The Mobile Era

If you didn't know already, the simple cellphone is out! If you don't have a smartphone then you are being left behind. The creation of Blackberry, iPhone, Android and more has turned our everyday cellphone into a handheld computer, literally. The smartphone has changed the way we access information and organize our life and business, With my HTC, I can Google information, create a full page document using Word, access my business database, and take important notes during a business meeting using Microsoft OneNote.

The mobile era is growing and growing quickly! Android is shipping nearly 65,000 smartphones daily and approximately 65% of smartphone users access the mobile web often.

The challenge of the mobile era is now many companies have to rethink their website design and functionally. The fancy flash and high tech graphics are not universally supported by many smartphones. Websites must become mobile friendly with simple graphics that fit on the smaller screens. Making your site easy to view on a handheld will help increase website traffic.

In addition, major brands are becoming more creative and creating apps (applications) that make accessing their site easier. For example, Mazuma's account holders can now download the Mazuma app to quickly find the nearest ATM in their area.

Get connected to your customers and clients faster by making your business mobile friendly. Keep your brand at their hip by creating applications and m0bile friendly websites that are accessible through a phone.

Get Engaged to Social Media

Have you ever read a great article online or needed a second opinion on the item you wanted to purchase online and needed to send it to a friend? In order to share the article with your friends you had to email it to get them to check it out. However, with the new era of social media you can share your online findings with hundreds of friends at once with just one click.

Online communities are forming and sharing information faster than ever thanks to social media networks such as, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.
Share buttons, RSS feeds, blog postings, and more are allowing millions to send and share information and their opinions with millions of other people about companies, experiences, and other interesting topics. Word of mouth marketing has gone online and mobile allowing for faster transfer of information to larger masses of people at one time. For example, a person with over 500 friends on Facebook just posted a status indicating she found this local clothing store that takes old rags and turns them into new apparel items and provides a link to the website and a photo of a skirt she just bought online. Over 500 people just viewed this post and have the potential to be future visitors of the site.

Get your company and website engaged to social media and marry your business operations to mobile technologies.

Top methods to help you get engaged:

• Share buttons: adding share buttons to your website allows visitors to share your website and its content with all of their online friends. Whether it's to tell others about your services or about your company, it's free advertising and promotion to hundreds even thousands of potential clients and customers. Allow your current customers to help you get your name out there.
  
• Join a Social Network: depending on your business, there is a social network group for your business. Facebook is more of a social, informal network of people sharing entertaining information such as videos, pictures, and more. Twitter is a combination of professional and social networks. It emphasizes having a personality and building brand awareness. You should tweet regularly to be noticed and generate more followers. LinkedIn is designed for the professionals looking to build relationships, explore opportunities, and share ideas to help other professionals expand upon their knowledge and skills. Check out this article to compare the three social networks to see which one is right for your business.
  
• Take advantage of the Business goodies: Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter all offer special widgets, icons, or easy connections to help you link your website to your business profile page. Although you have the social profile, the main goal is to attract more people to your website to increase your traffic rates and generate leads. The same works vice versa, you want to have a link to your Facebook or Twitter profiles on your website to increase your followers. Facebook also offers a feature that allows your website visitors to log-in to your site using their Facebook accounts. Click here to find out all the business tools Facebook offers. Click here to see the tools Twitter offers.

Integrate your business with technology today and get engaged with Social Networking.

Questions? Contact us at info@bluesymphony.com

Sherry Lumpkins
Software and Web Development Specialist
Blue Symphony
http://www.bluesymphony.com/