Rockin' Robin, Tweet Tweet, Tweet Tweet!

If I haven't mentioned it before, I'm a big fan of the newest social media phenomenons - Twitter the microblog. For those of you who are either new to the service or wondering what's next, I thought I would post my top 5 favorite new tools available to help you measure your effectiveness on the site. With no futher adieu...

1. Twinfluence - Twinfluence is a scientific approach to measuring the influence of Twitter users. This can serve as another set of metrics to help you figure out how successful our client twitter accounts are proving to be in their respective industries. Plus, it’s pretty cool to get your overall rank. It’s hard to say though how valid this information means as we have no way of knowing what it is measured against and exactly what criterion the service is using to rank users.

2. Tweetcloud - Creates a tag cloud of a person’s tweets to give you a bird’s eye view of the type of things they tweet about, this tool allows you to zero out and see which words we are using for our clients most often, look up other users and check what they are writing about or even look to see which users are tweeting most often about a certain word and allow you to follow them from the application. Check it out to see if you’re on message with your tweets.

3. Qwitter – Ever wondered when certain users quit following your client accounts? Qwitter is a nice app that will update you via email whenever someone stops following you. It will even let you know what you tweeted that caused them to stop following you, which could be useful for continuing to grow you following

4. Twitvid – Have a cool client video on your desktop but not on youtube? Never fear, Twitvid is here! It’s just like twitpic, only for video application.

5. Tweepler - Of course our clients want us to follow users, but when it comes to following everyone, sometimes we need to be a bit more choosey and do it quick! Tweepler is a new follower management application that lets you make quick, one click decisions about whether to follow people back or drop them into an ignore pile (out of sight, out of mind). In addition to being able to view recent tweets, Tweepler gives helpful stats about new followers, such as average tweets per day.

If anything, it's fun to see how others are viewing the value of what you are sharing and how you can work to improve in the future. Happy tweeting!

More to come,

Nicole

And they called it - puppy love

Well, we finally did it folks. My husband Greg and I brought home a puppy today!

She's a 13 week old lab-akita mix and has brown and white coloring. It has been a wait though, due to the poor economy and owners not vaccinating grown parent dogs before bringing puppies to a rescue, potential disease in her litter left us waiting 4 weeks before we could bring her home. Now that we have her home, we're both convinced it was well worth the wait. Considering the things a little dog is bound to teach a newly married couple about ourselves and each other, we decided to name her Coach.

Surprisingly, though Coach has only been home for 3 hours, she's had 8 visitors, several presents, a walk and lots of kisses - better than either of our last birthday! No matter how you slice it, this is going to be one spoiled little dog.

And here's the part I know you logged on for...adorable puppy pictures below...enjoy!

A puppy's life is so tough.

Coach takes a breather from trying to buck off the leash.

I love her speckled legs and curley tail.

My husband, Greg already in love...

Last, but not least, Coach and I share a hug in the livingroom!

More to come,

Nicole

Never gonna give you up!

These past few months at work, I have become more involved in social media for clients. From helping develop social media strategies, to "tweeting" it's been an adventure. Lately, I've been enjoying updating my own personal vocabulary, which brings us to today's new term: Rickrolling.

For those of you who are unfamiliar, Rickrolling is an Internet bait and switch tactic where a person provides a web link that he or she claims is relevant to the topic at hand, but the link actually takes the user to the music video for the 1987 Rick Astley song "Never Gonna Give You Up". When a person clicks on the link and is led to the web page, he or she is said to have been "Rickrolled" (also spelled Rickroll'd).

This most recent emergence of this trending term is shown here with promise of a wheelchair and escalator stunt – this time the user is “Rickrolled” into viewing a keyboarding cat halfway through.

Currently, this trend is taking media by storm – Stephen Colbert rickrolled his viewers and even Adam Sandberg rickrolled his captive audience during this year's MTV Awards.

Okay, so what's my point? Well as it turns out, shocking and sometimes outright silly humor is not only still appreciated but also effective in communication...not to mention, this particular version of humor earned Mr. Astley over 36 million youtube views with two viral campaigns.

So go ahead, give funny a try. You just may start a trend.

More to come,
Nicole

Neither Hair Nor There

For any regular readers, I may have forgotten to add in one key detail - I cut off all my hair and nixed the blonde. I'm not sure what exactly sure what inspired me to do this, but hey you only live once right?

Before:

After:

The good news is that I don't regret the choice. We'll see how long I stick with it now that I'm trying new stuff.

More to come,
Nicole

Welcome to Miami

Shortly after coming back from New York, our client let us know that we were on board for Miami Fashion Week in October. Not unlike New York, it was a bit of a whirlwind. But at least this time I didn't break my toe...or rather someone didn't break it for me with their shoes.

The weather was beautiful, the people were odd but the media was bountiful and that's all a gal like me needs.

Here are some of my favorite photos from the week:

The group I worked with for the week, our models on the outside and clients (or, as we were calling each other by the end of the last trip: fashion week family) before it all kicks off:

The Bejeweled swimsuit show at the Setai Hotel

The girls celebrating the close of the week at the Russell Simmons show afterparty.

While a little crazy, this week was another successful venture and a nice burst of warm weather in October!

More to come,
Nicole

Start Spreadin' The News

I realize my blog is obscenely behind and neglected as of lately. Surprisingly enough my life has become increasingly busier with the wedding behind me (as you're about to read). These past few months have been filled with craziness, laughs and lots of hard work.

Back in September, one of my clients was able to secure a space at New York Fashion Week and after some vigerious follow up, or as most might see it, moderate stalking (and I mean borderline restraining order stalking here) of the New York national media our client determined that they needed a hand. Additionally, my company decided it would be wise to have a presence at an event of this magnitude.

The week was nothing less than a marathon for all participants - from 7 a.m. until 1 a.m. every day for four days my colleagues and I worked the runways. We had incredible success and face time with national media outlets and some really great celebrity sightings (and who doesn't love those?). The cherry on top was staying with the Mizzi family, Margaret and Chris - who were just married in June. These two are some of my favorite people and getting to spend a week with them made it just that much better.

While photos can never truely nor accurately describe the hilarity and awesomeness of the trip I've posed a few below. Hey, what would an NW-Life post be without photos?

My coworker Elin and client, Amanda smile big before the event kicks off in front of the sponsor board

Models on the runway doing a practice run of the show. I always liked these best as they were half ready and had their hair in curlers, some had shoes some didn't. It was just funny to me.

Clients and I share a celeb sighting and photo with Danielle from America's Next Top Model

I was lucky to end the week by having a girl's night with Margaret and the client. Margaret's husband later joined us, because everybody loves chris:)

New York was definately a whirlwind, but it felt great to be in good company and think on my feet for a while too.

More to come,

Nicole

U is for Urbanik, That's Good Enough for Me!

Shortly After Greg and I came home from our honeymoon, we had more weddings to see! Our friends Nikki and Phil decided to celebrate their bachelorette/bachelor parties and wedding in the same weekend and what a time it was!

Before I bother to describe what a fun time Nikki's bachelorette party was, I must first say that her friends who also attended the celebration had a lot to do with it. What a fun and nice group of people to spend the weekend with. Plus, it was fun to adventure with not one, not two but THREE Nicole's.

The photos below chronicle the fun parts of the night I was able to capture before my camera sadly died (RIP camera of fun...)

The bachelorette, Nikki rocked Elton John glasses along with whatever else we could fit on her dress to appropriately embarass her

All the girls excitedly pose in front of the limo before heading out for a night on the town!

Smiling with Nikki before ending our night on the town in Royal Oak and heading home.

Overall, it was a really great night and as usual, the best part about bachelorette parties is making friends with new people who are already simliar to the bride you love.

Now comes the fun part - the wedding day! The night before, my husband and I went our seporate ways to stay with the betrothen two before their big day. Nikki was such a breezy bride the day of her wedding and they had beautiful weather all day long.

The two were married at Holy Family Church in Grand Blanc and celebrated their reception at the Flint Institute of Music. The reception hall was a really unique choice and offered the couple and guests something different to celebrate the day with. The photos from the day were stolen from my husbands camera (since the recent passing of my own, i still think of it daily) and may not do the beautiful couple and day justice, but here's a taste:

Meet the Urbaniks! Phil and Nikki breathe a sigh of relief once they're really married, the ceremony is complete and they are officially on the party bus

A little background: Nikki's dad is the anchor for ABC12 in Flint and her brother is one of the camera men for the station and Nikki is a sports fanatic. For the grand entrance, her family made a SportsCenter-themed broadcast for the entrance. To make the most of it, the whole bridal party donned eyeblack and Big League Chew, here are some of the bridesmaides having a good laugh

Towards the end of the night, I even stole a photo with one of the groomsmen (okay and he's my husband too)

This was a great weekend and time well spent celebrating with good friends.

More to come,

Nicole