Guest post today from Dan – Ed.

Hi, I’m Dan Sloshberg, Regional Manager for Small Medium Business Marketing in Europe, Middle East and Africa. I work on helping to promote our BlackBerry® solutions for those who are looking to start or grow their business.

Following on from our last post on mobile social networking for SMBs, we’ve put together this great new video, showcasing some examples of how smart small business can use mobile social networking to connect and engage with their customers and find and attract new customers.

Starting or growing a business can be tough and a lot of hard work. Engaging on social networks from your smartphone or tablet is a powerful and efficient form of communicating and connecting with customers and prospects. If done right, not only can it be highly effective but is also a very low cost marketing strategy. See how you can use some simple social tactics to attract and keep more customers wherever your day takes you – and all from your BlackBerry smartphone.

[ YouTube link for mobile viewing ]

Does your business use social networking to engage with customers? Share your tips and advice for using social networking on a smartphone or tablet in the comments below.

(Originally posted on the Inside BlackBerry Developer’s Blog)

More exciting news arrives today from the BlackBerry Partners Fund™ Developer Challenge, announcing the winners of the Best Adobe® Flash® and Adobe® AIR® app competition for the BlackBerry® PlayBook™ tablet! It’s been exciting to see such an array of amazing apps highlighted from all around the world. Thanks to everyone that participated in the competition, and congratulations to these winning developers!

North America:

• Grand Prize Winner: Papa’s Burgeria (Vendor: Flipline IDS LLC)
• First Runners-up: News Catcher (Vendor: XIMAD Inc)
• Second Runners-up: iSpeech Translator (Vendor: iSpeech.org)

Latin America:

• Grand Prize Winner: PaginasAmarillas (Vendor: Carvajal)
• First Runners-up: El Financiero para BlackBerry PlayBook (Vendor: Ironbit SA de CV)
• Second Runners-up: Bubbler! (Vendor: Juan Ignacio Albanesi)

Europe, Middle East, Africa:

• Grand Prize Winner: n-tv Nachrichten PlayBook (Vendor: LINEAS Informationstechnik GmbH)
• First Runners-up: Doodle Blast (Vendor: FlexibleAIR)
• Second Runners-up: SVIT – Ebook Reader with EPUB Support (Vendor: Pronic, Meselina Ponikvar Verhovsek s.p.)

Asia Pacific:

• Grand Prize Winner: Love Indonesia for BlackBerry PlayBook (Vendor: Love Indonesia)
• First Runners-up: StockPulse – Stock and Equity Tracker for BlackBerry PlayBook (Vendor: XLabz Technologies Pvt Ltd)
• Second Runners-up: Abcday (Vendor: Vostrix)

The competition winners take home a share of prizes in a total pool worth over $3 million USD, including BlackBerry smartphones, BlackBerry PlayBook tablets, a BlackBerry App World™ storefront feature, BlackBerry Alliance memberships and more. Be sure to read the full BlackBerry Partners Fund press release to get all the details.

We hope to see you at an upcoming BlackBerry DevCon where these winners will be recognized!

We’ve held some fantastic “Meet the PlayBook” events across Europe in the last month – be sure to check out our blog post about the first few dates. Now, we’re excited to announce further event dates and locations!

These half-day events have been a great success so far, and our delegates have learned a lot about developing rich applications for the BlackBerry® PlayBook™ tablet using Adobe® Flex®, Adobe® AIR® and the BlackBerry® WebWorks™ SDK! The hands-on sessions with the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet have been extremely popular, so don’t miss your opportunity to get a look at our new tablet device!

The event comprises two parallel sessions, one business and one technology focused, and technical teams from Research In Motion and Adobe will also be available to answer your questions.

Our next events are as follows. Places are limited, so early registration is recommended!

• 14th June in Milan
• 21st June in Istanbul
• 21st June in Malmo
• 28th July in Cologne – tbc

BlackBerry Tablet OS Development Resources:

BlackBerry – Tablet OS SDK for Adobe AIR Development Resources
BlackBerry WebWorks SDK for Tablet OS

Before I came to Research In Motion® (RIM), I was the publisher of a small local magazine that kept me running around from early morning till late at night. I was so swamped with tasks every day that I felt like I didn’t even have time to investigate ways that I could save myself time or make the business more money. It was a strange predicament to be in – I loved what I was busy with, but I just felt so bogged down!

Yet instead of having to block hours of time at the beginning, middle and end of my day to respond to email, return calls, update our social media and review proofs, I COULD have done all of those things when I had a free moment before a journalist arrived or a customer was ready to chat with me. What I know now is that this is a common issue with many Small and Medium-sized business owners – ones who are balancing so many different roles in a day.

Read more success stories at the Inside BlackBerry for Business Blog »