Product Reviews
For the past several years I’m been a fanboy for Apple products. It all started with my iPhone 3G a few years ago, then to an iPod Touch, then a white MacBook, then an iPad, to a MacBook Pro, and iPhone 4. Whew, when I actually list all of that out it seems like a lot huh? Well I recently made the switch to an Android as my mobile device. Switching from my easy to use and fully functioning iPhone 4. For me, learning how to use all of these devices was pretty simple. I’ve been a “techie” just about all of my life.
But why did I make the switch? Well, for a lot of reasons but some that are biggest to mention is that Apple has been slacking in their handheld department. My wife has been on Team Android for years, and of lately I’ve just been really frustrated with the lack of user options that iOS is still lacking yet Android users have had for years. She had been taunting me with these air gestures for scrolling through pictures, automatic pause when looking away from watching a video, scheduling text messages, and more. Aside from these I just mentioned let me talk about a few things I now enjoy that I was denied from Team Apple.
Swype
The ability to compose text and email messages by sliding your fingers across the keyboard. I was quite skeptical about this from the outside looking in, but once I started to really use it myself I finally understood what all the hype was about. Its amazing how accurate the engine is as well as the built in predictive text. There were plenty of times when I started spelling a word the wrong way and when I was done with the word expecting to delete it, the corrective type already knew what word I really wanted to use. Eerie but cool at the same time.
Automatic App Updates
I’ve never really understood why Apple hasn’t implemented automatic updates. Most PC software and a lot of OSX software have their own measures for automatic updated, yet on iOS whether you have an iPod, iPhone, or iPad you still need to manually update your apps and each time you do you need to enter your credentials. In most cases there really isn’t a reason you’re NOT going to update your apps. Updates are usually a benefit, be it for bug fixes, new features, and other advancements. Android apps can be updated automatically and you get a short note in your notification window that the app(s) have been updated.
External Storage
This has been a longstanding issue. Now that I can add my content from my devices straight to my mobile device is great. And not having to worry about filling up my internal and doing a data balancing act with my content is quite relaxing. On my Samsung Galaxy S4 I can add up to 64g of external storage. And that’s on top of the already allotted 16g of internal storage.
Removable Battery
Most Android phones will allow you to remove the back plate and have access to your battery and that may also be where your SD card slot is too. It’s pretty convenient to have a spare when you know you’ll be at an all day conference that may be limited on outlets to recharge. So when your device does go to that 10% status, you can just swap out your battery and you’re back to 100% and that should last till the end of your day. That was never an option on my iPhone 3G or 4. I kind of doubt that will be an option on the upcoming 5s too.
NFC
Near Field Communication is being able to send or receive data just by placing your device near another device. They don’t need to be the same device, they just need to have the NFC function. So you may have a debit or credit card with NFC where you can pay just by waving your card on a small box. Well with mobile phones you can send pictures, music, and more this way.
Widgets
Now this was a totally new concept to me. Having jailbroken my 3G and my 4, I had a few things that I added like SB Settings and Lock Info which were great for getting to commonly used options like brightness, airplane mode, weather and more. On my Android device there are many apps that have their own widgets that can be placed on any page you create from your phone. So for example you can have a row if icons for your favorite apps like Messaging, Gallery, Email, and Contacts, then have a full horizontal bar that is your music player, then a few boxes that are your weather app, calendar, tasks, etc. The combinations are vast especially from the native apps. 
Overall this new OS (to me) offers a lot more in user functions that I was not even aware was possible when I was on iOS. Though one major shortcoming is that unless you have one of the major manufactured devices like HTC or Samsung, you may not get the same version(s) of Android. The one attack I’d usually is how segmented the OS was across so many different devices, and how unified iOS was. The phone I’m currently using is the Samsung Galaxy S4 and it has many more options baked in that aren’t yet available on other manufacturers so my views are from this device solely.
Now if you are deciding to make the switch, I found some apps to make your converting process a bit less painless.
Samsung Smart Switch
This free piece of software from Samsung called Smart Switch will actually find and transfer your text messages, memos (notes), music, calendar items, contacts and more. What you’ll want to do is be sure to do a sync and a backup of your iPhone prior to using this application because it pulls from that stored data from your computer. This is something available for Samsung Devices though, so I can’t say if it will work with an HTC device or others. They have it for Windows and Mac too. This process took a while because I had a lot of data on my iPhone but it was so nice not to lose any text messages or photos and such.
While you’re at it pick up Kies and configure your device to sync to your computer or laptop. It’s fairly easy to setup and configure. What I liked best was the ability for it to scan my hard drive or specific folders for media to then choose what I want added or sync’d to my phone. 
So if you’re planning to do a switch I hope that this article helps to shed some light on what to expect and maybe more reasons why you’d want to go all the way. Of course I have a bunch more comments and such to add, but I’ll save that for replying to your comments below.
Blog, Branding, Content & Copywriting, Product Reviews
Summer is here and it’s not the time for cool, mediocre content on your blogs or website. Send your content and website hits soaring with these successful tips to keep your rankings and indexing climbing to the top of the charts.
#1 Consider what sells you on eBay — A good description of a product as well as the imagery selected creates the motivation to buy the item, right? So it’s no different with your product or service description. Want to heat up the return on your investment of time, money and effort expended on building your business, brand or blog? You have to engage and inform in such a way that ignites the audience to take action.
#2 Yes, Sweat the Small Stuff — I don’t like saying the “devil’s in the details” but the small, sweat drops of critical points are what’s going to take the success of your content sky-high! Remember, in the online world, all your competitors are just a few clicks away. Give them more than just a simple photo and bland product dimensions; engage them visually and then close the deal.
#3 Hot Headlines & Following the News in Your Niche — News is a great source to turn up the heat on your content . You’d be surprised where great ideas can be formulated when derived from the media’s ‘hot topics’ and headlines promoted on Yahoo, CNN and various websites as well as TV. This technique can effectively increase the exposure of your content and be just what you need to jump-start your creative juices and typing fingers. For example, while on my LinkedIn page, I saw an article about choosing the red vs. the blue pill in ‘Happiness Is Not the Most Important Thing at Work.’ It made me consider a future blog topic about the power of engaging headlines and questioning your audience within your content to fully-engage them.
#4 Test the waters with a Blog Aggregator – A what? You read it correctly – a blog aggregator. It’s a website that keeps track of blog posts and where bloggers go for idea sharing with other bloggers in your niche. This is a great way to be inspired, share ideas and even professionally debate a topic. I recently wrote an article on Triberr, one of the prominent blog aggregators today. Not only were people engaged, but one of the founders of the company commented on my blog to address some of the points I made. Engagement accomplished!
#5 Window Shopping & People Watching – Most of us are out & about more than usual during the summer months. Whether at the beach, tanning poolside or BBQing in the backyard–watching others can give way to some pretty cool topics for blogging. Window shopping and long walks about town can also be the catalyst for thoughts on a product or service, from or for your own business. Also, by watching how someone reacts to various stimuli can strike the right match to turn up creative thought within you.
I hope this ignited some inspiration in you with some great insights to consider when writing and posting your content. I’d love to hear what other piping hot tips you have to share with me!
Blog, Product Reviews, Web Design, Web Development
Most people are familiar with the term search engine optimization, or commonly termed, SEO. This is a critical aspect in both design and success of your websites content and drawing people to it via search rankings. So consider it not the roof of the house but truly a part of the foundational structure of your website. And there are great rewards if your website contains SEO rich keywording and proper tags.
“A website isn’t worth having, if no one can find it!
So if you really want to build traffic to your website or blog, you will be thinking of SEO as something paramount to your site’s developments. Majority of webmasters only do the things required to gain a good amount of search engine traffic, but very little actually measure their site’s SEO value.
You Are Being Out Ranked!
One of the best articles I’ve read about rankings comes for the industry gurus of HubSpot. Rebecca Churt’s blog titled, “How to Conduct a Competitive SEO Audit to Outrank Industry Rivals” says it all. In this article, she lists 5 Simple Steps to Perform Your Own Competitive SEO Analysis which include:
-articulate your buyer personas;
-identify key competitors;
-explore what the competition looks like; and more!
Measuring via Your Analytics
So much data is now available through the various analytics systems, and the one most commonly used (and respected) is Google Analytics. The key to successful utilization of it is to focus on the data that matters most. By focusing on the reporting metrics, you can get a sense of the true ROI and the value of your SEO efforts. Start your analysis by looking at the number of visitors to your site, where they came from, and most importantly, what search terms they used. Just this preliminary information alone, will tell you is how well you are doing at getting more people to visit your website while increasing the visibility of your business and/or service.
What’s the Hook in Link Building?
Within the SEO communities, you will often hear the term “links” and/ or link building. What that really means is that a link from another website links to your company’s site. SEO link building requires that the site linking to yours must indeed be trustworthy link and furthermore, related to your business. Valuable links come from trusted sites like:
- Educational institutions that your company has a relationship with;
- Local and national organizations you or your company has an affiliation to;
- Any number of relatively unknown but reputable business and industry-related directories;
- Similar industry online publications; and more!
The Key is Keywords
While considering the written content of your website, make a conscious selections of commonly used keywords and phrases to increase your chances of climbing the search engine ranks. Think of yourself as the consumer and even consider looking up certain terms in a Thesaurus to determine commonly used words that most users in your industry might use. A test run on your success at this would be search engine sites and paste them in the major search engine sites you want to be found on, then hit the search button. Whatever page your site is will determine how effective your SEO investments are.
Honk Your Horn For More Traffic!
Increased traffic for your website and if you’re not getting enough of traffic as evidenced by your analytics, it means you need to tweak your process (eg, keywording) and do more optimization. Try keeping a record (easy enough in an Excel spreadsheet) how much traffic your website increases after each new method is implemented. Then move forward, scale back or consider a new method based on the data collected and analyzed. This is a simple way to determine the true value of your SEO efforts.
The Sum of it All
SEO is instrumental to content builders whether you are a web designer or blogger. We don’t have the luxury of ignoring the SEO value of our websites; investing time and resources into a zero-yielding ROI and a non-existent consumer base.
Marketing, Product Reviews, Web Design
Today via email, I received the Executive Summary released today by Lyris (penned by The Economist Intelligence Unit) titled “Mind the marketing gap – Sizing up marketer and consumer perceptions.” The article indicated “The findings of…surveys indicate some gaps in marketers’ perception of how consumers want to engage with brands, what influences their purchase decisions and how they view privacy.” I found this article very interesting and I’ll share some tidbits from it below. Considering their findings, I began thinking about how we marketers view our marketing campaigns vs. how consumers interpret our attempts, successes and even failures.
When designing websites, I often say that I create with my marketing & copywriting hat on and then flip it backwards to gauge the visitors utilization response. Is it user friendly? Does the imagery and written content engage me? And so forth. Admittedly, I don’t always do that with print collateral to the same extent. But I should. So I want to share some of what the Executive Summary disclosed in hopes of educating both you and I on what we’re doing right, wrong and what we should be doing and considering as we engage our consumer audiences. It’s just a few tidbits but you can access the whole article on the hyperlink above.
“Consumers are put off by superficial personalization, but they appreciate customized product recommendations.
About 1 in 5 consumers say that customized offers are more likely to meet their needs than mass market offers and
that inclusion of personal details (e.g. previous transactions) makes them feel valued as customers.”
“Ways of engaging and influencing consumers vary by industry. Industries like travel, automotive and entertainment are investing in data to increase customized promotions. For automotive executives, deep analysis of consumer data top
the list of marketing strategies at 30%—higher than the all-industry average of 23% and up from 13% five years ago. The
automotive industry leads all others in spending on corporate websites, which is closely aligned with consumer
preferences. The clothing industry, on the other hand, spends more than other industries on branded social media
pages, even though clothing consumers are least likely to say they prefer to engage with brands through those
channels.”
Blog, Product Reviews
Just when we thought Pinterest was one of the coolest and innovative ways to share content, namely sticky notes and images, along comes…(hear the drum roll)…TRIBERR! I won’t deny that at first, I like some of your reading this, though “What the heck is Triberr? My second thought was, great another app/software/latest & supposed greatest to manage my info/data/life. So I’ll start with the basics and lead you onto a path where I highlight some of the pros and cons voiced about it and from there, it’s up to you.
The blog world according to Triberr needs their help as they tout “IMAGINE…Hundreds of bloggers reading, discussing and sharing your content for free. Join a tribe of related bloggers, and Triberr will import your latest posts for the group to read and share whilst you enjoy theirs. Delight your followers, while growing your reach.” Right off the bat I begin my dissection of their promotion.
#1 Sounds great right – no branding or tattooing. So far, not bad.
#2 Free sounds good-especially as bloggers. Rarely are we paid what we should be for all the painstaking time it takes to research and write solid content
and not just pontificating pointless opinions. We’re on a roll!
#3 Related bloggers – hmmm, smells like a bit of competition & peeking from your desk at my test in school but I get it that sharing is what Triberr is all
about. Feeling a little reluctant though but I’ll go with it for the sake of research.
#4 For the group to read and share – what is my blog, a bag of M&M’s? A comic book? Sharing sounds great if it’s going to get me more hits and exposure
but is their network the kind of network I WANT to share my blog with? Whom else are they sharing my blog and as an extension thereof, my information with?
Ok, now that I’ve gotten out my own issues out about it, here are other relevant and thought-provoking opinions about Triberr.
Pros
-Gives followers more diverse content and increases your reach and expands your business network
-Access great information from others like writers/bloggers that is zero-inned on your particular area of expertise, geography
-A new reader system that could replace Google Reader for many users
-WordPress offers an all-in-one plugin with seamless integration into your blog
Cons
-Some unhealthy practices have included people posting vast amounts of updates each day just to get multiple shares;
-It can be hard to find the right “mesh” and specific but rare topical tribe
-Many question Triberr’s method of tweeting/retweeting posts and it’s reliability
-Tribes can selectively choose not to promote your blogs
For more opinions and information about Triberr see…
http://alltriberr.com/a-guide-to-getting-started-on-triberr/
http://dannybrown.me/2011/05/31/why-im-hesitant-about-triberr/
WHAT ARE OUR THOUGHTS ON TRIBERR?
Branding, Marketing, Product Reviews
We Want It Now! This is the era we live in. I see-I want-I get. At our fingertips, the worldwide web is ready to give us minimally bridled access. So whether it’s on-demand TV, 24-hour accessible banking, shopping or bill paying-we want what we want or need when we say so. And technological advances have certainly given sway to our demanding ways.
This has created a big boom and bank for the marketing world. On-demand marketing exists and is used influentially from majority of the major, well-known companies, mid-size and even small businesses who understand not just the concept but the cash flow resulting from it. Companies and brands have come to understand and leverage this concept to zero-in or pinpoint their exact consumer targets and ensure the marketing content is responsive, relevant and effectively consumable by that target audience. One would think this is quite integral and complex-but it’s really not. It’s about intelligent, simplistic and integrated solutions for successful marketing campaigns and profitability.
In a hyper-competitive world, using on-demand marketing solutions allow businesses, small or large, to expand their reach and contact an unprecedented number of people with a minimal investment. Some examples include:
#1 – The Mobile Connection
With just a few clicks on the Blackberry or taps on the Smartphone we are in the digital marketing world; consuming all that it has to offer. Creating websites that are designed for and allow for online purchasing; having a mobile version or one that can toggle between full details and basic info; increases the pleasurable consumer experience while allowing for fast paced purchasing or access to information.
#2 – The Power of Reviews
Most of today’s consumers aren’t just driven by their own desires but studies show they are mostly moved by others opinions of goods or services their fellow-man has already test-run and wrote about it. According to PowerReviews, “Customer Reviews create three times more reviews than competing solutions. This results in 10 to 50% more organic traffic to your product pages…content creation and moderation solutions use research-proven processes, product-specific templates and structured reviews that turn more browsers into buyers.” And that’s where it’s at. Turning browsers into buyers of your product and consumers of information.
#3 – From Strategies to Capabilities
Once you understand and plan your on-demand strategies, it’s time to look at how they can increase the capabilities of your product or service and market that effectively. So one becomes the catalyst for growth in the other. Whether it’s a product or service, your strategies to capabilities plan should entail:
•strategically considering your resources and goals to ensure the strategies can and will hits their marks;
•brainstorming about improved capabilities of the product or service to appropriately market it; and
•clearly identifying goals and focusing on the best means for achieving them.
Summed up, it’s all about creating the need, want, and will to purchase/utilize your product or service demand while influencing potential consumers. So let your marketing plan answer the call while driving more consumers to your business and profitability.
