There’s a rising trend in social media: squatters.  Seems that the latest Twitter trend is for squatters to snatch up trademark Twitter IDs.  Nicole Kidman, Coca Cola, and Nike have all had their names snatched up by others.  (You can read the full Squatters Creating Twittering Confusion article.)  Even Kayne West spoke out against Twitter and called on the site to take down the user tweeting under his name.

We all don’t have the power of Kanye or Coca Cola or Nike but there are steps we can take to protect our name and our brand across the different social media networks.

If you’re not a member of this Tribal Seduction Tribe, you may have missed the LIVE show Coach Deb was on last week talking about Protecting Your Social Media Identity.  It’s a short video – designed to motivate you to TAKE ACTION to protect your brand, build your reputation online, and get you Traffic & online presence all over the internet!

There are specific action steps for you to take to lock up your first and last name, brand and company name on the different social networks.

ACTION STEP: Lock up your first and last name on the different social networks. Lock up your brand or company name.

Be sure to lock up your name on the following sites:

• Twitter
• Facebook
• Squidoo
• FriendFeed
• Plurk
• YouTube
• LinkedIn
• MySpace

Try to grab the same user name if you can.  Lock up your name and brand even if you’re not going to be actively using them.

And share your own favorites by clicking the comment button below.

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Change is inevitable. Any savvy online entrepreneur who wants to remain relevant and be ahead of the curve understands that change requires surfing the bleeding edge of technology.

So the question in our minds must always be: “What’s on the horizon and how can I use that to get ahead of my competitors today?”

JOIN COACH DEB & Chat LIVE!

Thirty years ago, there was no internet. Five years ago YouTube was still just a dream. If you watched Biz Stone and Evan Williams on The View this morning, you’ll know that three years ago, Twitter didn’t tweet.

Today, we literally don’t have to leave our computers to book a flight, pay a bill, find a new home or even connect with our tribe of loyals.

The Internet, YouTube and Twitter are part of our daily lives.

No one could predict the impact each development would have. In fact Bill Gates famously admitted:

“Sometimes we do get taken by surprise. For example, when the Internet came along, we had it as a fifth or sixth priority. It wasn’t like somebody told me about it and I said, ‘I don’t know how to spell that.’ I said, ‘Yeah, I’ve got that on my list, so I’m okay.’ But there came a point when we realized it was happening faster and was a much deeper phenomenon than had been recognized in our strategy.”

Don’t get taken by surprise!

Join me this Thursday for a special Ustream LIVE broadcast where I’ll share The #1 Thing you MUST be focused on when creating your Web Presence. I’ll be streaming LIVE from Hawaii with the Reality Mastermind Guyz.

Visit Chat with Coach Deb for more details on the show, and join my Tribe to get on tomorrow’s FREE Broadcast.

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Until now, when you posted a video to YouTube, tracking info was limited to how many times your video was viewed or commented on. Now Google has decided to boost YouTube’s tracking power allowing New Media Marketers to analyze video performance more effectively.

The new tools help put the performance of a video into context over time. You can see where your Tribe is coming from and how well your message is connecting to your audience. And… a big plus — you’re now better able to get ideas on how to improve your videos and track how your improvements translate into attention.

What YouTube now tracks for you

To access your new stats, log into to your account then “My account > Videos, Favorites, Playlists > About This Video.” Here’s what you’ll see when you do.

Obviously the wimpish stats that you had before are still available. (above)

The left side of your screen when in the “Views” tab will give you: (above)

• How many countries your video was viewed in any given time period
• An adjustable slider bar to select any time range you want since the video was posted

The right side of your screen when in the “Views” tab will give you: (above)

• A visual color coded map showing the countries your video was viewed in

Click on the “Popularity” tab and you’ll see: (above)

• The relevant popularity (to other videos) in a given territory
• Color coded map showing popularity instead of views

Unlike the total viewership counts, all the detailed information will be available only to the user who uploaded the video. Some data will still be limited to paid advertisers and partners, including information on how many viewers make it through 25 percent, 50 percent or all of a video.

Some ideas for New Media Marketers

Sometimes when people hear the word analytics or tracking, they start to doze off. But that’s mostly because they’re not sure how to use the data at their fingertips. And that’s a shame because tracking your efforts and making improvements based on data (instead of feelings) is the key to making things more fun and profitable in any area of business.

Here are a few starter ideas on how to use YouTube’s new analytics to help with your New Media Marketing.

• If your niche is in extreme sports (or any sports for that matter,) you may find that your viewership peaks on Thursdays in the US. So you could release new clips then.
• You may see that your viewership on your videos starts to dip or flatten out after three weeks. That would let you know that you should release a new video at least every three weeks. And you can test a shorter frequency to see what that will do to increase viewership and hold those higher numbers for a longer time period.
• If you’re an expert on investing and see that your videos are popular in Mexico and South America, you could test releasing your videos in both English and Spanish.

Not an exhaustive list, but it’s a start.

Your ideas?

Do you have ideas on how you’ll use YouTube’s enhanced tracking to help boost you New Media Marketing? Share them in a comment.

A little thought goes a long way. With this new information, you can concentrate on creating compelling new content that appeals to your Tribe and post your videos on days you know these viewers are active on YouTube.

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YouTube is starting to make higher-definition streams available on certain videos. This is a long awaited across-the-board improvement available on all YouTube accounts. It’s definitely not true High Definition, but it’s a step in the right direction. Especially compared to the typical grainy YouTube video.

How do you make your higher quality videos available?

Right now these high quality streams are only available on “certain videos,” as YouTube states on the official YouTube blog. It’s based on the source file you uploaded to YouTube.

How do you watch higher quality videos?

On your Account page you’re now able to choose “always show me higher quality when available.” To change your settings go to your Account Home Page >> Account >> Video Playback Quality.

YouTube suggests that you select “always show me…” only if you have a fast Internet connection, otherwise you might find that videos don’t play as quickly or smoothly as you’re used to. Higher quality videos also have a link right below the video player which will allow you to select between the normal or higher quality settings.

Like all videos on YouTube, higher-definition videos can’t be longer than 10 minutes in length. Max file sizes have been bumped up to 1 GB though.

Go Red…

Oh, and while we’re talking about YouTube — China is blocking YouTube after they posted videos showing the recent protests in Tibet.

Yeah!!! Communism shows it’s true colors again. Killing people, and then shutting down any media source that reveals it. At least they make it clear why red is their color.

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