CheapTweet Blog

Note: This post is part of our back-to-school partnership with Best Buy. Read about the intro to the partnership and various tweets about #BestBuyBTS. Though this post is part of our sponsor relationship, the following content is 100% ours.

Mobile phones are an incredibly important back-to-school accessory.  And now students have more choices than ever when it comes to new phones. If you’re thinking it’s time to upgrade your student’s (or your own) phone, then you should check out Best Buy’s in-store mobile upgrade check service.  It takes only a minute to run, and allows customers to choose from all the major plans and phones.

Here in the CheapTweet office, we wanted to see how this process works. So we enlisted the help of our friend Erik. Erik has had his current flip phone for two and a half years and he’s in serious need of an upgrade.  We thought Erik would be the perfect candidate to try out Best Buy’s upgrade service.

Here’s what Erik has to say about his current phone.

So, we sent Erik in to get a mobile upgrade check. We couldn’t film his full in-store experience, so here’s what he had to say afterward about the process. (Please excuse the wind noise at the end – things got a bit gusty.)

Overall, Best Buy’s mobile upgrade check was fast and easy; Erik said it took about 30 seconds.  He was asked for his phone number, service provider and billing zip code. From that, he learned his upgrade eligibility status and talked with a Best Buy employee about his new phone options. Erik later told us he didn’t feel pressured to buy anything right then, and that the employee was very honest and straightforward about the different smartphones Erik could buy.  He even got a cost breakdown comparing staying with his current provider versus changing providers.

The Best Buy mobile upgrade check seems like a great way to learn more about your cell phone options. Erik found that he’s been eligible for an upgrade for nine months! Since Best Buy carries phones and plans from all the major cell providers, there are a lot of different options and you’re likely to find the perfect phone and plan for you and your family. To see for yourself, just go into your nearest Best Buy store and ask for a mobile upgrade check or start by looking at your cell phone options at BestBuy.com.

Note: This post is part of our back-to-school partnership with Best Buy. Read about the intro to the partnership and various tweets about #BestBuyBTS. Though this post is part of our sponsor relationship, the following content and research is 100% ours.

We’ve been talking a lot about back-to-school deals recently. It’s hard to believe it’s already August! Lots of college students will soon be heading back to campus for another semester. And that means they’re going to need lots of new stuff. I just read today that average college freshman (and their families) spend more than $800 on back-to-school shopping, while returning students spend $400-500.

New and returning college students need all kinds of things: clothes, dorm room decor, books, school supplies and electronics, like cell phones, MP3 players, TVs, and most importantly, laptops. Okay, maybe the MP3 player and TV aren’t necessities, but a laptop certainly is. College students need portable and powerful computers they can take to class, the library, coffee shops, and of course, trips home. Student laptops need to be:

• Affordable. This is very important – no one wants to spend an amount equal to tuition on a computer. Sure, you could spend $2,000 on a laptop, but why would you when you can spend less than half that?
• Fast. Most students are big multi-taskers and they need computers that can keep up with them. Their ideal laptop is fast and powerful.
• Light. The ideal student laptop needs to be portable and light enough to carry everywhere. Books are heavy enough; their laptops should be as light as possible.
• Cool. College is still all about attitude. The ideal student laptop has to look good.
• Lots of storage. Students will store lots of music and movies, along with all their course documents and project files on their laptops. The ideal laptop needs to have a big hard drive.

We have lots of good laptop deals on CheapTweet all the time. But, it just so happens that we’ve partnered with Best Buy this month for a back-to-school promotion, and they have a line of specially-selected laptops for students called Next Class Laptops. These laptops are from brands like Dell, Sony, HP and Toshiba, have long-lasting batteries (up to 6 hours) and start at only $649. If you’re in the market for a new laptop for your college student (or for yourself), check them out. We think these are quality laptops at reasonable prices; we wouldn’t recommend them if they weren’t.

We’re extremely excited to announce that we’re partnering with Best Buy for the month of August to bring you some of their best back-to-school deals.

We’ll be engaging in sponsored Twitter conversations as part of this partnership, talking with the CheapTweet community about laptops and mobile phones, telling you more about a few of Best Buy’s programs. Most importantly, we want to share some of Best Buy’s best back-to-school deals with you.

Best Buy is a great company and we’re very excited to be working with them. They’ve been doing a lot of interesting things on Twitter and we’re pleased to be a part of their continued exploration of using social media for customer interaction.

At CheapTweet, we try very hard to work with sponsors who provide valuable products that interest our community. We strive to be transparent in these relationships; we will never try to sneak an advertisement past you or disguise an ad as our own thoughts. What we will do, however, is be open and honest when we’re sharing something from a sponsor, and will only share what we think you will find useful and relevant. Our goal is to help save you money on the things you want and need for your family, and we hope we choose sponsors that help us do that. We’re very aware of the complexities of sponsorships and advertising on Twitter. We’ve watched carefully as people like Brian Solis and Melanie Notkin (Savvy Auntie) discuss these issues, and have done of a number of promotions on Twitter with various brand partners, like Overstock.com and Perpetual Kid.

We feel like this current engagement with Best Buy is a good fit, both for us and for you, the CheapTweet community. Best Buy has enlisted us to help spread the word about their back-to-school savings, focusing on the perfect tech and electronic items for students returning to school this month. We will be using Twitter and this blog to interact with our community in conversations, ask questions, listen to your responses, and share deals.

All the tweets that are part of this partnership will be clearly labeled as sponsored. We’ll include the hashtag #BestBuyBTS so you’ll know something is a sponsored tweet. We won’t be tweeting pre-written marketing messages, but we will be passing along information given to us by Best Buy to help you make informed purchasing decisions and hopefully save you some money on your back-to-school electronics shopping.

We look forward to this partnership! Follow along with our conversations on Twitter.

It’s that time of year again. The time when kids (and their parents) get ready to head back to school. And this year, it’s a particularly tough time for many families. Belts are tighter, budgets are smaller, and people are trying harder than ever to save money on back to school shopping.

Through the month of August, we’re going to be running a number of special back-to-school promotions and partnering with a lot of great companies to bring you the best and biggest back-to-school savings we can find.

The first of these promotions is with Football Fanatics, one of our CheapTweet Stores. Football Fanatics is running a special back-to-school discount, just for CheapTweet users: get free 3-day shipping on orders over $75.  They have great deals on sports gear, so your kids can go back to school supporting their favorite teams. I love this girls replica Texas jersey, for example. Back to school time does coincide with the start of football season after all, which is especially important here in Texas.

We also have a special Back To School category on CheapTweet, where you can browse through all the school-related deals on our site. There are deals on everything your kids need, from clothing and fashion, to school and office supplies, to backpacks, gifts, sports equipment and much more. If you want the savings delivered straight to you, sign up for an RSS feed of back-to-school deals.

As always, we’ll also be tweeting lots of great deals to help you save money. So make sure you follow us on Twitter and get ready for the best deals we can find on back-t0-school items.