How Twitter Helped Me Meet a Movie Star

alex — Wed, 16 May 2012 06:52:50 +0000

Those of you that know me outside of my business know that I love TV and Films. Social media and entertainment go hand in hand though, right?! So last summer I connected via twitter to the Latinas In Media, a wonderful group of ladies who are rockin’ it in media. Some of the ladies were from the reporting world, TV and print, but I helped represent the Latina bloggers of the world (woot, woot). We had the great opportunity to see a screening of the upcoming film Girl in Progress, a coming of age story that shows the struggles of a young mother and her teenage daughter. It was a fantastic experiance followed by a Q & A with the director Patricia Riggen, but that wasn’t the end to this great adventure, oh no!

A few weeks later I was invited to a roundtable press junket with the stars of the film! This great film (in theaters May 11th) stars Eva Mendes and newcomer Cierra Ramirez where I was able to meet the stars & ask them questions (See the interview HERE ). I owe this, and so many other great experiences to social media. I guess the point of this post is 1. go watch Girl in Progress 2. Tweet what you love, who knows you might meet a movie star!

Pinaholic

alex — Thu, 10 May 2012 03:21:22 +0000

Hello my name is Alex and I’m a Pinaholic, I am completely addicted to the beautiful world of pinterest. When its late at night and I should be doing things like making dinner or going to bed, I find myself attached to the computer screen not able to leave and unsure when the last time I even blinked was.

“What is it?” you ask, well in the simplest of terms it is a social bookmarking site, a virtual pin board. Think of your room when you were a teenager, with posters and pictures all over your wall or on your cork board it’s like that but BETTER! If you like pretty pictures ( and boy do I) you will love pinterest. Though it is still invite only it has managed to already collect 1.36 million visitors per day with the large majority being woman 25-34, yet another fact proving that woman are the social media powerhouses (but I’ll save that for another post).

I can hear the questions already, “but Alex, how will it help my business?” well lets look at some referral traffic statistics shall we? Google+, Linkedin and YouTube combined offer referral traffic of 1.47%, less then half that of Pinterest’s 3.6%. Are you starting to see how it could help?

Like I mentioned it is invite only, but guess what you have the right connections because I have been pinning for a while and have some invites that I would love to hand out. So if you are in need of a coveted invite or you are already on pinterest and would like to connect, reach out! I can’t wait to see all the wonderful things you pin

5 Steps to “Social” Networking

alex — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 18:50:48 +0000

As a part of building your business it is essential to network, get out in front of people shake hands and exchange cards. You know what I am talking about the networking groups, the local Chambers, Morning Breakfasts and Evening Mixers. People do business with people they trust, so why would a business owner ever use social media? Because social media offers great tools that can help you take your first meeting and turn it into a closed deal. “How?”, you ask. These 5 steps can lead you to a whole new level of networking, social networking.

1. Relationship Building

At an event there is hardly any time to get past your introduction and elevator speech and hardly no time at all to get to know someone. By taking those cards you collected and doing a quick search on Facebook you can take the relationship to the next level, find out about the contacts likes and dislikes, family and personality, truly fostering a real relationship!

2. Become an Expert

When posting on your social media profiles think strategically. Are you posting content that positions you as an expert in your field? Share articles, and opinions about your industry and show your new friends that they can come to you for the latest information.

3. Offer Support

Everyone likes a pat on the back every now and then. Make sure you are commenting, liking, retweeting and sharing your new friends information. This will help you show others that you are interested in what they have to say and they will in turn show you the same support.

4. Introductions

Did you not get the chance to meet that one person you would have liked to at that last event? Well reach out to them using Social Media by finding some mutual friends and starting a conversation or a way to help them out.

5. Reviews & Testimonials

People like to see how others see you before doing business with you and what better way then showing them your reviews and recommendations. You can use sites like Yelp, LinkedIn & Google Places for this.

What do you think? Is there a way that you use social media for networking?

An Apple Event: “The New iPad”

alex — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 19:41:30 +0000

Tim Cook, head of Apple stepped on stage today in San Francisco to discuss the next generation of iPad. The theme of the event was a Post-PC Era and Tim managed to explain why Apple is taking the lead in this era by telling us about the 172 million “post-PC” devices were sold last year, 76% of Apples revenue! 585,000 Apps are currently in the App Store with over 25 billion downloads!

They explained the new Apple TV and how it supports 1080p with access to your iTunes playlists from iCloud right from the the device. Third party apps will also work great on this Apple TV as well. The Apple TV will be available March 16th for $99 and is available to order today.

The major point of this event though was the iPad where Tim explained that there were 100 competitive tablets that came out last year and yet they still managed to be the leader in the tablet market. Here are some statistics on the new device:

Retina Display, 2047 x 1536 3.1 million pixels, “the most ever in a mobile device”,
A5x Quad Core graphics processor.
iSight camera (back facing camera) 5-megapixel backside illuminated sensor on the back, 5-element lens, IR filter, and ISP built into the A5X chip. Auto exposure & auto- focus
1080p video recording with stabilization.
Voice Dictation- English, French, German, Japanese
4G LTE (AT&T and Verizon) 21Mbps HSPA+ and DC-HSDPA at 42Mbps
HotSpot if carrier provides it
10 Hours battery life, 9 hours on 4G
9.4mm Thin weighing 1.4 lbs.

Pricing starts at $499 for the 16 GB and is available March 16th as well. 32GB is $599 and 64GB for $699 but if you want 4G the pricing is going to be $629, $729 and $829.

Current iPad 2 will have a price drops by $100, $399 for a 16GB WiFi model.

Existing apps will be scaled up and text will automatically be rendered in higher-res and app developers have created some great apps to go along with this device like Sky Gamblers, SketchBook Pro and Infinity Blade: Dungeons. The device is to have more memory or screen resolution than either the Xbox 360 or the PS3. They Apple iLife apps have some updates as well including iPhoto, iMovie and Garage Band which will all be available today and will work incredibly with the newest iPad.

So that is it, “The New iPad” looks like it will be a very exciting new addition to this gadget girls wishlist with some great updates added to it. The only iffy part of the whole event was the strange choice of name for this device (officially “The New iPad”, which seems like it will cause some confusion). So, what do you think? Do you like the new additions, what about the Apple TV? What would you have named it?