Mobile Media and Apple Are Bigger Than You Think

in Internet Marketing  by iqmadmin 0 comments

New Cisco reports show that global mobile data use almost tripled between 2009 and 2010. It’s been tripling every year for the last few years, with video taking up an increasing amount of traffic. By the end of this year, it’s predicted that more than half of all mobile traffic will be video. 

By 2015, it’s estimated that more people will access the internet through their phones than through their computers. As a matter of fact, a lot of this increased traffic will come from people who don’t even have electricity at home!

Of course, much of this is due to an explosive increase in smartphone sales over the past few years. And it’s not surprising that Apple’s iOS and Android devices are the leaders. But did you know, iPhone users are more likely to:

  • Pay for digital content
  • Use their phones to make mobile payments
  • Watch more video

Apple’s Net Worth in Perspective

Apple is worth more than $340 billion dollars. Buzzfeed helps put that in perspective for us with a list of surprising things that don’t amount to Apple’s net worth.

  1.  ALL the illegal drugs in the world (worth about $321 billion)
  2.  The entire economy of the wealthy, millionaire-filled country of Singapore ($318 billion)
  3.  The Star Wars, Star Trek, Harry Potter, Stephen King, and Twilight franchises combined ($49 billion)
  4.  All the farm-rich land in Iowa and South Dakota, at a price of $4200 per acre
  5.  10 years of silver production
  6. The economic cost of obesity in the U.S. ($300 billion)
  7.  The GDP of Denmark, ranked 5th in the world for GDP per capita ($337 billion)
  8. 45 days’ worth of global oil consumption, roughly $7 billion a day
  9. The combined GDP of Israel, Syria, Jordan, and Lebanon
  10. The Great Wall of China , at $.52 a brick

 

As a business, mobile-optimizing your website is an absolute necessity to get and stay in the game. And mobile media development  is a great place to focus on to draw people in.  Mobile media — consumable content accessible on cell phones — introduces consumers to your content and your business quickly and effectively, and on an emotional level.

Mobile Apps for Digital Marketing: 10 Things You MUST Know

in Internet Marketing  by iqmadmin 0 comments

1. Only do apps when you need more

Compared to browsing, mobile apps offer a richer level of user interaction allowing more complex graphics, media, and information to be presented. They also provide a more robust and secure environment for user engagement. But, if you can deliver what you are trying to achieve through a browser you will be able to reach far more consumers. –Jeremy Copp, CEO, Rapid Mobile Media

2. Tell people about your app

Don’t just rely on app stores, you can distribute apps via mobile sites, operators, and through multiple ad placements and formats for maximum impact and reach. –Theo Theodorou, EMEA Sales Manager, Mobile Advertising, Microsoft Advertising

3. Think further than the iPhone

The iPhone offers fantastic functionality for developers and users alike, and apps developed for the platform are eminently PR-able, and are often shared virally. It has a fast growing user base, and reaches relatively wealthy 25-44 year olds who actively use mobile media very well; but also developing a Java version, optimised to work over a wide range of handsets including BlackBerry will give you a far greater potential reach. –Mark Angell, Business Development Director, Marvellous

4. Get the balance right

There are 2 fundamental balances to achieve. Firstly, business objectives vs user needs: For the application to be effective, the business needs must carefully consider the user as well as commercial objectives. Secondly, the three E’s (Engagement, Entertainment, and Effectiveness): Functional apps often outlast the usage of entertainment-based apps. –Paul Taylor, Strategist & Planner, COI

5. Know the average app user

There are 8.7 million people who have used a downloaded app in the UK which is 18% of mobile users. 60% of these users are playing games that they have downloaded. The median age of an apps user is 32 years old and 43% are female. 36% of app users own smartphones compared to 15% of the total market. –Alistair Hill, Analyst and Mobile Products, Europe, comScore

6. Brand-building vs sales

Free applications get the most downloads, where as paid-for applications generate revenue. Knowing whether you are branding or selling is a key point when launching your first application. –Ross Butler, Creative, Parrott and Miller

7. Product longevity is essential

Every service needs a roadmap, no matter how basic. Customers will quickly get bored with a uni-functional app which has no new features or capability added over time. By adding functionality as time goes on you can create brand advocacy. –Christian Harris, CEO, Gorilla Box

8. Send them in the right direction

Ads in existing applications are a great place to advertise, but make sure that the destination site is optimised for mobile. If you don’t then you risk low conversion and a poor perception of your brand. –Jonathan Abraham, Brand Sales Director, AdMob

9. Test, test, and test again

If a customer can access it on their handset it needs to work. If it doesn’t it will do more damage than good to your brand. Invite feedback and always read customer reviews (don’t just ask friends to write them!) to ensure you’re meeting the needs of your consumer. –Oliver Newton, Head of Emerging Platforms, i-level

10. Be on brand

Just like with any form of communication ensure that your app is ‘on brand.’ Tone of voice, brand values, message, production values, and brand fit are essential in making a great brand app. –Kieron Matthews, Marketing Director, IAB

IABUK.

5G Mobile Internet on the Horizon?

in Internet Marketing  by iqmadmin 0 comments

Mobile Internet is the biggest thing to come along since, well, cell phones and the Internet. Now, before 4G internet is even mainstream, the possibilities of 4.5G and 5G are on the horizon.

Researchers at Rice University have made a breakthrough that could allow wireless companies to double throughput in their networks without adding a single cell phone tower or overhauling existing phone hardware.

“Full duplex” wireless would enable phones and tablets to  “talk” and “listen” on the same frequency, something that requires two frequencies today. In 2010, professor of electrical and computer engineering Ashutosh Sabharwal along with Melissa Duarte and Chris Dick published the first paper showing that full-duplex wireless was possible. That set the worldwide wireless community off on a race to see if it could be implemented on real networks. This summer, Sabharwal and Guarav Patel demonstrated in real-time that it could be done. They set new performance records while they did it, producing signal quality at least 10 times better than any previously published result. All they did was add an extra antenna and pulled a few computing tricks.

All this could mean new wireless standards allowing carriers to upgrade to 5G in just a few years.

“Our solution requires minimal new hardware, both for mobile devices and for networks, which is why we’ve attracted the attention of just about every wireless company in the world,” said Sabharwal.

Sprint Unveils Their First $100 4G Android Phone: The Samsung Conquer 4G

in Audio & Video / Internet Marketing / Social Media  by iqmadmin 0 comments

Mobile media development — which includes apps, video, audio, and other interactive media for Google’s Android and Apple’s iOS, etc. — and SMS marketing are more than just taking off, they’re launching full-out assaults from all sides. The next big weapon to be unleashed is the availability of 4G-capable phones, able to handle more intensive media, at lower and lower prices.

At the end of August Sprint unveiled its 25th 4G-capable phone, but the Samsung Conquer 4G is the first of its kind with its starting price of just under $100 with a new 2-year contract. Sprint’s other 4G-capable phones start at the $200 mark.

The phone runs Android 2.3 Gingerbread out of the box, and its low-res front-facing shooter clocks in at 1.3 megapixels. This is where the specs start reflecting the lower price: the processor is a single-core 1GHz and the 3.5-inch touchscreen resolution only stands at 320×480, though many recent reviews point out that it’s plenty bright enough to read clearly. Other specs include 3.2 rear-facing shooter (with flash and zoom in tow) and Sprint ID. So the Samsung Conquer is no beast by any means, but the draw of 4G for that kind of price will no doubt be huge for consumers. For media producers and marketers, this means a growing audience of users increasingly ready to consume bigger, better, brighter media from them.

 

Millionaires Prefer Facebook

in Social Media  by iqmadmin 0 comments

A new study shows that 46% of online users with investable assets of $1 million or more are members of Facebook, up from 26% a year ago. The survey, by Spectrem Group, showed that millionaire’s use of Twitter has declined, from 5% to 3%.

They also remained fairly cool to LinkedIn. Only 19% of millionaires used LinkedIn – unchanged from a year ago.

Plenty of earlier studies have shown that more than half of millionaires are on Facebook – even if they rarely have time to actually use it. But the Twitter and LinkedIn numbers are somewhat surprising, given that both would seem to appeal to a more business-minded, time-pressed elite.

Apparently not.  One reason may be that Twitter is a more open network, which makes it more difficult for control-freak millionaires to manage who follows them. On Facebook, you can more easily manage access to information.

Another is that Twitter is largely a broadcast tool, while Facebook is more of a network builder. The rich value personal networks more than online megaphones.

But age also plays a role. According to the study, among those with $5 million or more in investable assets, the boomers are slightly more likely to use Facebook than the youngest investors — 56% vs. 50%, respectively. (Warren Buffett is an exception, of course).  Twitter was generally more popular with the younger-millionaire crowd.

They also are split on where they get their financial news. Millionaires younger than 55 years old are at least twice as likely as those ages 55-64 to get their information from social media than from traditional media outlets.

Thankfully, blogs remain popular among all millionaires. Nearly one-third of investors worth $5 million or more say they either read or would read blogs by trusted financial advisers.

Bing: 4 Reasons You Want Links

in Internet Marketing / Social Media  by iqmadmin 0 comments

Bing’s Duane Forrester has posted about how Bing evaluates content quality and how it looks at links. He says you want links for a few reasons:

  1. Because they alert us to your website when it’s new or has new content
  2. Because they are a vote of confidence in your site – quality websites tend to link to other quality websites
  3. Because those links can send you direct traffic
  4. Because, over time, they can help establish a footprint that points to your authority on a topic (think guest blogging)

The main point is pretty much: Links are not everything when it comes to ranking in search engines. Nothing new there. Still, it never hurts to listen to the policies as they’re explained by the search engines themselves.

Duane Forrester says: You love links. We love links. Build for the right reasons.

How Many Links Do You Need?

On how many links you need, Forrester says, “Not as many as you may think. Again, as with so many other areas of search optimization, there’s no exact number here.  On popular phrases with lots of query volume, to rank well will require more links from trusted, quality websites to boost your rankings.  Less popular phrases can often require many less links pointed at your site to see the same lift in rankings.  This is where a targeted link building approach can pay off for you.”

The take-aways of the post, Forrester says, are: Don’t buy links, great content builds links, prove to users you’re a trusted authority (and links will follow), and social media can help grow links.

mashable

Ten Things to Avoid When Running an SEO Campaign

in Internet Marketing  by iqmadmin 0 comments

Even if you’re using the skills and expertise of an SEO firm, it is still important that you at least know the basics of SEO so that you can work with the company to make the results even better.

There are loads of things that you need to be doing within an SEO campaign, but there are also some things that you REALLY must avoid, and we take a look at some of these below with our top ten things to avoid when running an SEO campaign.

1. Waiting Too Long – One of the biggest mistakes most people make is waiting too long to even begin an SEO campaign. If you have a website you should be running some kind of SEO, no matter how young the site is, because a good campaign can help to get a higher ranking in the early days.

2. Targeting Competitive Keywords – If you sell houses then the chances of you getting to the top of Google for the keyword “houses” are going to be slim, to say the least. If you are working in an extremely competitive market, then you need to look outside of the box and start looking at easier keywords that you can rank for, because realistically, it is going to take a lot of time, effort, and a little bit of luck to top the charts for the most competitive search terms.

3. Ignoring Long tail Keywords – Many people think that they should always go for the most popular keywords, but these often tend to be the most competitive, so you need to look at the long tail keywords. If you targeted 5 long tail keywords that all attracted 200 searches a month but were less competitive than one that attracted 1000 searches a month, you stand more chance of getting the traffic you want in a much shorter time.

4. Writing Rubbish Content – Content is king for Google and the search engine is so advanced and sophisticated these days that it can easily spot duplicate content and also poor quality content. The main aim is to write high quality content that is useful, informative, and offers the user a good experience; or else you will just be wasting your time and hindering your progress.

5. Publishing Poor Articles – Content on your own site is very powerful, but you should also look at writing articles and releasing them on some of the more powerful article directories like EzineArticles. If you are going to do this, then make sure you only publish good quality articles, otherwise they will be rejected and, once again, you will have wasted your time.

6. Spammy Blog Comments – Although blog commenting can be a good way to get relevant links back to your site, if you go around adding poor and unrelated comments, then this is only going to backfire on you in the long run. If you are going to comment on blogs, then make sure that you post quality comments on quality
sites and check out the link follow status and the page rank / authority before you even begin.

7. Reciprocal Linking – Swapping links used to be one of the methods used for acquiring links until, like most link practices, it was abused and Google started to shy away from the weight it carried in rankings. Although it can be a good idea to swap links with local businesses or related businesses, do not waste your time swapping links and also limit the number of outbound links you have on your site.

8. Bad Link Neighbourhoods – Always avoid linking to or getting links from “bad neighborhoods” – sites like gambling, adult and other sites that might be considered a little bit risque. If you are found to have loads of links on these types of sites, then you are going to be in trouble, so always make sure you are careful about where links are added to your site.

9. Ignoring Your Own Website – SEO begins at home because if your website is rubbish, any extra traffic you generate will be a waste of time. Add to this the fact that if your meta titles and content are really poor, you are also going to lose out on ranking because two of the biggest factors when it comes to onsite SEO are meta titles and quality content.

10. Running Out Of Patience – SEO takes time – fact! You cannot expect to start an SEO campaign and get overnight results; it will take weeks, if not months, before you really start to get the results that you deserve if you run a good campaign. SEO should be an ongoing thing, running for as long as you decide to keep your website alive, because SEO is one of those things that goes on forever and is a constant effort.

Ian D. Spencer

Tweet Lots of Links To Get Followers

in Social Media  by iqmadmin 0 comments

To get followers on Twitter isn’t about herding unicorns — that is, there’s nothing mythical about it.

Looking at the relationship between the number of followers a user has and the percentage of their Tweets that are “@” replies: Highly followed users are less conversational than those with few followers.

Looking at the relationship between follower count and the percentage of a user’s tweets that contain links and are not replies: Using a sample of random, recently active Twitter accounts, there is a strong correlation. As the amount of links a user tweets increases, the number of followers they have also increases. And users with more than 1,000 followers tend to tweet many more links than users with fewer than 1,000 followers.

The data is starting to mount to suggest that “engaging in the conversation” is a waste of time from a marketing and reach-building perspective, especially when compared to sharing content.

 

College Students Use Technology At A Frenzied Pace

in Social Media  by iqmadmin 0 comments

technologyAdmit it, you’re on the computer and Internet every day.  Studies have found that 53% of people believe they would be upset if they couldn’t get online while 40% believe they would feel lonely.

The use of technology continues to be a growing trend as new gadgets pop up every few months and college students lead the way in gadget use.

According to the Pew Internet & American Life Project report “College Students and Technology”, 98% of undergraduate students use the Internet. 93% use broadband and 92% connect wirelessly using a laptop or cell phone.

Undergraduate students make up the largest percentage of students who use social networks, followed closely by graduate and community college students. However, the largest percentage of social network users were adults ages 18-24 who were not in school. Someone has to keep up with Farmville right?

The use of different technological devices has grown throughout the years. Years ago, it was rare to find someone who had a cell phone and an mp3 player. Now everyone has cell phones that function as mp3 players along with e-readers, laptops, and gaming consoles. Undergraduate students lead the way in owning e-readers and tablets. Undergrads are also more likely to own a laptop than a desktop computer.

Another unsurprising statistic is that 63% of undergrads admit to using their cell phones for the internet or email.

Technology use continues to rise and many higher education institutions are integrating its use into learning whether it is using an iPad for taking notes and using a laptop for distance learning.

 

World.Edu  (Natasha Bright)

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