regularly, posting descriptions, links and a call to action in the description section of the photo.
• The average rate of engagement (the number of people talking about a subject/total number of fans) is only 2%.  Successful companies will be able to triple it.
• Facebook only shows 16% of your content to your Facebook Fans. By increasing the user’s engagement, more content will show on their wall feed.
• Post photos or videos 90% of the time to increase the maximum visibility and will give your brand more weight.
• Find your own sweetspot on content postings – be creative and think outside the box.

It’s fantastic to see the power of BRAND CHATTER™ in action and how these events can easily engage others to promote and enroll others in the discussion and experience.  The NEXT team will be looking forward to Mari’s next engaging webinar and creating more BRAND CHATTER™ for her and her services.

For a great recap of the 10 Facebook Essential Money Making Tips, one of NEXT’s favourite strategic alliances, Melonie Dodaro from TopDogSocialMedia.com wrote a fantastic blog post on Mari’s webinar.

If you missed Mari Smith, the leading expert in Facebook Marketing, webinar, watch the replay here.

It turns out that these mascots are known as Tik” and “Tok”, and are the faces of a new innovative coupon app for your mobile phone. TikTok is a geo-located app that sends time-sensitive deals to its users based on their location and demographics.  This Vancouver app hasn’t even been active for a month and already has 120 businesses signed up and has recently become available for the Calgary area.  

What sets TikTok apart from its competitors is its creative appeal offering referral points or “karma”, as well as its freemium service with the option for companies more specific metrics and targeting at an added cost.  TikTok encourages spontaneity and only requires its users to pay when the coupon has been used.

This app has amazing potential in creating BRAND CHATTER™ for businesses, as it enables the option of sharing to social networks.  Many of the users are sharing the deals they just scored by Facebook and Twitter to earn more Karma points. The team at NEXT has been using this app for a week and has already scored a couple free items.  We will be keeping a close eye on this innovative app as it continues to expand into other markets.

For more information on TikTok and a great article by the Vancouver sun, please follow this link

The full page turned out to be a print advertisement showcasing the 2012 YWCA Women of Distinction Award nominees and their bios for each different category.     This year, I was nominated under the Business and The Professions category.  I cannot express enough how honoured I feel to be nominated for such an award.  It’s pretty cool that I was in amazing company as well.

Recognized nationally as one of Canada’s most prestigious awards for women, the Women of Distinction Awards honours women whose outstanding achievements contribute to the well-being and future of our community. The Awards also honours businesses and organizations that support the wellness and diverse needs of their employees. – The YWCA Metro Vancouver 

Reading about the other nominees’ bios from this advertisement as well as other media articles, I am getting super excited to personally meet and connect with all of these amazing women at the Women of Distinction Awards on May 24th, 2012.

For more information on the YWCA Women of Distinction Awards on May 24th, please visit the YWCA Women of Distinction Awards website.

As of February 2012, there are 10.4 million people using Pinterest.  Users are spending countless hours pinning and sharing their interests and tastes with people all over the world. This website has become a valuable resource for many retail brands as it generates traffic to their websites. It was only a matter of time before third party applications and websites were created to enhance the user’s pinning experience and provide useful insight

One of the ones we use and reference for interest is Repinly. Repinly serves as the ultimate Pinterest Directory showcasing trending pins, popular boards and top pinners. The great aspect about Repinly is that is offers a “Klout-like” score rating based on the number of followers and boards to determine their influence in the Pinterest world.

For detailed information on Repinly and a great article, please check out the Repinly website as well as the “Repinly gives you insight into the most popular content on Pinterest” article written by Nancy Messieh on The Next Web blog.

As Pinterest’s growth continues to skyrocket, Repinly and other similar tools for measuring BRAND CHATTER™ activities will be created and we will be keeping a close eye on them all.

Socialcam has emerged as one of the trending leaders in mobile video app creators.  Socialcam enables its users to create, edit and share smartphone videos within their social networks. This app differentiates itself by streamlining the video production process, offering fun and easy editing options with professional result filters, themes and even soundtracks. Socialcam also takes the sharing aspect a step further by enabling its users to tag other people in the video, create and build a following and post on the various social media websites such as Facebook and Twitter.

Socialcam added 4 million new users over one weekend in April (WOW!!).  For some time now, our team has believed in video being a strong tool for communicating and creating BRAND CHATTER™.

The NEXT team will be keeping a close eye on this company as we test out the application ourselves and who knows one day we might even see Facebook strike another deal.

See Business Insider’s great article written by Alyson Shontell on Socialcam’s success. Thanks Business Insider & Alyson!

Click here to sign up for your own Socialcam account