Grand Opening of 2011Miami Book Fair International Spotlighted China

MIAMI- A Peking Opera dancer opened the 28^th Miami Book Fair International with an enchanting performance, echoing the concept of 2011 MBFI (Miami Book Fair International) poster design. The president of Miami Book Fair International addressed the official start of this year’s book parties and festivals.

The grand opening consisted of two parts: the kick-off of the eight-day book festival and the ribbon-cutting ceremony of China Pavilion.

The first part started with an eye-grabbing peacock dance, “Peacock Returns”, leading to a sensational Chinese landscape video about China’s world famous historic miracles and sceneries. Preceded was a remark from the general consul of Consulate-general of The People’s Republic of China in Houston rendering gratitude and honor to have China as the featured country and the positive aspects this event would bring to Sino-Us relations. The following art performances brought a grace and peace note to the kick-off party. Yangge dance, with the dancer’s heavy lifts, light steps and willowy waist, depicted a petite cute Chinese girl in jubilant scenes.

Wang Jie, and Zhou Shiqi, dancers of “The Sisters, Snake Green and Snake White”, an excerpt of “The Legend of the Snake White”, revealed the deep sisterhood they harbor by showing their life details. As a solid proof of music is the universal language, Pipa solo, “A Red Rose for You”, won the most resounding applause among the audience. The kick-off party drew its closure with a performance of “Face Off”.

In the blare of Chinese trumpets and the beats of drums, a Chinese dragon team led the crowd to China Pavilion. After a brief speech from the Vice president of Xuzhou Normal University, the organizer and arts counsel of China Pavilion, candidates from Consulate-general, Miami Dade College and Xuzhou Normal University sectioned off the ribbon into three swoops and cut them in applause and flashes. China Pavilion welcomed the flooding audience with folk group dance and music, acrobatics, and martial arts presented by Xu Zhou Normal University.

HuaXia Traditional School showcased authentic Chinese traditional culture and arts by demonstrating tea ceremony, calligraphy, Taiji, Guqin (seven-stringed plucked instrument in some ways similar to the Zither) and silk embroidery. 

Second life is social media

For the social media event, I registered a second life account. Then I realize second life is essentially social media. Let’s take a look at the common features among the two.

1.     Conversation

Social media boasts for two-way communication. Second life includes an IM feature, but it also has voice chat, rendering it far more of a conversation enabler than Facebook or MySpace.

2.     Community

We regard every social media platform a community for example a Facebook fan base, or a Twitter group. Second life contains a deeply connected and immersive community. What’s more, your Second Life community exists within 3-D spaces where your avatar can move about, greet with other avatars, even party with them.

3.     Groups

Almost every social media platform has group feature, say, we can set up a private study group for our CPR590-T. Second life also has groups where you can broadcast notices; send IMs to group members who are online at the same time.

4.     Events

Facebook Events render us an easy way to initiate and get feedbacks about a gathering as well as serves as a reminder to those who are always bad at schedules. But a Second Life event is way different from what we have in the real world. An event in Second Life is the epitome of interactivity with images, sound, voice, movement, actions and reactions.

5.     Advertising

Since more and more businesses are heading into social media to generate profits, advertising on social media platforms is already a must-have trend for every company. There are many advertising methods available in Second life as well as the ability to give away or sell goods and services. Second life allows you to sponsor, purchase and display in a virtual world

Facebook Privacy: 10 settings every users needs to know

When you fill in your interest box on Facebook, the ads concerning the relevant products and services automatically pop out. Isn’t that creepy, yes, Fackbook is watching us. Therefore, it’s far more important to know the privacy settings that people normally ignore.

1.     Sharing on Facebook

Controlling how you share content is quite complex and will probably make your head hurt, but it’s essential that you take a good look at the settings and decide for yourself what you want to share and with whom

2.     Existing photos

Account>Privacy Setting> Sharing on Facebook> Customize Settings> Edit album privacy for existing photos

With this setting, you can go through your old albums and change the privacy setting for each one, including your wall photos

3.     Checking in to places

Account>Privacy Setting>Sharing on Facebook>Customize Settings>Friends can check me in to places

Having someone else telling the world where you are can be unpleasant and even dangerous in some cases.

4.     Connecting on Facebook

Account>Privacy Setting>Connecting on Facebook

Privacy settings for sharing content on Facebook are separated from the settings for connecting, which basically mean sharing information about you.

5.     Apps you use

Account> Privacy Settings>Apps and Websites>Apps you Use

Remove all of the apps you’re not using and carefully review the permissions you’ve given each individual app.

6.     Instant Personalization

Account> Privacy Settings> Apps and Websites> Instant Personalization

Opt-out of instant personalization on individual third-party websites, simply by clicking on “No Thanks” when asked about it.

7.     Info accessible to your friends

Account>Privacy Settings> Apps and Websites> Info accessible through your friends

No matter how tight your privacy settings are, you’re still sharing some of your content and info with a group of people, even if it’s only your best friends. With this setting, you can set exactly what information is available to apps and websites if your friends use them.

8.     Public search

Account>Privacy Settings>Apps and Websites>Public search

When someone searches for you on a search engine, they might get a preview of your public profile, which, in some cases, can be very revealing. So watch your digital footprints.

9.     Friend lists

Friends>Edit Friends>Create a List

Create lists of your family members, close friends and business acquaintances; you can finely tune the details you want to share with each list.

10.  Enabling HTTPS

Account>Account Settings>Account Security>Secure Browsing (HTTPS)

Facebook started introducing HTTPS support, which makes it a lot harder for someone connected to the same network to steal your password and other data. 

7 Steps to measuring your brand’s social media health

Social media is very easily measured with various indicators like share of voice, reach, retweets, and comments. However, to measure your brand’s overall social media health, here are seven takeaways from Maria Ogneva, the Director of Social Media at Attensity.

Takeaway 1: Set a clear goal

In order to properly measure your social media efforts, you need to know why you are engaging in social media in the first place. Then you measure you social media health with corresponding merits.

For example, if your goal is driving awareness, you will be looking at metrics like share of voice, reach, readership and engagement with content (measured in action v.s. views).

Takeaway 2: Get your departments on the same page

Social media handling is always teamwork. So you’d better set up your organization for success by better aligning necessary departments to work as units towards a common goal. 

Takeaway 3: Always consider context

Metrics without context are meaningless. Always look at metrics over time and inside of a competitive landscape.

Takeaway 4: Select your platform wisely

Here are some aspects you should consider when selecting a platform:

·      Data—Which data do you need?

·      Reports—Identify how you want to share and present information

·      Actionable insights—There’s a big difference between data and insights

·      Budget—Keep in mind that cheaper tools can sometimes be harder to use or come with less features.

·      Ease of use—If you have limited resources, your platform must be easy to use and allow you to get your job done quickly.

Takeaway 5: Conduct a full social media audit

Conducting a social media audit can also help you monitor the current share of conversation of various players and channels.

Takeaway 6: Dig deeper in your channels

You should also evaluate performance by channel, for yourself and for your competitors, to find which sections are performing well and to help give your numbers specific context.

Takeaway 7: Do A/B testing

Remember to measure your general social media health comprehensively at least once a month and track responses to particular programs more frequently.

10 NBA Twitter accounts to watch as Lockout ends

More and more people are inclined to get news via social media for its speed and interesting conversation it could lead to. With a shortened season likely to begin Christmas Day, here are 10 must-follow Twitter accounts to keep basketball-starved NBA fans entertained through the final labor negotiations and into the new season.

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How social media helped Kate Spade become a global brand

Kate Spade New York ranks among the strongest brands in the online marketing space. Luxury research and advisory firm L2 ranked Kate Spade second in its third annual Digital IQ Index in the fashion category, just behind Burberry. How the label has expanded aggressively into new product categories and markets in such a lightening speed? The answer is benefiting from social media.

Kate Spade released a redesign of katespde.com in March this year to engage more with customers. Commerce is important, but it’s not only about commerce. Engagement drives commerce. The company also applied multichannel approach to drive more customers by flash sales through sites like Gilt.com and Sneakpeeq.

In an interview with CEO of Kate Spade, Craig Leavitt, he disclosed that investments in social media are totally worth it.  “We have young people who live and breathe social media and are immersed in it every minute of every day. We allow them to lead and trust them in this space.” He also talks about how do they choose from so many social networks and decide where to invest time and money. The main standard regarding picking up social media platforms to work on is how many people it can drive in. Kate Spade is closing in on 400.000 Facebook fans and 150,000 Twitter followers, which are meaningful numbers for a brand. Besides, social media enables a real-time conversation, talking about where the brand is now and where it goes next.

Since the great performance on Facebook, the company thinks that the Facebook platform is going to be important from a revenue perspective. Kate Spade gave a strong and very engaged fan base, and the company expects “sales through Facebook” will be the fastest growing part of their business.

Nowadays, brands that are not being leaders in social media are being left behind very quickly.  Social media is a unique space, allowing people connected and empowered.

Social Media Tool—RSS

RSS is a syndication format that allows websites and blogs to distribute their updated, dynamic content as feeds to users. Instead of having to visit the website, users can sign up for the feed provided by the website or blog and using an RSS reader or aggregator (like Google Reader explained below), access the feed. Users can sign up for as many feeds from different websites as desired and then access and manage those feeds all at once using their RSS reader.

More and more companies are offering RSS feeds on their websites (we’ll look at advice for doing this in later posts).  But for now, to get a basic understanding of RSS, here are some resources:

·      Read these articles:

o   Wikipedia entry on RSS

o   About.com’s article on RSS Feeds

o   Read this RSS Tutorial for Content Publishers and Webmasters

o   Read Pressfeed’s Tutorial on RSS

·      Visit and take a look at these RSS renders:

o   Bloglines (web-based)

o   Google Reader (web-based)

o   Newsgator (Outlook-based)

o   Live Bookmarks (For Firefox Browser users)

Social Media tool-blog

A blog is a website where entries or posts are listed in chronological order. Blogs commonly allow for readers to provide comments, which are posted along with original entry.

For a further basic understanding of blogs, here are some resources:

·      Read these articles:

o   Wikipedia’s entry on Blogs

o   About.com’s article “Anatomy of a Blog”

o   About.com’s article “Frequently Asked Questions About Blogs”

o   Technorati’s article “Blogging Basics”

·      Find and explore some blogs with these Directories and Blog Search Tools:

o   Technorati’s Blog Directory

o   Google’s Blog Search

o   Blogpulse

o   Blogarama

·      Visit some of these Blogging platforms for creating blogs:

o   Blogger.com

o   WordPress.com

o   Typepad.com

Social Media for Crisis Management

This week’s topic is risk assessment and crisis management. Oglivy On has an executive guide to social media for crisis management.

First, we need to get a clear view of the five trends in digital crisis management.

·      Everything happens at lightening-speed

·      People demand “hyper-transparency”

·      Dialogue as important as message delivery

·      Search reputation delivers multimedia

·      Brand detractors have the same tools

Second, according to the trends and characteristics stated above, strategies are as follows:

·      Monitor all relevant consumer generated media, not just traditional media

·      When responding to emerging crisis, you may need to react fast- in a matter of hours, not days

·      Have a streamlined approach and a team in place

·      Experience in social media will help you respond fast

·      Be ready to reconcile contradictory business practices

·      Ensure any CSR efforts are sincere, defensible and authentic

·      Inviting customers into a conversation is the most effective way to build goodwill and brand advocates who will support you if crisis hits

·      A system for listening is critical to remaining responsive

·      Listening to consumer generated media is critical

More social media for crisis management: a framework

1.     Monitor

Before the Crisis:

·      Establish weekly social media monitoring to complement existing media monitoring reports

·      Reports should include analysis of discussion, topline charts or visuals, and clip sheet of the most relevant “hits” across social media

       After the Crisis:

·      Expand weekly monitoring reports to daily or hourly reports

·      Include response recommendations to take action against

2.     Cultivate

Before the Crisis:

·      Create an influence map to know where your promoters and detractors live online

·      Consider influence engagement campaigns during non-crisis times to develop relationships that could be revisited if needed

       After the Crisis:

·      Engage influencer in your rapid response efforts as needed: be personal

·      Monitor pre-identified detractor sites and apply messaging strategy to determine appropriate response

3.     Prepare

Before the Crisis:

·      Develop crisis messaging and adapt it to social media venues

·      Identify and train marcom staff for social media

·      Set up online crisis collaboration site

·      Design and build a crisis dark site

       After the Crisis:

·      Turn on dark site or messaging on home page, and use collaboration site to communicate around the crisis in real time

4.     Response

Before the Crisis:

·      Develop your brand’s presence & voice on the social web-a corporate blog, Twitter handle, Facebook page, YouTube channel

      After the Crisis:

·      Actively update home page or dark site

·      Consider using video to deliver a human message

·      If corporate, use social web platforms to respond-these are most effective when they are well established and active prior a crisis

5.     Promote

Before the Crisis:

·      Build list of keywords (negative and positive) to use for SEO/SEM (Search Engine Optimization/ Search Engine Marketing)

·      Explore leveraging or creating online advertising

·      Identify potential multimedia responses (photo, video) and key players necessary to create them

   After the Crisis:

·      Deploy a keyword buy across major search engines

·      Create and optimize a variety of multimedia content to help tell your story in multiple ways

·      Advertise online with crisis messaging

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective YouTubers

This week’s topic is about web video production and video-hosting sites. I want to share with our PR folks the effective ways of utilizing social media from Megan O’Nell’s study.

Takeaway 1: Proliferate

One of the common denominators between successful video producers is that they are all productive. They pump out tons of great content on a regular basis. Of course, this doesn’t mean that you need to be uploading multiple videos in a single day—you shouldn’t sacrifice quality for quantity.

Takeaway 2: Schedule

Scheduling is one of the most important keys to YouTube success. Setting a schedule and sticking to it is a great way to keep yourself on task and on target, and your subscribers and fans will appreciate it as well.

Takeaway 3: Promote

Online video promotion falls into three main categories: social media promotion, in-video promotion, and the perfection of metadata. Don’t only focus on YouTube, have a strong presence on other social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook, which give you the opportunity not only to promote and share each new video that you upload, but also to communicate with your audience.

In-video promotion is also important because the “subscribe” graphic popping up on the screen is an effective way to gain subscribers.

Another part of promotion, which falls by the wayside for many video producers, is metadata. You need to refine your keywords, titles and descriptions to make it search-friendly.

Takeaway 4: Converse

Starting a conversation with your viewers is one of the best ways to increase your fan base and get more views.

Takeaway 5: Collaborate

Another way to increase your popularity and subscriber base is collaboration, particularly with video producers who have a large following. When you collaborate with others you then introduce one another to your respective fan base.

Takeaway 6: Measure

Another important habit of successful video producers and YouTubers is that they test and measure. It means you’ve got to experiment and try out different types of content in order to see what sticks.

Takeaway 7: Have Fun

Building an online following of  fans and getting millions of video views take a lot of time and if you aren’t having fun then it’s just not worth it. 

Michelle Phan, a YouTube sensation for her makeup toturials, has transformed her life

   Born in Massachusetts as a Vietnamese descendant, Michelle Phan was raised by her mother in Massachusetts, California, and Florida.  Inspired by her mother’s career as a nail technician, Phan successfully convinced her mom allowing her to major in illustration instead of dermatology by the request of her mother. 

     The self-taught painter showed her talent in beauty illustration when she was five years old.  Phan painted herself a mask for Halloween by using a paper plate and red lipstick when her family was on food stamps. “So at around five, I was already drawing on anything that was blank—a wall, napkins, backs of paperback books, etc.”, said Phan. With a unique insight of beauty, She has been blogging about beauty since age 16.

     She got into the makeup-teaching business by popular demand. “Many of my fans on my personal blog wanted me to make a tutorial on achieving a natural look, ” Phan says of her 2007 debut. “I decided to create a video tutorial instead, and it’s been a hit ever since. ” Besides her insightful interpretation of beauty, another attributor that made Phan stand out in the social media flow is her surprisingly professional filming and editing abilities. “I’m lucky that video editing is actually a hobby of mine. I love to work with motion graphics, and developed an eye for it”, added by Phan in her 2007 debut. Phan’s video style incorporates her voice-over instruction with music and text subtitles. Because of her soothing style of narration and methodical makeup demonstrations, Phan has been affectionately dubbed “the Bob Ross of makeup” by commenters on her YouTube channel. Phan has created over 200 videos concerning beauty tips from basic daytime makeup to more complex club or catwalk themed looks. Popular beauty tutorials on Phan’s YouTube channel have included “Romantic Valentine Look”, “Brighter Larger Looking Eyes”, “Makeup for Glasses,”  “Mysterious Masquerade Look,”  “Lady Gaga Poker Face”, and “Seductive Vampire.”  In January, special effects were used in her new lady Gaga “Bad Romance” video, and with the Buzzfeed’s profiling of Phan’s new work overnight; it turned into a viral video.  Up till 2011, Her viewer-convenient videos have made her the most subscribed woman on YouTube, with more than 455 million views and 690,000 subscribers.

     The rare instance of YouTube stardom turned real life job offers. Today, Phan works as a spokesperson and online video producer for luxury cosmetic brand Lancôme. Besides being featured in magazines like Vanity Fair, Forbes, People, Nylon and Vogue, Phan has also done work behind the scenes at fashion shows (New York Fashion Week!) and on-set for music videos.

      However, the 23-year-old is far from just stopping in social media spotlight, Phan, with a partner, launched a niche skin-care brand IQQU for online sale only. “It’s aimed at acne-prone skin,” she says, and the acne serum is the line’s best-seller. The social media titan also had the spark with charity this year by starting a charity channel ricebunny to post videos about her everyday life. Every month, she donates money to two organization selected. The amount of money depends on the number of views. She also launched a gaming channel alongside video game host Adande Throne called PressStart.

Personal branding

This week’s topic is about personal branding. Undoubtedly, social media plays an important role in building a personal brand. Here are some takeaways I want to share with our PR folks.

Takeaway 1:

Do not forget to fill out your brand profile. You need to have a clear idea of who you are, what you want to be known as, and the type of content you can consistently publish, otherwise you won’t stand out.

Takeaway 2:

Learn as much as you can about what people are saying about your brand, as well as review competitor and partner activities, and peruse industry trends and case studies. The more you read, the better and more prepared you will be to communicate through various social media channels.

Takeaway 3:

Endorsements mean great recommendations. An endorsement could be from a happy customer, and industry expert, a professor or someone else that is respected by society. The endorsement will give you more credibility and respect.

Takeaway 4:

Partner with others. To save time and energy, you should look to locate other people online that are looking to achieve similar business goals and link up with them. It helps to have multiple content creators so that you can focus on the marketing of that property too.

Takeaway 5:

Have a unique identity and take a niche. The more you can offer a new perspective or a brand new concept, the more people will gravitate to you.

Takeaway 6:

Commenting on blogs is exceptional marketing for your brand. Starting a conversation is always a good way to keep people involved and drives traffic to your social media platforms, as well as building a relationship with the blog authors.

Social media as a customer service tool

Texts, tweets, blogs, status updates—the proliferation of social media available today has created a barrage of information in front of the public. What makes social media different from traditional media outlets is that it provides a two-way communication context for the two ends of information dissemination. Taking its specific role, social media is now playing as a customer service tool to a lot of businesses.

“Social media is nothing more than a customer service tool”, Peter Shankman, founder of the Help a Reporter Out site, or HARO, which connects reporters searching for a source for their stories, a need he said had yet to be filled on a mass basis.

Social media has changed the old one-way relationship that existed among a public relations professional, a reporter and the public. Instead of a pitch to a reporter who turns the story into an article for an audience, information is flowing back and forth among all three groups.

Therefore, companies are going to have to be more proactive with their customers instead of just reactive.

Read more to this link:

http://search.proquest.com/docview/389830995?accountid=14585

How to use social media effectively to reach the customers?

This week’s topic is social media and stakeholders. I am gonna briefly talk about how social media could benefit customer relations in business world.

First, Create content that displays expertise to develop trust among customers

•       Clarify, research and listen to targeted customers——－who is your target customers, what’s their characteristics, listen to what customers are saying regarding your business-related products, and problems they face with products and services can help solve.

•        Create content in value to customers

•        Repurpose content by breaking longer articles into smaller posts for company blog and announce it by using the agency’s Twitter handle which is a two-way communication with the customers

Second, Having something for customers to gain from your social media will engage customers more effectively. E.g. free music, the latest deal or info on the products they want. Apple did a great job regarding this. Today, the Apple Students Fan Page integrated links to Apple deals, new updates and Facebook applications, and provides links to top movies, TV shows and songs for iTunes download.

Third, companies can use social media to drive campaign, new product launch, and promotional activity. Here are two takeaways regarding social media campaign.

·      Provide tools that not only help to manage the brand’s identity, but communicate with loyal “friends” and strengthen the brand’s relevance.  Last July, everyone in the Pink Facebook community was invited to “Pinkapalooza” to celebrate the launch of Pink’s back-to-school College Collection. Facebook friends downloaded the invitation online, then participated in games and contests via mobile while at the event.

·      Develop innovative creative such as using technology or content. E.g. applications related to your companies.

·      Another practice all communicators should always bear in mind is that hold a two-way communication with customers. Appoint real persons to speak with customers, “customers want to hear from a person who have a personality, a voice that connects with them. They also want to know you are a professional. That means you need to be familiar with your company culture, news Develop relationships with potential clients, existing customers and business partners by responding to their “likes” or comments on the social media page, then engage with followers by thanking them for their responses.

Social Media and Stakeholders

The Social Media revolution is having a dramatic impact on businesses worldwide. Once considered a distraction, Social Media has transformed into a tool to increase ROI and the relationship between a company and it’s employees, stockholders, and product consumers.

Before we can discuss social media use in terms of stakeholder relations, we must first define a few key terms.

Stakeholder: Refers to any individual or group that maintains a stake in an organization in a way that shareholders possess shares. There are seven forms of stakeholders according to the original stakeholder model. They are:

·      Government

·      Competitors

·      Customers,

·      Employees

·      Civil Society

·      Suppliers

·      Shareholders.

We must also define the term Social Media, since it is quite broad as well.

Social Media is defined as, “forms of electronic communication through which users create online communities to share information, ideas, personal messages, and other content (such as videos, art, and music). Social Media is an unrestricted and unstructured set of communication channels that people use to share ideas openly and freely. In addition, social media provides a form of collaboration that companies only dreamt about until years ago.

To simply illustrate the relationship between social media and stakeholders, a list of a few successful people in this industry is a good way to take a quick peep.

·      Biz Stone: The co-founder of Twitter has been at the forefront of the evolution of social media.

·      Liz Strauss: Strauss is an influential non-celebrity blogger helping people to learn. She's been called an idea machine and is the CEO and founder of SOBCon and author of the popular Successful-Blog.com.

·      Clay Shirky: Shirky, an adjunct professor in NYU's graduate Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP), is one of the world's most requested speakers on social media.

·      David Meerman Scott: Marketing strategist and author, Scott was well ahead of the curve in 2007 with his best selling book, "The New Rules of Marketing & PR.

·      Amy Jo Martin: Martin has over 1.3 million followers on Twitter. She works with Shaquille O'Neal and other professional athletes/franchises.

·      Valeria Maltoni: Maltoni's blog, Conversation Agent, is recognized among the world's top online marketing blogs (among the top 25 on Advertising Age's Power 150, as well as three categories in Guy Kawasaki's Alltop)

·      Chris Brogan: Brogan is president at New Marketing Labs. He is recognized as one of the "World's Top Bloggers" (Advertising Age Power 150 Top 10 Blog) and his book, "Trust Agents" (coauthor is Julien Smith) reached The New York Times Best Seller's list in 2009. His new book "Social Media 101" was recently released.

Social Media for Business

I read an article from NPR News talking about the expertise of a wine businessman share about utilizing social media to achieve success.  From that article, I singled out several takeaways for business starters to embrace social media.

#Takeaway 1: Thank you economy

As the evolving power of social media, it’s more important that every business humanizes and over cares for the customer of they want to be successful going forward. What the thank you economy is that thank you stands for you’re welcome and what can I do for you and what’s wrong and what’s bad. Don’t underestimate the impact on business all these new apps and gadgets and websites are going to have.

# Takeaway 2:  Closer to your customers

Social media enables businesses get to know more details about their customers since customers are putting more and more information about who they are. What businesses can do is collect the data of customers and scale the data. In social media arena, businesses listen instead of talking. Businesses can use search.twitter.com to listen to what people are saying about our companies. So that businesses become more like services, not merchants. By providing services associated with products, businesses create context of bringing in value instead of only trying to sell. It’s a more efficient way to establish better opportunities to do business with people.

# Takeaway 3: Take care of the anti-squeaky wheel

Businesses are always taking care of the squeaky wheels but ignoring people who did not complain or call the 800 numbers and saying their good experience on the social web. Businesses can send these valued customers thank-you notes to remind them of the considerations they’ve got.

Fashion in Blogs

As the other industries utilizing social media to generate sales, cultivate company culture and boost reputation, fashion industry is gaining power from social media to raise popularity, launch new products and most importantly, to pass style around to dedicated fashion addicts.

Besides all those highly visited top fashion blogs by insiders, freelancers and brand promoters, celebrities are stepping up on to launch their own fashion blogs to share fashion tips and interact with fans. Olivia Palermo launches her fashion blog OliviaPalermo.com on October 11 in 2011. Her blog is jam-packed with pots about The City star’s fashion inspirations. There are fashion week snippets from behind-the-scenes at the shows and the front rows, styling tips-think how to wear leather shorts like Olivia-and more, all on her cute new website emblazoned with sketches of the star by Tibi’s Amy Smilovic.

Fashion blogs are a forum to express fashion inspirations from across the globe and to show that style is international. Not only bloggers benefit from this platform, but also the readers. Fashion addicts can gain insider tips to decide whether to jump in the new trend or not and also learn how to add on dressing styles.

Here are 10 best Indie Fashion blogs I think may interest you:

1.     GenArt Pulse

2.     Kingdom of Style

3.     Refinery 29

4.     Style Bubble

5.     Style Observer

6.     Style Salvage

7.     The Coveted

8.     The Fashion Birdcage

9.     The Satorialist

10. Trend de la Crème