Favour.it (@Favour_it) Extends Facebook Likes, Social Media Business Marketing Potential {BETA} | Courtney Social Media Consultant in Los Angeles

· Saturday, December 29th, 2012 in Apps and Software · 0 Comments

I started playing with the Favour.it Beta a couple of weeks ago. Here are a few screenshots for you to check out! Read more about why I feel Favour.it Extends Facebook Likes, and how Favour.it could be a social media goldmine for businesses.

What is Favour.it?

Favour.it is a web application that is currently in Beta. With Favour.it, you can explore your friends’ favourits. Use Favour.it to get friends’ suggestions on web apps, iOS apps, books, movies, games, vendors, and more. { I added ‘web apps’, ‘iOS apps’, and ‘vendors’ to their website slogan. To me, it just made more sense. }

Favour.it Extends Facebook Likes

Favour.it extends Facebook Likes because it not only allows you to see the items that your friends like, but using Favour.it,

you can subscribe to friends favourits (read: likes)
re-favour their favourits,
and most importantly, read what their favourit is, and why they favourit – all in the same screen.

In fact, the first API connection that you make when registering for Favour.it is your Facebook account connection. Once connected to Facebook, Favour.it aggregates all of your Facebook likes, and turns them into your favourits. Favour.it allows you to select specific FB Likes, categorize, and add a note on why you Favour.it.

Favour.it Answers The Question ‘Why?’

I love that Favour.it requests the “why” in adding a favourit. There are a million different ‘likes’ on Facebook, and Favour.it not only allows you to see those friends with common interests, but allows you to dig a little deeper into the actual interest.

Favour.it’s Social Media Business Marketing Potential

Favour.it’s Social Media business potential is obvious because it offers what Facebook lacks. Not only that, but if the Favour.it team can figure out a way to pull in both Twitter, Yelp, Foursquare, Linked In, and Pinterest without bogging down the site, it would be a goldmine for social media business potential.

Can you imagine searching for a wedding planner or photographer on Favour.it?

You’d be able to grab all of your Facebook, Twitter, Yelp, Foursquare, Pinterest, and LinkedIn friends’ favourits all with the simple click of a mouse. You’ll know why they favour it, and your decision will be that much easier. You won’t have to send them a Facebook message asking what they like, or if they wrote a Yelp review. Information on each favourit will already be available to you.

Social Media Marketing Suggestions for Favour.it Team

Here are a few social media marketing suggestions for the Favour.it Team

Connect Yelp, Foursquare, Pinterest, and LinkedIn.
Link Yelp to specific favourits, highlighting the reviews of our Favour.it friends.
Link Foursquare to specific favourits, with the aggregate number of times our friends have actually checked-in to the favourit.
Link Pinterest to allow Favour.it users to “pin” favourits, or even use Pinterest API (I know Pinterest API is a headache.) to create a “Favour.it” board with links back to Favour.it.
Link LinkedIn for the added potential of finding out which friends actually work or previously worked at a favourit. {Yeah, I know Facebook does it. But they don’t do it well.}
Once out of Beta, and usage picks up, allow for premium business listings.

Favour.it Premium Business Listing – The Marketing Potential

If Favour.it picks up, they’ll be able to roll out premium business listings. A business can pay for a premium listing on Favour.it which will feature the following:

direct social media profile linking,
preferred user screenshots – or – uploading own screenshots which take precedence in hierarchy to standard user screenshots,
premium logos and use of banner above the entire business listing { should not replace screenshot region},
prime real-estate in favour.it “hive” { smack dab in the middle – drawing the user’s eyes and attention amongst their friends’ Favour.it. Of course, I’m not sure of the current favour.it algorithm for ordering, but I’m sure this area could simply be “skipped”, allowing for premium listings to fill-in the space using an “if, then, else”. #IJS }
ability to show/hide/highlight/order { add weight }Yelp Reviews,
ability to show/hide/highlight specific Twitter Comments,
ability to show/hide/highlight specific employees on LinkedIn.

Again, there’s a lot that can be done if Favour.it can roll out the features both properly, and timely – not rushed. I’ve got a million more ideas and thoughts on how they can do this, and how Favour.it could be beneficial for my social media consulting clients looking to beef up their social media presence, but I’ve gotta give the brain a rest.

I’m excited to see where Favour.it goes from here.

betabusinessSMM

shoptawk will connect you with the businesses you love | Courtney Social Media Consultant in Los Angeles

· Friday, October 12th, 2012 in Apps and Software · 2 Comments

shoptawk is now in Beta!

shoptawk is an awesome new way for you to connect with businesses you love!

shoptawk offers you a new way to connect and stay engaged with your favorite restaurants, bars, stores, brands and more! Now you will be the first to know when your favorite local business has a live event, exciting specials, a sale or even great offers. You can receive notifications on your iPhone to stay up to date with what’s happening at your favorite businesses at locations closest to you.

I’ll be even more excited when crumbs cupcakes registers and those updates hit my phone! ha!

betabusinessconnectreviews

Socialscope Beta, a year later. | Courtney Social Media Consultant in Los Angeles

socialscopeTwitter

· Wednesday, March 24th, 2010 in Blackberry Mobile · 0 Comments

Sign-in page

When Socialscope (SS) launched there were only a handful of Blackberry Twitter applications on the market, and the pickings were slim. One year later ————> SS is (still) in beta, only a small percentage of early adopters have had a chance to use it, and there’s a slew of applications (both paid and free) to choose from. I’ve been beta-testing playing with SS from ‘Day One’ and I’ve got to say it is hands down the best damn twitter application, period! Yes, I’ve tried them all, Twitterberry, Tinytwitter, Blackbird, Ubertwitter, Seesmic, TweetGenius and RIM’s Twitter for Blackberry. Most of these applications do the same things (with some offering various tweaks to UI and functionality) so I’ll focus on SS’s key differences. *Note* the functions discussed are from Socialscope v0.9.5.92-1(1)

Post from multiple Twitter accounts

Multiple twitter accounts: Many of us have multiple twitter accounts, and whether it’s for business or a 2nd identity, having access to both accounts is crucial. SS is the only blackberry application that gives you access to two accounts at the same time. (Seesmic added multiple account support in their most recent update,but it’s not nearly as seamless). SS offers a tabbed interface, the first tab streams the updates from all the accounts you’ve enabled, with separate tabs for each of the twitter accounts. When replying to a tweet you’re given the option to reply from either account.

Socialscope integration

Social Integration: There’s a lot of Twitter apps running around, but there’s only one that gives you access to your Foursquare, Facebook and Flickr accounts. NO OTHER TWITTER APP DOES THIS, and thus SS is the King of Integration.

: Foursquare integration

Foursquare: all of the basic 4sq functions are here, search for venues, check-in, if the venue doesn’t exist you can create and check-in, post a ‘shout-out’, and you also have the option to post check-ins to twitter. Clicking on a friends check-in allows you to view the venue details, check-in at the same venue, view map, nearby tweets or view the friends profile.

Facebook integration

Facebook: The onliest reason I signed up for Facebook was because SS added it to their menu. Granted, this app isn’t going to give you all the functionality of the official FB app, but it updates your stream you can comment on posts, “like” posts or comments and has a full-screen viewer for pictures. SS’s Facebook option also allows you to post to twitter and FB at the same time, just by selecting both accounts in the “update status” message, GTD!

Flickr integration

Flickr: My flickr account has been dusty for a while, but I follow some great photographers (both professional and amateurs) and having their pictures pop up in my time-line on a regular basis is swaayd! Pictures show up full-screen and you’re able to comment on them from the app. No option to post from the app (which can easily be done at http://m.flickr.com) but the ability to see that activity on a real-time basis is enough for me, for now at least.

Profile edit

My profile: Another little gem SS provides is the ability to update your profile. If you’re like me, you hardly ever use the web version of twitter, and the only reason you do is to update your profile or change your avatar, well now I can do all of that from SS: change picture, name, description, web address and location.

Tabs: SS also gives you the ability to add your own tabs for things you want to keep track of. You can add your Twitter Lists (that you’ve created online) or create a “Socialscope Group (list based on entries you create in-app) or enter a search term and follow updates containing that term from it’s own special tab (uber useful for staying on top of hot stories and curating information).

Link to Blackberry Contact: SS also has an option for you to link your friends/followers to a blackberry contact, which is useful for a couple of reasons. 1) it keeps your contact information up-to-date and 2) if you’re scrolling through your contact and wonder “hey, what’s @mosaeus up to?” Find my name in your contacts, click “menu” and “view updates” and SS will launch and show you a list of that my most recent updates. Nice!

The battle for #1 Blackberry Twitter application is still up for grabs, and I don’t expect to see any clear winner for quite some time, especially with the recent release of RIM’s (official) Twitter for Blackberry and both UberTwitter and Seesmic‘s latest updates. But at the moment I must say that Socialscope is in the lead by offering more options and integration than any of the other apps. Development feels as if it’s slowed a bit lately as updates aren’t being pushed out as quickly as they once were, but I’m rooting for these guys. They’re also working on an Android and iPhone port of this application, which is certain to fuel the furor and increase their user base. And to all of you guys wondering “why are they still in beta a year after the initial launch?”, just remember, GMail carried that tag for years (seven to be exact), so give ’em a break, lol!

If you haven’t already, sign-up for the SS beta: http://socialscope.net/get and follow them on Twitter for updates @Socialscope

beta