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This week I researched and wrote about restaurants and contests for a post for Gigcoin’s blog. Our goal for the post was to demonstrate some successful, unique and clever contests.

I put a query out on Help a Reporter Out (HARO) and through the query we heard from a number of businesses around the United States. We selected four to profile in the post: Ling and Louie’s Asian Bar and Grill, Lou Malnati’s Pizzeria, The Bistro Group, and Mia’s Pizza and Eats.

I was very impressed with the creativity of each of these contests and it really drove home the point that businesses need to be strategic with their social media approaches.

You can read the post on GigCoin’s blog.

I’ve been blogging for a number of years now but have to say that the post, “Tips for Designing a Successful Facebook Content Strategy” from a research standpoint, had to be one of the most enjoyable and interesting processes I’ve had as a blogger.

As you’ll read in the full post on GigCoin’s blog, I had started out with an intention of researching third party APIs for auto-posting to your Facebook fan page. But after reading a post by Josh Constine on Inside Facebook, the post took a very different turn.

I felt a little like Woodward & Bernstein (okay, I said “a little”) as they uncovered Watergate. This had an odd feeling of a Facegate kind of conspiracy to it.

Then, I had the great fortune of being in contact with some excellent Facebook experts and receiving their tips, including Mari Smith, social media thought leader and author of Facebook Marketing: An Hour A Day. Mari pushed out the post to her “peeps” yesterday and the post is being read even more widely now.

The viral nature of posts is something that intrigues me a lot!

Oops, I haven’t updated my own blog now in a few weeks! Guess I’ve been busy researching and writing (and snapping photos on my iPhone, applying filters and sharing on Instagram)!

What have I been up to? Well, continuing in my tradition of 26 Tips, A-Z Guides, my seventh post in the series, 26 Tips for Adding Customer Service to Your Social Media Strategy, was published on Social Media Examiner on June 1st.

This past month, I’ve also had four additional posts published on GigCoin’s blog on a variety of social media topics: optimizing video on YouTube, lead generation, viral effect of video ads, creating new business opportunities.

What have you been working on?

This past week I’ve had two new blog posts published: 1) 30+ Design Apps on the Mac App Store on WebDesigner Depot and 2) 15 Ways to Monitor Your Competitors’ Use of Social Media to Gain Social Intelligence on GigCoin.

Click on the images to read the full story.

This past week I wrote about Location-Based Services and the Factors and Considerations for B2C and B2B Marketers for a new post on GigCoin’s Blog. Personally I have only used FourSquare once and haven’t tried Gowalla or any of the other popular location based services.

I had an opportunity to ask questions of Aaron Strout and Simon Salt who have both written books on the topic and also spoke to a number of business people about the ways they have used location services for their businesses.

I did learn a lot about the future of location-based marketing and would like to share it with you. You can read the full post on GigCoin’s blog.

Have you been using location-based services? What do you think about using them for marketing for your business?