It was so fun to do, a video-interview via Skype with Andrea Vascellari: Episode VMC #222 – 3 Tips For Better Online Business by Erno Hannink

Why? I entered a contest on Andrea’s blog and was the winner of the birthday caption contest!

So today we did this interview on VMC – Vascellari’s media channel, sat in front of our webcams and recorded this chat.

Andrea

Subscribe to AndreaVascellari.com on YouTube!

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3 Tips For Better Online Business on VMC

What is success for you. What do you want to miss to gain success in another field. When you achieve success are you really happy or were you aiming for a picture of success that is not your own.

A very interesting TED talk about success by Alain de Botton at TED in Cambridge (UK) in June 2009.

Some books by Alain de Botton are Status Anxiety and Status Anxiety.
Alain is the initiator of a project, Living Architecture. He wanted to create the opportunity that we can stay for a couple of nights in very special houses designed by a number of architects in the UK.

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Think a moment about success for you as an entrepreneur

Chris Brogan (chrisbrogan.com) talks in the video about how we can get the information that is in proximity to where I need it. How do we get from lose information on the web to information that I can use. When I am in Parijs (LeWeb) I like to know the information about the weather in Paris. A week later I don’t need that information anymore.

Information needs to be more dynamic and more filtered. The social web makes this possible, We understand now that conversation via the web is possible. Now this information needs to be more tighter.

Here are opportunities for entrepreneurs: get the information to the people in relation to where they are and what they are doing.

This video with Chris Brogan was recorded at LeWeb 09

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Make the social web tighter – Chris Brogan @leweb

For the kick off of the Social Media Club Amsterdam I have asked Kristie Wells and Chris Heuer to make a short video. This was a nice opportunity to make a video with Kristie. I have already done some video’s with Chris Heuer.

Kristie explains the importance of customer service and customer interaction. She calls it the Happiness Factor.
Of course the company has to make money and be happy, but also your customers and users need to be happy.
So, don’t put all your money in product development and product design and not be there when your customers have questions.

“Customer Service is the New Marketing.”

She advises companies and independent professionals to use a small amount out of your marketing budget for customer service.

Kristie is looking for examples of companies that do this well. Do you have an example?
After this video we talked a bit about one example we all know, Zappos. This company is customer service. Do you have any other examples? Please help Kristie and leave your examples in the comments below.

You can learn more about Kristie on her website kristiewells.com and follow her on Twitter. Kristie is co-founder of the Social Media Club.

Listen to Kristie in this video.

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The Happiness Factor for companies – Kristie Wells

Tara Hunt explains what Social Media means to her. It is more that work, is it life enhancing and life enrichment. She meets people all over the world, friends in Paris that take her to the best restaurants and club, because she knows them via online.

Tara mentioned that she is working on her personal startup, in about 6-8 months this should be live.
You can follow Tara via Twitter @missrogue and on her blog Horse Pig Cow, Flickr, slideshare, delicious…

Tara is also the author of the book The Whuffie Factor

This video with Tara Hunt is done at LeWeb 09.

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Social Media is life enhancement – Tara Hunt @LeWeb

Louis Gray talks about the 3 stage proces of social media for a company:

1. Learn the tools
2. Listen
3. Engage

You can find Louis Gray on his website, Twitter and/or FriendFeed.

Louis and I made this video at LeWeb 09 in Paris.

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Louis Gray on the 3 stage proces of social media

For independent professionals LeWeb is not the conference to go to. LeWeb is a tech conference. So only if you are interested in tech you should go visit this event in Paris in the cold (last year we even had snow). Or is this incorrect?

Le Web is an international event, with speakers from Europe and the US. You can meet and connect with 2.000 attendees from 46 countries. The presentations do cover a lot of tech stuff, but there is more. For example, last year we were inspired by a conductor, a live winelibrary.tv, Chris Anderson and more. LeWeb is about people, meet the speakers, entrepreneurs meet investors and lots of networking.

In the Demo Zone you can learn about some great new products and services that you can use in your daily business. At the startup competition you can learn from the entrepreneurs how to pitch or maybe how not to pitch.

This year LeWeb will help you to see how you can use the Real Time Web to make friends. To help your potential customers on the web. To see them more as friends, connect on Twitter or Facebook.

Do you need to be constantly on both platforms or is one enough for your business? Do you need to build your own network on Ning? Can you use live video like ustream to connect? Is LinkedIn more than an online rolodex? Questions that will be asked during LeWeb.

Social Media is a great tool for independent professionals to connect with their target customers. By writing informative and useful content for your target clients you can become an expert. No longer do you need news papers, magazines, radio or TV to do this. Will the real time web help you to get better connected to your target audience?

Brands and marketing use the real time Word of Mouth. Large companies use the real time web as a public customer service, they are listening live to their focus groups. Brands like Ford, Dell and Zappos are doing this with great success. In the Netherlands we see UPC and Vodafone proactively answering to customers on Twitter. Get the real time web, work at it and see the positive effects on your business.

For independent professionals this also means use the mobile internet to be always on. With smart phones we can be in touch and listen to our clients all the time. Not just 1-on-1 but 1 to many. Help people and build your social capital or Whuffie, that is easier if YOU are the business. You can decide instantly and reply right away. That is often a lot faster than the large brands can do.

So, yes LeWeb is a conference with a lot of tech. However, if you listen in the right way you as an independent professional can learn a lot here. From LeWeb I will show the effects of the real time web for the marketing of independent professionals. I will create video’s with some of the speakers to make this translation for my readers. Like this video from last year with Gary Vaynerchuk.

What about entrepreneurs and the tech industry in the Netherlands you are asking? Let me share 3 examples from Holland:

• Layar, is a free application on your mobile phone which shows what is around you by displaying real time digital information on top of reality. It is a mobile augmented reality browser.
• MobyPicture let’s you directly share your photos, videos, and more with all your friends on your social networks.
• My Name is E, enables you to collect your accounts on social networks in one spot, and share them by using your mobile phone.

Are you already using these services from Holland? Try them, they are free to use.

Talk to you from Paris.

Erno Hannink helps independent professionals to use social media to get more clients. He writes on his Dutch blog enthousiasmeren.nl about internet, marketing, blogging, social media. Enthousiasmeren translates to ‘Making people enthusiastic’. Author of the book ‘Let the clients come to you’. Initiator of WordCampNL and the Social Media Club Amsterdam.

This is a guest post from me at the LeWeb blog and was also visible on Techmeme in the sponsored post section. I missed that, so no screenshot of that moment.

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LeWeb, Not For Independent Professionals?

Cyril Attias, head of social media at TBWA FRANCE, and one of the official bloggers at Le Web 2009, has a great idea.

I prepare a post to present alle the official blogger, but it could take too many times if i present each of you, i wondering if you’ll be interested to make a quick video from yourself (to see each others :0) about 15 to 30 sec.

Marcel Bernet added the idea of hashtags.

Published my introduction video on YouTube:

Cyril is blogging at www.attias.net/blog and president of BloggerAgency, the french advertising blogger community about 250 members.

Note: since I am one of the official bloggers for Le Web 2009 you can get a 10% discount if you use this code when you register: BLOG09

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Introduction for Le Web official bloggers

The OutLaw Design blog has 30 essential Twitter tutorials. These are great guides when you are new to Twitter or even when you already a Twitter expert. This is my selection of Twitter Tutorials.

Twitter in plain English

Let’s start with the video Twitter in plain English. As always a great and very easy to understand video by CommonCraft

Create a Twitter account

OK, so now you understand twitter and want to start. In 5 stips you learn how to create an account on Twitter by Twitip.

Mastering Twitter in 10 minutes with this PDF. You can download the PDF for free, no really you don’t have to leave your email address to get the PDF. Tutorial: Mastering Twitter In 10 Minutes… Or Less It is the 2nd version done by Twitteroid.

Using Twitter… ‘The Smart Way’

A tutorial about how to get set up and use twitter. Especially if you’re looking to use Twitter for business. Again bij Twitip. The basics, applications, etiquettes and tools.

Intermediate Twitter users
You have been using your Twitter account for some time now. You are wondering how to get more out of Twitter.

5 Tips to Grow Your Twitter Presence

1. Leverage Other Profiles
2. Tweet and Tweet Often – But Create Space for Reactions
3. Be Conversational
4. Provide Value
5. Tweet in Peak Times

A great article from ProBlogger Darren Rowse – the guy behindTwitip.

How to use Twitter as a tool

As you may know Guy Kawasaki really uses Twitter. He uses it often to promote his Alltop. How does he do it? He uses Twitter as a tool as explained in this great article; How to use Twitter as a tool

• Forget the “influentials
• Defocus your efforts
• Get as many followers as you can
• Monitor what people are saying about you, your company, and your product.
• Ask for help
• Make it easy to tweet on your behalf.
• Create an email list.
• Make it easy to “post to Twitter.”
• Offer advice deals to Twitter users.
• Tell the complainers where to go.

Twitter for Business

This is a great webcast on how to use Twitter for business. It is done by O’Reilly. It is a long video; 60 minutes.

Change your Twitter background

A great tutorial on how to make a better Twitter background and attract more followers this way. Spoon Graphics gives some great examples and then helps you to design you own in Photoshop.

8 Useful Tips to Become Successful With Twitter
10 Awesome Ways to Integrate Twitter with your Website

Twitter Experts
You are a Twitter expert and still want to learn how you can improve your Twitter skills. These are some great tutorials.

How To Make a Unique Website for Your Twitter Updates

Create a special page/website for your tweets. Looks really nice. Requires soem design to make it cool. By Tutorial Blog

Create a Twitter Box in your Sidebar

Want to make a really cool badge in sidebar of your site or blog, then this tutorial will help you. It requires altering the heading in your site, HTML and CSS. Done by Pink & Yellow media blog

How to Link Twitter to Facebook
How to Auto Follow People on Twitter
How to Set Up an Auto Response Back to New Followers in Twitter

Of course there is also my Twitter tutorial, it is in Dutch; Wat moet ik nu met Twitter?

Source: 30 Essential Twitter Tutorials for Newbies and Experts

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Essential Twitter tutorials for newbies and experts

When you have a website or blog it is good that the search engines find your content. Finding your content is not enought though it should list in the top 3 results of the topic you are writing about, if you want people to read it.

Robert Scoble is rebuilding his site from scratch. At this moment his blog on WordPress.com has no styling.

To make a good new start, even when his blog gets lots of visitors, he is aksing out loud what are good resources for SEO and SEM. Search Engine Optimization and Search Engine Marketing or the optimization and marketing of your site for the search engines. Great content alone doesn’t do it.

He asked this question on Friendfeed – which is much better than Twitter for these kind of questions, because the answers are listed just below the question. The question goes back to the top of the FriendFeed timeline as soon as there is a new reply or like. So you can identify interesting topics easily.

The first and many other replies are by the Google expert himself Matt Cutts. So here is a list of sites with the best SEO/SEM info (crowd sourced).

Is SEO/SEM still relevant? – Mona Nomura

• Mona: yes. Techcrunch tells me 60% of it’s traffic comes from search. – Robert Scoble
• @Mona: …can you expand on your question? What has made optimizing content and Web sites for search engines less relevant? – .LAG liked that
• I’ve recently heard Google changed their algorithm, plus with aggregating sites indexing for us (FriendFeed, Facebook, Twitter), there are many outlets and methods of people reaching our media — that is, if we remember to segregate to keep various audiences interested. ie: staying away from ping.fm like services. – Mona Nomura
• Mona, Yes. something like 90% of all traffic starts with a search engine, so unless you are a destination site ,you rely on search to send your traffice. There are times when RSS Subs can be more valuable, like when you are doing loyalty building, but generally NEW users are finding you through a social media or through search. More people are in search than social media..Ergo its still relevant -Brandon Wirtz

The list will continue to grow. The actual list: Who has the best SEO/SEM info? Post URLs here

You can also find a list of the URLs mentioned on FriendFeed on delicious -

I’m adding all these to http://delicious.com/jayneff… thanks! – Jay Neff

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The best SEO and SEM information (crowd sourced)