Join me and 17 other fascinating speakers for the “Social Media and Sales Telesummit” hosted by Brandy Mychals and Gail Nott!

“Finally…TOP TRAINERS reveal their Social Media & Sales Secrets for Making Connections, Increasing Your Exposure and Getting Paid!”

Networking is a form of interactive communication with the goal of creating a connection. Social Media means taking that networking online with unlimited possibilities to reach a wide audience. Sales are about connecting with your clients…

This telesummit will answer all your questions about how to use “online networking to boost your sales.”

• Communicate effectively to get your message heard in person and online
• Master the mindset required for success as an entrepreneur and in sales
• Blogging tips to increase your credibility and be seen as the expert
• Create sales by being authentic, transparent and without having to “sell”
• Generate speaking events and new business opportunities through social media
• Harness the power of telesummits to build your business and widen your reach
• Savvy social media tips for Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and more…

Sign up now for this FREE virtual event: http://dld.bz/KreT

Look at these amazing speakers who are going to share their success strategies:

Sign up now for this FREE virtual event: http://dld.bz/KreT

As you may recall, I wrote two posts about competition not too long ago:  3 Major Reasons You Shouldn’t Ignore Competitors on Social Networking Sites and 3 Undeniable Ways to Turn Competitors into Enemies on Social Media Sites.  I think Ivan Misner’s Philosophy below really complements these posts well.  Enjoy!

My philosophy about competition is best summed up by Henry Ford, who once said, “The competitor to be feared is one who never bothers about you at all, but goes on making his own business better all the time.”

In my business organization, BNI, members or directors often express concern about other competitive networking groups that are forming and bad-mouthing our company or attacking our program in some way. I tell my team that if they feel like someone is biting at our backsides, it’s because we’re out in front. Success in business is about constantly improving your product or service and making it better all the time. The process is a journey, not a destination. However, if you are constantly working to improve the system, improve the product, improve the culture and improve the team, you will also improve your position in the marketplace.

Almost 10 years ago I had a particularly aggressive competitor publicly state that he was going to bury our organization. Since then we’ve grown by almost 400 percent. I haven’t heard about his company in years. I’m not sure whether it’s still in business. Ford got it right. Keep making your business better, and you’ll have no need to fear your competitors–your business will be the one competitors fear the most.

Guest Author: Called the “father of modern networking” by CNN, Dr. Ivan Misner is a New York Times bestselling author. He is the Founder and Chairman of BNI the world’s largest business organization. His newest book, Networking Like a Pro, can be viewed at www.IvanMisner.com. You can also read more of his valuable information on the Neworking Now Blog.

This is a guest post by Dr. Ivan Misner (Bio is below).

In engaged in the conversation, that is! OK, OK . . . now that I have your attention, let me explain.

In my book Truth or Delusion I bring up the point that word-of-mouth marketing is always working, it just may not be working in your favor. Believe it or not, you’re getting word of mouth every day. It just may not be the kind you’re thinking of–the good kind. The thing is, negative word of mouth has legs and the average dissatisfied customer gripes to 11 people about his experience, and these 11 in turn tell five others apiece.

Therefore, you need to get engaged in the networking process and the resulting conversation by formulating a strategic plan to control what’s being said about you. Among other things, this is done by focusing on good customer service to reduce negative word-of-mouth and ensuring that your marketing message is conveyed accurately so your prospects know what to expect.

It’s especially important to be engaged in the conversation when it comes to online networking. Take the headline of this blog, for example. Say somebody were to see it, not read the rest of the blog, and then begin posting comments on blogs and social networking sites all over the web claiming that “Ivan Misner has a new blog urging people everywhere to get married!”

You may be laughing, but occurrences like I just described happen all the time. And guess what? If you’re one of those people who refuses to get involved in “that online/social networking stuff,” then you aren’t engaged in the conversations that are being had about you online. And when somebody says something negative or incorrect about you or your business, you can’t redirect the conversation in a positive direction to save face or correct what’s been wrongly stated about you.

Whether networking online or face-to-face, the dialogue is going to happen with or without you. The basic point is, if you don’t participate in the conversation, you’re not in control whatsoever. If you do participate, then you can publicly say who you are and steer the conversation in a positive way.

Check out this blog entry by my friend Dave Goetz, “They are Laughing at You.” It’s a perfect illustration of everything I’ve talked about in this blog and it tells a GREAT story about a college professor who refused to engage his students in any way as he endlessly lectured to them for hours. It’s no surprise that the students found a way to engage each other in conversation during class but the professor lost all control of what topics were being focused on as well as what was being said . . . Like I said, the dialogue will happen with or without you.

Guest Author: Called the “father of modern networking” by CNN, Dr. Ivan Misner is a New York Times bestselling author. He is the Founder and Chairman of BNI the world’s largest business organization. His newest book, Networking Like a Pro, can be viewed at www.IvanMisner.com. You can also read more of his valuable information on the Neworking Now Blog.

It seems everywhere I turn these days, there are people around me who are struggling in their business or personal lives.  Thus, this is the perfect time to share this post.  This inspirational story was first shared with me when I was mentoring with John Assaraf.  Then I saw my friend and mentor, Ivan Misner share it on his blog not too long ago.  Now, it is my turn to share the wealth!

If you have already read this story, I recommend you read it again.  I read it each time I hit obstacles, and it seems to block all the negative voices in my head.

This is a good reminder for all of us, and I hope it helps many of you out!  Enjoy!

A young woman went to her mother and told her about her life and how things were so hard for her. She did not know how she was going to make it and wanted to give up. She was tired of fighting and struggling.

It seemed as one problem was solved, a new one arose.

Her mother took her to the kitchen. She filled three pots with water and placed each on a high fire. Soon the pots came to boil. In the first she placed carrots, in the second she placed eggs, and in the last she placed ground coffee beans. She let them sit and boil, without saying a word.

In about twenty minutes she turned off the burners. She fished the carrots out and placed them in a bowl. She pulled the eggs out and placed them in a bowl. Then she ladled the coffee out and placed it in a bowl.

Turning to her daughter, she asked, “Tell me what you see.”

“Carrots, eggs, and coffee,” she replied.

Her mother brought her closer and asked her to feel the carrots. She did and noted that they were soft. The mother then asked the daughter to take an egg and break it. After pulling off the shell, she observed the hard-boiled egg. Finally, the mother asked the daughter to sip the coffee. The daughter smiled as she tasted its richness and savored its aroma.

The daughter then asked, “What does it mean, mother?”

Her mother explained that each of these objects had faced the same adversity – boiling water. Each reacted differently.

The carrot went in strong, hard, and unrelenting. However, after being subjected to the boiling water, it softened and became weak. The egg had been fragile. Its thin outer shell had protected its liquid interior, but after sitting through the boiling water, its inside became hardened.The ground coffee beans were unique, however. After they were in the boiling water, they had changed the water.

“Which are you?” she asked her daughter. “When adversity knocks on your door, how do you respond? Are you a carrot, an egg or a coffee bean?”

Think of this: Which am I?

Am I the carrot that seems strong, but with pain and adversity do I wilt and become soft and lose my strength?

Am I the egg that starts with a malleable heart, but changes with the heat? Did I have a fluid spirit, but after a death, a breakup, a financial hardship or some other trial, have I become hardened and stiff? Does my shell look the same, but on the inside am I bitter and tough with a stiff spirit and hardened heart?

Or am I like the coffee bean? The bean actually changes the hot water, the very circumstance that brings the pain. When the water gets hot, it releases the fragrance and flavor. If you are like the bean, when things are at their worst, you get even better and change the situation around you.

When the hour is the darkest and trials are their greatest, do you elevate yourself to another level? How do you handle adversity? Are you a carrot, an egg or a coffee bean?

May you have enough happiness to make you sweet, enough trials to make you strong, enough sorrow to keep you human and enough hope to make you happy.

The happiest of people don’t necessarily have the best of everything; they just make the most of everything that comes along their way. The brightest future will always be based on a forgotten past; you can’t go forward in life until you let go of your past failures and heartaches.

When you were born, you were crying and everyone around you was smiling. Live your life so at the end, you’re the one who is smiling and everyone around you is crying.

So, I guess I don’t need to ask the question again…

Due to being blinded by hype and caught in an emotional rush of excitement and hope, many small business owners have been jumping on the social media bandwagon.  As a social media consultant, I am anti-hype.  Don’t get me wrong, social media has opened many doors of opportunity for businesses, and it does touch every part of a business (not just marketing).  As small business owners you have to remember to not be easily swayed by  “shiny new tools” just because everyone is using them and thinks they are the “holy grail” of the online world.  It is paramount to look beyond the hype, take the time to learn the correct way to use social media, and implement the strategy that is suitable for your business.

If you’ve been observing what many companies are doing online, you’ve probably noticed that many brands have been tremendously succeeding with social media.  Did they succeed overnight?  Absolutely not. These brands have taken the time to understand social media as well as brainstormed and strategized before deciding to take the plunge. The truth is social media should always come last in any planning you do for your business.  It is also important to understand that social media is not the end-all solution to your business problems, and it should never be used as a replacement strategy or as a stand-alone.

There are 10 essential steps that need to be taken before you dive into social media.  One of my favorite mentors, Dr. Ivan Misner has listed them on “Networking Now,” an Entrepreneur.com blog — Looking Beyond the Hype to Get Started with Social Media.

Enjoy!

Hot Social Media Quotes

Here are 99 of my favorite social media quotes.  Yes, it is a long post, but it is a fast read, and I am sure you will love every quote!  I would like for us to grow this list together.  Please post any other social media quotes that you absolutely love and want to share with others in the comments below.  BTW, these are in no particular order.  Enjoy!

1. “How can you squander even one more day not taking advantage of the greatest shifts of our generation? How dare you settle for less when the world has made it so easy for you to be remarkable?” – Seth Godin, Seth’s Blog
2. “Networking is not about hunting. It is about farming. It’s about cultivating relationships. Don’t engage in ‘premature solicitation’. You’ll be a better networker if you remember that.” – Dr. Ivan Misner, NY bestselling author & founder of BNI
3. “The only way to put out a social-media fire is with social-media water.” – Ramon DeLeon, managing partner of six Domino’s stores in Chicago
4. “Social Media is about sociology and psychology more than technology.” – Brain Solis Principal of FutureWorks
5. “Think like a publisher, not a marketer.” – David Meerman Scott, DavidMeermanScott.com
6. “At Twitter, mobile is in our DNA … For us, it’s all about mobile, and it always has been.” – Biz Stone, co-founder of Twitter
7. “Social media isn’t the end-all-be-all, but it offers marketers unparalleled opportunity to participate in relevant ways. It also provides a launchpad for other marketing tactics. Social media is not an island. It’s a high-power engine on the larger marketing ship.” – Matt Dickman, technomarketer.typepad.com
8. “Privacy is dead, and social media hold the smoking gun.” – Pete Cashmore, Mashable CEO
9. “You will make mistakes. If you are sincere about helping the community, the authenticity will show and your mistakes will be forgiven.” – Zia Yusuf, executive vice president for SAP’s global ecosystem and partner group
10. “There’s no need to re-create everything from scratch … Look at some of the early adopters, see what they’ve done and see if it makes sense for your organization. And then think about what you need to do to customize it.” – Dave Fletcher, Utah chief technology officer
11. “Whether something brings them joy or pain, when people share and engage in communities, they form bonds and relationships with others who acknowledge their situation.” – Liana Evans, from post on Search Engine Watch
12. “Social networks aren’t about Web sites. They’re about experiences.” – Mike DiLorenzo, NHL social media marketing director
13. “What used to be cigarette breaks could turn into ‘social media breaks’ as long as there is a clear signal and IT isn’t looking.” – David Armano
14. “Businesses used to have a small suggestion box near the door that mostly housed dust bunnies and an occasional piece of gum. Rarely would someone get back to you. But people can now make a post from an iPhone or a BlackBerry while they’re sitting in your restaurant.” – Charles Nelson, President of Sprinkles Cupcakes president
15. “More companies are discovering that an über-connected workplace is not just about implementing a new set of tools — it is also about embracing a cultural shift to create an open environment where employees are encouraged to share, innovate and collaborate virtually.” – Karie Willyerd & Jeanne C. Meister, HarvardBusiness.org
16. “Twitter represents a collective collaboration that manifests our ability to unconsciously connect kindred voices through the experiences that move us. As such, Twitter is a human seismograph.” – Brian Solis, Principal of FutureWorks
17. “In some ways, [Facebook] levels the playing field of friendship stratification. In the real world, you have very close friends and then there are those you just say “Hi” to when you pass them on the street.” – Jason Kaufman, research science fellow at Harvard University
18. “Conversations among the members of your marketplace happen whether you like it or not. Good marketing encourages the right sort of conversations.” – Seth Godin, Seth’s Blog
19. “Those who ignore the party/conversation/network when they are content and decide to drop in when they need the network may not succeed. It’s pretty easy to spot those that are just joining the network purely to take – not to give. Therefore, be part of the party/conversation/network before you need anything from anyone.” – Jeremiah Owyang, Web-Strategist.com
20. “The secret isn’t growing a huge fan base. We have 100,000 Facebook fans, but those fans have all come to us organically. We believe the more organic the growth, the more loyal the fans, the more likely they will be repeat customers.” – Cam Balzer, vice president of marketing at Threadless
21. “Don’t say anything online that you wouldn’t want plastered on a billboard with your face on it.” – Erin Bury, Sprouter community manager
22. “Much like great products, great content will only find the best people to love it if it’s leveraged well.” – Shannon Paul, PEAK6 Online communications manager
23. “We don’t want to create an army of spammers, and we are not trying to turn Facebook and Twitter into one giant spam network. All we are trying to do is get consumers to become marketers for us.” – Joey Caroni, co-founder of advertiser Peer2
24. “Social media is like a snowball rolling down the hill. It’s picking up speed. Five years from now, it’s going to be the standard.” – Jeff Antaya, chief marketing officer of Plante Moran
25. ‘When there’s a buzz out in the blogosphere that your company has shipped a defective product, is closing its doors, or is under investigation, for example, a press release on the wire is no longer the fastest or most effective way to respond.” – Joel Postman, blog for Social Media Today
26. “The bubble hasn’t popped yet and there’s tremendous value in social media. … But it’s wishful thinking to believe that others on the ‘me too’ bandwagon will survive.” – Peter Fader, marketing professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School
27. “Twitter is like a tragically hip New York night club. It is a cool, easy way for companies to engage customers in social media. But the experience can be loud and crowded.” – Bob Warfield, CEO of Helpstream
28. “What’s required is a kind of social media sherpa, who can find you the audience you seek, who can reach to them on the platforms where they are already congregating, and who can help promote in tasteful ways that fit the sensitivities of the networks where your audiences are found.” – Chris Brogan, author of “Trust Agents”
29. “As social media, or whatever you want to label it, becomes more prevalent, there will be blunders. We’re in experimental mode right now.” – Steve Hall, AdGabber founder
30. “Monitor, engage, and be transparent; these have always been the keys to success in the digital space.” – Dallas Lawrence, Levick Strategic Communications
31. “You need to clean out those old sources of your social-media diet that are no longer nourishing, dust the cobwebs off those old connections to keep them polished and valuable, and clean out the dirt from the corners of your social life where you haven’t ventured in months.” – Eric Fulwiler
32. “Once you can understand where the conversation is, who leads, the type of voices and the best place for you to add your voice, you can then start becoming a more active participant.” – Mitch Joel, president of Twist Image
33. “Hook into someone’s flow [via corporate postings of photos, videos, and other content on web streams before a new product is released].” – Bill Cava, chief technology officer for Ektron
34. “It’s hard to get lice out of your head, and there’s no easy cure for shaking off campaign-based thinking, either.” – David Berkowitz, senior director of emerging media at 360i
35. “Mobile is no longer about what you can do on your cell phone. Mobile is all about doing more, all of the time.” – Mitch Joel, president of Twist Image
36. ‘Ultimately, brands need to have a role in society. The best way to have a role in society is to understand how people are talking about things in real time.” – Jean-Philippe Maheu, chief digital officer at Ogilvy
37. “Social Networking that matters is helping people archive their goals. Doing it reliably and repeatability so that over time people have an interest in helping you achieve your goals.” – Seth Godin, Seth’s Blog
38. “We’re still in the process of picking ourselves up off the floor after witnessing firsthand the fact that a 16-year-old YouTuber can deliver us 3 times the traffic in a couple of days that some excellent traditional media coverage has over 5 months.” – Michael Fox, founder of Shoes of Prey
39. “New marketing is about the relationships, not the medium.” – Ben Grossman, founder of BiGMarK
40. “Twitter is a great place to tell the world what you’re thinking before you’ve had a chance to think about it.” – Chris Pirillo, blogger
41. “Attention spans will only decrease as technology breeds laziness and the expectation of rapid solution delivery.” – James Gurd, e-commerce and marketing consultant
42. “If your social strategy relies on advertising in social media, it’s probably better to hang on to your money.” – Taddy Hall, chief operating officer of Meteor Solutions
43. “This is no longer a gimmick. This is how the American people want to receive their news and want to hear from us.”  – Nick Schaper, new-media director for House Minority Leader John Boehner
44. “Every year the Web offers up hundreds of new experimental services and ideas, and while you don’t have time to try them all, if you’re able to pinpoint the applications with the most traction, your early adopter status will come with long-term rewards.” – Jennifer Van Grove, editor & social media strategist

social media quotes

45. “Engaging in an authentic, meaningful conversation with consumers will be the key to marketing success and growth, even if that means acknowledging negative feedback; transparency is paramount.” – Ron Blake, president and CEO of Rewards Network
46. “To utilize social media tools effectively and properly, you must absolutely generate spontaneous communications in direct response to what others are saying or to what is happening in that moment. Be yourself. Be conversational. Be engaged.” – Aliza Sherman, co-owner of social marketing firm Conversify
47. “Quit counting fans, followers and blog subscribers like bottle caps. Think, instead, about what you’re hoping to achieve with and through the community that actually cares about what you’re doing.” – Amber Naslund, Social Media Today
48. “If the Army can figure out how to do secure social networking and break down silos and encourage informal problem solving within a rigid hierarchy, surely your business can.” – Mark Drapeau, founder of Cheeky Fresh blog
49. “You can be professional while also ‘keeping it real’ with your customers. By interacting with customers in a less formal way, you’ll build a strong human connection that helps build brand loyalty.” David Hauser, co-founder of Grasshopper
50. “Twitter is not just a Web site and not microblogging, it is an entirely different medium … The way in which information travels on Twitter — the shape of it — is different to anything that we’ve previously known.” – Paul Lewis, Guardian reporter
51. “If you think you are in control, you’re fooling yourself. As soon as you start listening, you realize you’re not in control. And letting go will yield more and better results.” – Charlene Li, author
52. “I realize everyone is telling you social media is a unicorn, but maybe it’s just a horse?” – Jay Baer, social-media strategist
53. “New media is … an amazing form of direct marketing in that you really get a sense of who your customer is, and you also get to know those people who may not be your customers yet but are aspirational and are hoping to be.” – Ivanka Trump, brand ambassador
54. “If you’re looking for the next big thing, and you’re looking where everyone else is, you’re looking in the wrong place.” – Mark Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks
55. “Being the first is old media, while being to the point is new media. And Twitter never forgets.” – Mercedes Bunz
56. “If your reputation sucks, none of it matters. People with lousy products, crummy business practices, and shady backgrounds get found out. And word spreads with frightening speed.” – Sonia Simone
57. “Tweets are the gold standard of scoops. A growing number of newspapers are turning their entire mastheads over to Twitter.” – Woody Lewis, social media advisor to news organizations
58. “The hardest thing for marketers is to turn over the brand experience to the community and let them define it.” – Eric Erwin, executive vice president of marketing and product development at Wilton
59. “Neither privacy nor publicity is dead, but technology will continue to make a mess of both.” – Danah Boyd, fellow at Harvard University
60. “Actions speak louder than words. Businesses must act. Once the door to social consciousness is opened, bring the spirit of your company through it to affect change.” – Brian Solis, principal at FutureWorks
61. “Engage rather than sell … Work as a co-creator, not a marketer.” – Tom H. C. Anderson, market researcher
62. “The common reputation of Twitter is that it’s frivolous, which isn’t the case. If it’s set up right, it’s a rich environment of lots of learning and sharing of important material. It’s not just ‘what I had for breakfast.” – Lee Rainie, director of the Pew Research Centers’ Internet and American Life Project
63. “If you’re a brand marketer looking at this as a creative way of just getting that one-time transaction done, you’re not recognizing the power of social media and how consumers are playing in the marketing space.” – Chris Perry, executive vice president for digital strategy at Weber Shandwick
64. “Don’t fix the marketing first, fix your product. Once you’ve got a good product to talk about, the marketing’s going to flow from that.” – Scott Monty, Ford social-media chief
65. “As a general principle, the more users share about themselves, the more others in the community will learn about them and identify with them.” – Matt Rhodes, writing in Social Media Today
66. “The most successful marketer becomes part of the lives of their followers. They follow back. They wish happy birthday. They handle problems their customers have with products or service. They grow their businesses and brands by involving themselves in their own communities.” – Marsha Collier, speaker and business author
67. “Chances are your company’s white paper won’t go viral. But sharing knowledge you’ve gathered through your trade can go a long way toward boosting your brand.” – April Joyner, business reporter
68. “Marketing in a social media world means you are trying to have your message spread while competing with a billion other channels for attention. At any given time, you don’t know where your potential customers are or what they might see.” – Jeremy Epstein, founder and chief marketing navigator at Never Stop Marketing
69. “The polling of Internet users shows that friends’ recommendations are the most reliable driver behind purchasing decisions. Right now that market is largely untapped. Facebook and other social networks can allow that to happen.” – Yuri Milner, Russian social-media investor
70. “It’s natural online to go to the place where people are already consuming media. It’s less effort to ask people to leave an environment they’re already in.” – Cheryl Calverley, U.K.’s senior global manager for Axe Skin
71. “A marketing person should always ask one key question when beginning to develop a social media strategy: how much chaos can this organization handle?” – Gary Stein, vice president of strategy for Ammo Marketing
72. “Today people don’t trust companies. One of the things marketers want to do is to humanize their brand. What better way to do it than put a live person in front of them?” – Jackie Huba, author
73. “Social media can be an enabler and an accelerator of existing core capabilities, values, attributes and plans. It can even be a catalyst for change. But it can’t magically create what doesn’t exist.” – Denise Zimmerman, president of NetPlus Marketing
74. “The value of being connected and transparent is so high that the roadbumps of privacy issues are much lower in actual experience than people’s fears.” – Reid Hoffman, founder and executive chairman of LinkedIn
75. “In the end, the winner is content. Good content, sharable content, and consumer-driven content will allow us all to have a broader spectrum of information and, for the marketer, an easier way to connect with their base.” – Aaron Kahlow, chairman and founder of the Online Marketing Summit
76. “It has never been easier to be as influential as you can be today. Information is cheap. Information is easier to produce. And if you have a quality message, it’s never been cheaper to get out.” – Jordan Raynor, Republican Web strategist, as quoted at RealClearPolitics
77. “There’s a reason there’s only one Times Square and only one Las Vegas. We don’t want to be swimming in ads.” – David Spark, Socialmedia.biz
78. “Innovation needs to be part of your culture. Consumers are transforming faster than we are, and if we don’t catch up, we’re in trouble.” – Ian Schafer, CEO of Deep Focus
79. “Everything is happening faster on the Internet, so advertisers have to be able to respond quickly. If there is a pop-culture topic, a celebrity, event, some amazing viral video, a news story — how do advertisers get close to that so they can take advantage of traffic jumps?” – Jason Hirschhorn, chief product officer for MySpace
80. “People align with movements they can believe in, and it is the human, intellectual, and financial investment in genuine content that defines experiences.” – Brian Solis, Principal of FutureWorks
81. “Search is about figuring out what people are looking for when they enter keywords into their favorite search engine. Social media is what people are actually saying to each other; they’re telling us what they’re looking for. We, as marketers, should be able to fit it all together pretty nicely.” – Norm Elrod
82. “We look at the Web as being our basic power plant, kind of like electricity, so the Web and communicating in this fashion is second nature to us now. It’s not like we go brochure, television, mail. It’s Web, and then everything else. It’s social media first, and everything else.” – Ted Leonsis, owner of the Washington Capitals
83. “The minute news hits the wires, it becomes a conversation. It’s just a question of how high [the] volume [of] that conversation will become.” – Doug Frisbie, Toyota Motor Sales USA’s national social-media manager
84. “You as a brand have to be completely confident about your position, because you will get criticism. You will have a negative reaction. If you didn’t get a negative reaction, that means you’re standing neutral and you have no point of view. Who wants to participate in that?” – Frank Cooper, Pepsico
85. “Strategy is not focused on ROI, but on winning.” – Shannon Paul, writing in Very Official Blog
86. “Ask yourself this question CONSTANTLY: where can I add the most value to what matters most to me and the people who care about me?” – Chris Brogan, author of “Trust Agents”
87. “If there’s a firestorm erupting via blogs, your customers will expect you to respond via those same blogs, not via a carefully-worded press release 4 days later.” – Mack Collier, social-media consultant
88. “Advocacy is the newest kid on the marketing block. While we’ve always known that people make decisions based on advice from their peers, we’ve never been able to bake that into a plan the way we have now.” – Gary Stein, vice president of strategy for Ammo Marketing
89. “Backchannel griping may be part of social-media culture, but it doesn’t have to overshadow your joys and successes. And if you’ve survived bad press, you can survive a few hours of bad social media.” – Alexandra Samuel, writing in Harvard Business Review Online’s The Conversation Blog
90. “The difference between PR and social media is that PR is about positioning, and social media is about becoming, being and improving.” – Chris Brogan, author of “Trust Agents”
91. “Social media offers new opportunities to activate Brand Enthusiasm.” – Stacy DeBroff, founder and CEO of Mom Central
92. “If content is king, then conversion is queen.” – John Munsell, CEO of Bizzuka
93. “Without a specific reason for the consumer to behave, without a reward or benefit, the overwhelmed consumer will refuse.” – Seth Godin, Seth’s Blog
94. “Social Media is about the people! Not about your business. Provide for the people and the people will provide for you.” – Matt Goulart
95. “Why are we trying to measure social media like a traditional channel anyway? Social media touches every facet of business and is more an extension of good business ethics.” – Erik Qualman, author of “Socialnomics”
96. “You can’t buy attention anymore. Having a huge budget doesn’t mean anything in social media…The old paradigm was pay to play. Now you get back what you authentically put in. You’ve got to be willing to play to play.” – Alex Bogusky, co-chairman CP&B
97. “Our head of social media is the customer.” – McDonald’s
98. “Don’t worry; skills are cheap, passion is priceless. If you’re passionate about your content and you know it and do it better than anyone else, even with few formal business skills you have the potential to create a million-dollar business.” – Gary Vee, Author of Crush It
99. “Social media is just a buzzword until you come up with a plan.” – Unknown

Don’t forget to add to the list in the comments below.  I can’t wait to read what favorite social media quotes you share!

A huge part of business success is networking by meeting people and building relationships.  Many already network for business in the offline world, but now small business owners and entrepreneurs have a huge opportunity to network online through social networking web sites.  For some, social networking is a skill that may take effort.  It truly is easier than you think.  You need to approach social networking the same way you do in the offline world.  The same rules apply!

Here are seven simple social networking tips to help you connect:

1. Gather a list of business connections you would like to have as part of your community on social networks.  Once you’ve compiled your list, reach out to each of them.

2. Share your personal interests and seek commonalities before you reach out to someone.  People will do business with you when they feel comfortable and can personally identify with you.

3. Know your audience.  Once you know what their wants and needs are, what their interested in, what engages them or what they respond to, you’ll be ready to deliver exactly that.

4. Show energy and passion for your business.  People sense these things even behind the computer.

5. Have a natural conversation with people instead of pitching to them with pre-written messages that you just copy and paste.

6. Before you approach anyone to promote your product/service or to ask for a favor, ask:  “What’s in it for them?” Remember, it’s not about you.  It’s always about them.

7. Don’t destroy communication by being a one-upper (always wanting to be bigger and better than everyone else).

If you are looking for more tips on aligning your online and offline networking efforts, you can read the blog and listen to the podcast I recorded last year with my favorite mentor, Dr. Ivan Misner:  Aligning Offline & Online Networking.

What other social networking tips have helped you in your business?  Please share in the comments below.