Smartphones are quickly taking over the mobile communications market, with more and more customers adopting high end phones. Nowadays, smart phones allow users to access the web, as well as take photos and videos and effortlessly share them with others. As more users adopt smartphones, companies are also taking note of this shift by adjusting their marketing campaigns. In order to effectively market to this changing audience, it is important that businesses utilize smartphones to its full potential.

5 Ways to Connect Smartphones and Marketing

Marketing to smartphone users has taken a number of different methods, oftentimes in unique and creative ways. The following examples are ways in which companies have made the connection between smartphones and marketing:

1) Online Searches

More than ever, customers are relying on local, online search in order to find and review the best product for them. As a result, customers are incredibly likely to make a purchasing decision before they actually see the product. In order to stay ahead of this trend, many companies are using utilizing the power of smart phones in order to market their products. For example, businesses create mobile-friendly ads and websites optimized for smartphones, in order to stay relevant in local search.

2) QR Codes

QR codes are a barcode image that can be embedded with a variety of information, ranging from URLs, videos and other content. In order to read a QR, the user needs to utilize a smartphone that can scan and analyze the data. Many businesses are using QR codes for their marketing endeavors, ranging from retail stores, museums and restaurants. QR codes are used in a variety of ways, including scavenger hunts and giveaways, allowing businesses to engage and interact with their audience.

3) Social Media

Nowadays, it’s hard to find a social network that is not optimized for smartphones. Furthermore, there are a number of social network platforms that completely rely on smartphone use, such as Foursquare. Foursquare allows users to “check-in” in a variety of locations, allowing them to score badges based on how often they register at a venue. It is vitally important that businesses understand which social networks have the most potential for their smartphone customers.

4) Emails

A common activity among many smartphone users is to check their email. Given this trend, it is critical that businesses tailor their emails specifically for their smartphone audience. Aside from the practice of optimizing emails for smartphones, there are a number of creative ways in which businesses can utilize email marketing. One way is to use coupons that do not require any printing, instead simply requiring the users to present the coupon in-store.

5) Advertising

With the increasing number of smartphone users, it naturally stands to sense that advertising would follow the similar trend. Mobile advertising appears in a variety of different forms, such as video ads and banner ads in mobile games. According to a Google infographic, roughly 82% of smartphone users take notice of mobile ads. Businesses would do well to take advantage of the high impression rate and utilize mobile advertising.

Many businesses, especially small, local businesses, may be skeptical of the potential of mobile marketing. However, it would be foolish to ignore the increasing numbers of users who are purchasing smartphones every day. Stay abreast of competitors and gain an edge in the market, by using the connection between smartphones and marketing.

Author Bio: Rachel Hyun Kim is a writer on topics ranging from electronic medical billing software to payroll services. She writes for an online resource that gives advice on topics including telemarketing services for small business owners and entrepreneurs at Resource Nation.

Mobile device security should be a major concern for those who own and use smartphones. When you obtain a new phone, a few preliminary security steps should be taken to ensure that your data is secure and your phone is safe. The folks at Veracode have put together an infographic called “So You Got A Smartphone for Christmas,” that is complete with some essential security steps that a smartphone user MUST perform to protect the phone from hackers and other prying eyes. Though the steps on the Veracode site primarily address Android and Apple iOS phone operating systems, these steps are great advice for any brand of smartphone. New smartphones are not set up with these security precautions when they are shipped from the factory. You must actively perform a few actions to make sure your personal data and your device are protected and secure.

1.) Immediately change (or set) the password on the phone, as well as for your voicemail account before using the device. The phone password will either be set to a factory default password, or the device will not have a password configured. Most phones will walk you through setting the device password through the initial setup application. The voicemail password will be set when you initially configure your voicemail account for first use. Be sure to perform this step even before making your first call.

2.) When you set your phone and voicemail passwords, be sure to use a PIN or password that is difficult for hackers to guess. Do not use your birthdate or any other information that might be easy for others to discover and use to access your phone.

3.) Disable wireless connections, such as Bluetooth, if you do not use them. Open wireless connections may provide a hacker with open access to your phone and data. Only set up and save WiFi connections that you use.

4.) Configure the time-out settings on the phone so that the device is password protected after five minutes of inactivity. Even though you will need to enter the password each time you use the phone after it has set for several minutes, your data and phone will be much more secure by implementing this step.

5.) Do not install apps from sources that you do not know and trust. Be careful when installing freeware or trialware to your phone. You may be installing a backdoor access mode for a hacker along with the application. It is a good idea to read reviews about apps before your install them just to make sure that others have had positive experiences with the apps. Apple reviews and approves iOS apps for access through iTunes. Occasionally, Apple will disapprove a previously-approved app if the app does not perform well or is questionable in any way. Through this process, Apple is able to further protect their iOS operating system users from harmful and buggy apps.

6.) Immediately install mobile security software to protect your device. Veracode suggests a security application such as Lookout for smartphone protection.

7.) Mobile device management software is necessary for not only managing data on the phone, but to access additional security features, as well. For example, Apple’s iOS management software will enable geolocation for your phone in case the phone is lost or stolen. Also, if you phone is lost or stolen, you are able to wipe all of your personal data from the device using the management software.

8.) Be sure to back up your phone to another storage location on a regular basis. Should your media card or phone hard drive become corrupted, you do not want to lose all of your valuable photos, music and files.

9.) Whenever using a public WiFi connection, never log into your bank account or access any other personal data. Hackers may easily access sensitive data when sent over a public WiFi connection.

10.) Update the firmware on your device as soon as upgrades are available. Often, firmware is upgraded to close security holes and fix flaws in previous versions.

By taking these steps as soon as you get a new smartphone, you will make your device much more secure and inaccessible to hackers and others who seek to obtain your personal information.

Author Bio: Stacy Gianakura writes for Brainloop, a company specializing in on-the-road secure document compliance solutions that travels with you.

Social media has exploded in recent years due to sites such as YouTube, Yelp, Facebook, Twitter, and thousands of other social marketing websites. What really stared the trend was in 2004 at a web conference the term “Web 2.0” was coined by Tim O’ Rilley. Web 2.0 is a way for internet users to directly interact with other internet users on the web via social networking sites, social bookmarking sites, social media sites, blogs, etc. When internet marketers realized the potential of these social media sites is as a way to gather customer information they began to join social and actively participate in these networks. There is a goldmine of information that customers share on social media websites.

All these new means on communication created new jobs in the internet marketing field. There are now companies desperately seeking out designers, programmers, internet marketers, and social media gurus to maintain and grow the company’s presence on the web. Businesses even have entire departments devoted to social media marketing specialists that spend all day interacting with others on the web. This has become a full time job and if your business is not participating in social media marketing strategies then they are falling behind and losing customers to their competitors.

What does all this mean for you? It means there are many job opportunities available in the field of social media marketing due to the influence of the internet and the trillions of websites that have emerged. All these websites are potential employers and many of these businesses are very lucrative; while the majority is unfortunately failing. This is where internet marketing, specifically search engine optimization and social media marketing techniques come into play. If you are looking to get a job involving social media there are endless opportunities out there; from start ups looking to make a name for themselves to established businesses that are looking to boost their presence on the web.

Most social media jobs do not require formal schooling or college degrees, but rather prefer to see that you have had hands on training and experience in the field of social media. You have to love internet marketing and always stay up on the latest trends and topics because what works today may no longer work tomorrow. The internet evolves at a rapid pace so formal education does not play a role in the hiring process; although it is always a good idea to get a college degree in Business Marketing. If you are looking for upper level positions you may want to inquire a MBA program in your local area.

MySpace was once the largest haven for marketers, musicians, and people to visit. That lasted for a few years and then Facebook emerged. Facebook changed the game completely with the live stream, chat features, image and video tagging, and many other innovative features. A few years later Twitter emerged as a micro-blogging platform and has become a favorite site for most internet users. And do not forget about YouTube, which is the second most popular site on the web. All these changes happened so quickly and unexpectedly that to be a successful internet marketer you need to always be reading social media news.

Many job boards have emerged in recent years such as Monster, Indeed, Career Builder, Craig’s List, and many others. These are like social networking websites that allow employers to post jobs and employees to seek out jobs related to their expertise. Another useful way to find a job I to go to the website and search for employment opportunities or a contact us page. This will lead you on your way to finding out who is hiring and how the selection process works.

Some new features have been added to the popular social media marketing and networking website Facebook. Some of these features have been incorporated, keeping in mind the growing importance of Social Media Marketing (SEM). Anyways, these latest features are likely to bring in fundamental changes the way people use this website. Nearly 500 million users of Facebook will gradually see the use of these new features. Here we briefly discuss about some of these features.

Access Facebook as Your Page

With the addition of this feature, you will be able to receive notifications for your page. This will help you view a News Feed for your page and you will be able to post on other Pages as your Page. With this new feature, you will be able to interact on other Fan Pages as your Fan Page.

Facebook Sponsored Stories

One of the most important new features added to Facebook is of course the sponsored stories. With this new feature, brands can be extended to the distribution of activities.  This new feature is likely to boost adoption rates and increased proactive behavior on the part of brands.

Facebook Credits

With this feature you will be convinced to take part in branded games. These credits work as incentive and can drive up activities among players of social network games.

Facebook Deals

With this feature, you are offered discounts as a part of the group, based upon finding required number of participants.  Socialization of deal, is however very strong in case of Facebook.

Facebook Send Button

The main intention behind the creation of the send button was to develop the functionality of groups. It works effortlessly with fellow group members and Facebook friends. This can be used by using a drop-down menu.

New Look and Feel

The look of Facebook has also changed a lot. A default set of photos now features at the top of the application tabs. You can now find the application at the left hand column. All these have been done to make it more user-friendly.

anSocial Media as a concept has been flipped several times, and surprisingly has revealed varied faces. In a broad sense of a term Social media is a medium of connecting and drawing communities together in an engaging activity or discussion. A process occurring the other way round with communities being drawn together first and then being cumulated into a social group will also refer to Social Media.

There is another facet to Social Media, it is although a marketing tool, and it involves a number of technology giants to get social media solutions. This marks the coming together (to clash or to merge is a big question) of two different fields of operation – Technology and Marketing. While Social dynamics drive purchasing and branding, technology enables branding and further activities.

In general social media is the common thread that blends technology and social interaction, resulting in creation of value. Social media is a communication instrument that not just provides information, but also interacts by the means of comments and likes or dislikes. Social Media is also different from the usual one way media instruments such as reading a newspaper or a magazine, without the writer or creator of news being unaware of user comments or opinions. Social media contrarily is a two way communication process.

Social Media is a frequently tossed phrase, and there are various social media websites with varied motives and functionality. There are Social Bookmarking websites like the Del.icio.us, Simpy etc; Social News websites like the Reddit, Digg etc; Social Photo sharing websites like the Flickr and YouTube etc; and the most famous of all Social Networking Websites like Hi5, Facebook etc.

Today’s society is being taken over completely by Web 2.0, human existence boiling down to network computers. Internet and its usages have changed drastically, so has the way human beings interact and use it. Web 2.0 is the force that brings people together over a wide platform – the Internet, through the medium of social media. Web 2.0 is thus responsible for creating a wider and a much interaction friendly web that receives and responds. It makes this harnessing of interaction easier thus making it easier for everybody to use and interact.

Social media is thus a wide perspective, unfathomable by mere descriptions of social websites. It is a revolution that is changing its tone and intensity with every passing second, revolutionizing lives of the entire human community as whole, which belongs to the World Wide Web.

Now, just have your Ice Cream Sandwich with the topping of a Sony Ericsson Xperia Play game zone too. That’s for keeps as Android operating system 4.0; nicknamed Ice Cream Sandwich is going to upgrade Sony Ericsson smartphones offered this year. That simply means a great option with a promised potential of combining a smartphone and a portable gaming console. Sounds wonderful? That is a story written almost when they were thinking of multiplying a computer’s usage. A need to make the computer more users friendly was felt. The story is now being re-read with smartphones. Google has started integrating mobile phones on its Android platform to allow greater freedom to users. On its way, the company integrated several HTC smartphones as also Samsung Galaxy Nexus when it launched Ice Cream Sandwich in October this year.

Google’s idea was welcomed with hurray by gaming enthusiasts. So, the entire range of Sony Ericsson’s Xperia products and Sony Ericsson Live with Walkman is going to be upgraded to Android OS 4.0. If you are thrilled only with huge gaming options on your phones, then the scheme is loaded only for you. And, with Sony Ericsson Xperia Play, it’s simply going to give you whale of a time each time you take it to yourself. Just get behind the wheel of a racing car and enjoy gaming to the hilt. Challenge and awe those peeping friends.

However, it’s a matter of just some time now. Sony is busy in experimenting the whole plan. A note from the company promised to make all the features and specs known as and when the thing is complete. In the meantime, it’s been known that Xperia Play is going to be available from both Verizon and AT&T.

Counting one more good that the new scheme is going to do, one has to see google’s promise of carrying both previous features of the smartphones and tablet PC’s in its new operating system. In fact that means a greater user interface and goodies from Android Gingerbread edition too. Indeed it’s going to be a whammy many times more than that as Sony has already promised to keep upgrading the preloaded games, additional titles and apps. Does that take the story of those old times synching of e-mails and editing office documents on the go? Absolutely…!

In a note on the official blog of Sony Ericsson, the company made some of the features of its new offering known. The company has tried to do away with some of the cumbersome buttons. The software’s interface integrates the functions of physical buttons. It looks more users focused and calculated to ensure better traction for the company’s products.

Lastly, one has to note that very surely, a lot is going on in Android – bigger internal flash, more memory, hardware acceleration and all those steps have improved the platform and thus apps too. It’s all being done to serve customers better.

Alia Haley is very passionate when it comes to blogging and writing. She is a gadget freak and loves to write on technology. Her articles include various aspects associated to tech help and currently she is working on a blog on tech games and Urban Design.

One way not to land a social media job is to submit a resume with little to no social media experience. It would be like applying for a job as a writer, with no writing experience or writing samples to show for. Social media positions are many and on the rise, but they’re competitive. It’s a dream job if you love interacting with people, and brand promotion. Some jobs can also be done from home. Here’s what you need to do to position yourself to land one:

Prove that You’ve Branded You

You may not be able to show any experience promoting a business brand if you’re new to social media. It would be nice if you can show on your resume or portfolio how you took an unknown product and made it known on social media channels, as evidenced by increased sales. However, if you’re not there yet, then there’s one brand that you need to build, and that’s you. Employers are going to go to the social media channels and enter your name. They’ll do a Google search to see what comes up. If you’ve built your personal brand, and have followers and fans, they’ll take note. If you don’t, why should they bother?

Know and Understand SMO

The social aspect of social media is important, but just as important is the technical aspects. You must know and understand social media optimization (SMO). An employer sees value in someone who already gets it and doesn’t need to be trained in that area. They like it because they want people to find your tweets or other YouTube video. If you don’t know SMO and are serious about finding a social media job, then get the online training you need and start learning it soon.

Social media jobs are growing, and business owners are willing to outsource work to freelancers. It’s a great way to supplement income and eventually strike out on your own.

It seems as though wherever you look someone is playing around with their smartphone. And what app always pops up when users are not busy texting? The addictive and fun application created and developed by Facebook is the latest craze in the smart phone industry.

It only makes sense as Facebook is one of the most popular Internet websites, ranking in the top three with Google and YouTube. The application offered by Facebook is simple and extremely easy to use even for newbies.

All you need to do is download the app and log in with your user name and password and you too can become addicted to Facebook while using your cell phone. This is in the same area as Twitter, yet Facebook still holds a greater market share and user integration.

With all the recent changes to the Facebook platform the app too changes. Facebook is always testing and tweaking things around. These are slight changes that are usually unnoticed, but the recent changes are definitely noticeable and may have an impact on Facebook’s popularity. Only time will tell how these changes influence smartphone users on the Facebook app.

There are so many add-on’s for Mozilla Firefox, that it can become a headache to sort through all of them.  If you are an internet marketer there are tons of valuable SEO addons for Firefox that are free and can save you hours of time.  I will discuss a few of the more popular search engine optimization add ons below.

SEO Book Toolbar

Pulls useful market research data right into Google’s and Yahoo!’s search results, including the following data near each search result. Shows information such as: Google PageRank, website age, inbound links, .edu links, .gov links, social media data, technorati, Alexa rank, cached pages, dmoz listing, Yahoo Directory listing, WhoIs, and much more.
Download SEO Book today!

SEO Quake

There are two parts, the SeoBar and search engine results information. SeoBar can be described as an additional toolbar, which shows the values of selected parameters for the page currently opened in the browser window. Set of parameters shown by SeoBar is fully customizable by user. SeoQuake shows values of the parameters for search results under each search result shown on SERP. Set of parameters shown is fully customizable by user. Loading of parameters can be handled in two different ways – simultaneously with the loading of the SERP or after SERP loading, by user demand. Ranking of the results by selected parameter in ascending/descending order and storing results in file are available features.
Download SEO Quake today!

Firebug

Firebug integrates with Firefox to put a wealth of development tools at your fingertips while you browse. You can edit, debug, and monitor CSS, HTML, and JavaScript live in any web page…
Download Firebug today!

Web Developer

This is the most popular Firefox SEO addon for webmasters. So I assume that it is most likely that you are already using this Firefox SEO addon. This toolbar has all the tools that a designer would require to test the design and layout of a webpage such as in analyzing style. It also allows you to view the site without images, shows the layout format, outlines tables, forms etc, validates the code, among the many other things that this addon can perform.
Download Web Developer today!

SEOpen

Provides some basic tools to help with search engine optimization. Including google backlinks, yahoo backlinks, PageRank check, http header viewer, and more. All features are available by right-clicking on an open area of a web page, or by using the included toolbar.
Download SEOpen today!

Link Checker

LinkChecker checks the validity of links on any webpage. Check webpage links at a glance with simple color coding. Ditch those massive listings of bad links that provide no context and add LinkChecker to your arsenal of web development tools today.
Download Link Checker today!

User Agent Switcher

The User Agent Switcher extension adds a menu and a toolbar button to switch the user agent of a browser. View websites in different browsers and mobile devices with this useful tool.
Download User Agent Switcher today!

Search Status

Display the Google PageRank, Alexa rank, Compete ranking and SEOmoz Linkscape mozRank anywhere in your browser, along with fast keyword density analyser, keyword/nofollow highlighting, backward/related links, canonical links, WHOIS, robots and more.
Download Search Status today!

Foxy SEO Tool

Foxy SEO Tool is a free, open source toolbar that provides quick and easy access to a multitude of search engine functions such as Google Site, Yahoo! Site Explorer, Live Fromlinks. Also included are famous web traffic analysis sites such as Alexa, Compete, Quantcast, popular statistic aggregators like Quarkbase and WebSiteOutlook. You can check a site’s listing in important directories like Dmoz and Yahoo! Directory, buzzing Web 2.0 sites such as Technocrati, Wikipedia, Digg, Delicious and links to useful network functions like Whois, Geotool, Internet Archive, etc.
Download Foxy SEO Tool today!

X-Ray

One installed the X-Ray command is available by right-clicking as well as in the Tools menu. When applied to a page it can help you see how the document was constructed without having to go back and forth between the source code and the page in your browser. Is that list made of li, dd or p elements? Is that an h3 tag or just some bolded text? X-Ray shows you what’s beneath the surface of the page.
Download X-Ray today!

K Gen

KGen (Keyword Generator) allows you to see what keywords are strong on visited web pages for search engines.
Download K Gen today!

Flagfox

Flagfox provides a wide range of uses such as: Site safety and malware checks, Finding similar sites and reviews, Automatic translation to your language, SEO and web development research, Diagnostics like pings and traceroutes, Whois and DNS information, Page code validation, Quick URL shortening, Copying a server’s IP address or other info, or you can create your own custom actions!
Download Flagfox today!

What Mozilla Firefox addon’s do you use to help with your daily search engine optimization / internet marketing techniques?  Leave your responses below.

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