by Brad Friedman | Social Media
On April 30th Starbucks rolled out a Facebook app allowing customers to manage their Starbucks cards. The app may be found on the Starbucks Facebook page. The app provides you with the ability to do everything you can do by going to the Starbucks website including loading your card and reviewing your transactions. This is pretty convenient for those of us who spend lots of time on Facebook. We don't have to leave Facebook to perform these tasks. (more…)
by Brad Friedman | Social Media

From the movie “Field of Dreams”
This Guest Post is written by Lauren Friedman, Community Genius, at Context Optional in San Francisco. Like the title infers, Lauren is a genius at social media marketing and Facebook in particular. We're very proud to publish a post of hers. If you are interested in publishing a Guest Post, please read the Guidelines on the homepage and get in touch with me. Oh, I almost forgot, Lauren also happens to be my daughter! We hope she'll write for us again in the future. So, you've decided to join the rest of the world on the quest to market via social networks. Congratulations! But you can't completely remove yourself from under a rock quite yet. (more…)
by Brad Friedman | Social Media
I am a fairly average American. I spend a fair amount of time on the internet. I write this Blog. I am a member of the Problogger Community, and Viral Networks the social media marketing network. I have a Facebook page and a Facebook Fan Page. I am on Twitter, LinkedIn, Yelp and Plaxo. I have a bit.ly account, and I use HootSuite and TweetDeck, Seesmic, and SocialOomph. I share my location on foursquare, enter comments to other blogs through Disqus, and I use WriteToMyBlog, and Chitika Ads. I Stumbleupon, I Digg, and I'm Delicious. Like I said, I'm a fairly average American spending time on the Internet. (more…)
by Brad Friedman | Social Media
Recently, I have been cajoled, harassed, and embarrassed into participating in the “Social Networking” craze. I have a MySpace page. I’m on Facebook. I am participating in Plaxo, Linkedin, and Twitter. Putting aside the time I should have spent to set up my “page” on each of these sites (the bare minimum to participate is what I opted for), the question now is, how do I find the time every day to visit each of these social networks and actively participate in the things they have to offer?
At this point in time I am only visiting these sites in the evening, after work. I find that once engaged, I can be going from site to site for hours. These sites are addicting and time consuming. Which brings me to a few other questions: 1. Does a person have to be on all these different sites to stay connected or is one better than the rest? 2. What value do these sites really add to my already-too-busy life? (more…)
by Brad Friedman | Social Media
Not long ago I penned a post about social networking sites taking up too much of my time. I recently read this article by Kris Colvin and liked it so much I thought I'd post it here in its entirety. (more…)