Chris Brogan’s Advice For Businesses Starting With Social Media

Posted on 23. Nov, 2009 by Zahid Lilani. 8

Over the weekend I came across this video on Social Media Examiner where Chris Brogan lays out few steps Businesses can take when starting out in the social media sphere.

Enjoy the video

Best iPhone App For Black Friday Deals

Posted on 23. Nov, 2009 by Zahid Lilani. 3

Last year my Black Friday shopping list was pretty much empty. This year things are different as I am looking for a laptop and maybe a TV.

I searched the iPhone app store and downloaded couple of apps. The first app I downloaded was very disappointing. The second one I downloaded made me really happy because it gave me what I wanted.

TGI Black Friday

As soon as you run the app, it gives you exactly what you want. Popular deals and New ads, browse the way you like. After you are done and want to explore more, you will find four different tabs at the bottom of the app.

Store tab shows you all the stores supported by the app. Category tab allows you to view deals in over 15 categories.

Search tab just exactly that, lets you search for any item you want and the last tab allows you to create your own shopping list.

Download TGI Friday iPhone App | Visit Developers Site

Do you know of a better way to look for Black Friday deals? What are you going to shop for on Black Friday?

Weekly Roundup Of Interesting Social Media News Stories

Posted on 22. Nov, 2009 by Zahid Lilani. 15

Weekly roundup of interesting social media news Stories from around the web. Stories are hand picked and not computer generated. I Hope you enjoy your Social Media Sunday.

Attracted to brands on social media? by Kit Yarro for SF Chronicle

A candid look at how social media is creating relationships with Generation Y. Companies that have given importance to social media will be the winners as they have created a fan base and future customers by building relationships.

Time Spent Viewing Video on Social Networking Sites Up 98% Year-Over-Year In October – Nielsen

Facebook seems to be the leader in social media video viewing. Please keep in mind, Facebook is different from YouTube and most of the time videos being viewed on Facebook happen to be from YouTube. MySpace follows Facebook in online video viewing.

TechSqueeze: The Boca Chief’s Use of Social Media and Outreach – Broward Palm Beach

Interesting story about how Boca Rotan’s Chief of Police is using social media to connect with the local community and building relationships at the same time. He is passionate about Twitter.

Social media like Twitter change customer service – USA Today

Article about how ordinary people have used social media sites like Twitter to get attention from companies like Comcast and Dell.

Social Media Success Stories – by Erik Qualman for Search Engine Watch

14 case studies of companies using social media that have had positive ROI.

ReTweet Is Now Available To All Twitter Users

Posted on 20. Nov, 2009 by Zahid Lilani. 5

Something that was really missing from Twitter.com was the ability to re-tweet (share/broadcast) a tweet that you really liked and wanted to share with the rest of your followers.

Back in August, Project Retweet was announced and it got many of us excited because even though most serious Twitter users use desktop clients such as Tweetdeck or web clients such as HootSuite and Brizzly, occasionally we do go to Twitter.com to see how things are. Twitter.com is RAW, Twitter clients are just more refined and can be fine tuned.

When you login to Twitter first few times after the retweet feature has been activated, you will see this:

Like most Twitter features, this one is also easy to understand and use.

Once you click on the retweet link, shown in the image, the tweet gets retweeted to your followers. The only thing that seems to be different about Twitter.com retweet is that “recycle” look alike icon that shows up when you go to your profile on Twitter.com. In other words, you won’t see the retweeted tweet in your Twitter stream on the homepage. That’s not the case with most other retweet features used by Twitter apps as a retweeted tweet goes back into your Twitter stream.

That’s it, there is nothing more to it. Twitter.com users don’t have an excuse anymore to not share useful information.

So what do you think? You like the new feature? How many times have you used it?

Dom Sagolla on Bay Area KRON 4 News

Posted on 17. Nov, 2009 by Zahid Lilani. 5

Dom Sagolla, Twitter co-founder, was on KRON 4 News and was interviewed about his book 140 Characters: A Style Guide for the Short Form. As much as I enjoyed reading the book, I enjoyed the interview.

Quote I like from the Interview

Email is a push medium, Twitter is a pull medium