Friday, February 17, 2012
Maintaining a Mobile Presence...
(A Book Worth Reading)
We are now a mobile world. Well, at least I am. I know that the world has been using smart phones for years, tote around iPads and other tablets, and live-and-die by their ability to communicate quickly by text messaging and emails.
I just got my first smart phone in January 2012 (collective gasp!). Yes, I finally succumbed to the phone envy watching Michael use all his functions on his Droid phone. I went from defiant to weak-willed as if it was covered in chocolate.
At first, I was not as as impressed as I should have been. It wasn't giving me all the benefits and ease that I thought it should... Why? Because some work to set up things IS required. Apparently, I was expecting my phone to come fully 'blinged out' with all the apps that it JUST KNEW I needed (stop snickering). Okay, to truncate what could be an excruciatingly long story, I figured it out and started helping my phone help me. And during the course of this, I realized that I had not thoroughly thought about our mobile clients and customers.
How does my blog appear to them? How does my webpage appear? Are my emails setup for those who do not download pictures automatically? These are some of the kinds of questions you should be asking yourself.
Need help? I know that I love having more info and assistance! So, after some review, I would say first -- be a public library patron. There are so many great books that you can review free at your library. Then, if you want you can buy that hardcover or digital edition. A book that I have been reading recently is
Go Mobile! by Jeanine Hopkins and Jamie Turner. I think this book is very good at covering the basics of the new mobile marketing lifestyle.
Secondly, let your fingers do the searching. Of course, you should search the web for sites that discuss things like mobile marketing, SEO, cloud business, Google marketing, Facebook, Email marketing, etc.
But, don't stop there. Many information sites are/have blogs -- so sign up for their RSS feed. Do you use MyYahoo? If so, you can create pages and insert blogs by RSS feed for automatic updates. Or, if you have a Google Blog account, you can Follow other Blogspot sites.
Don't be afraid to give someone your contact info. Sign up for newsletters. Yes, I said it, clog up your box with [almost] spam. Best way to keep this from overwhelming your "real" email is to have separate emails (like
[email protected] versus our main email
[email protected]).
For instance, you should capture the RSS feed for this blog and our sister blog at http://autumnsunalpacas.blogspot.com/ to keep getting our info. We also post information (links, tips, pictures, etc) regularly on Facebook -- both in Mary's "person" profile and our Autumn Sun Alpacas Business Page.