This year I finally decide to invest into a tablet, I elected to purchase the new 4th generation Apple iPad with the retina screen. I have to admit that I was totally surprise by the capabilities and the performance of my new iPad. For years, I delayed my venture into the tablet world, believing they were no more than a high tech toy used to play games on. How wrong was I, I’m amazed of the many things I can do on my new iPad. For instance, I am currently attending graduate school, studying social media at Southern New Hampshire University, I purchased a couple Kindle social media books from Amazon over the weekend, and I was able to buy them at a discount, with the flexibility of reading them remotely. No longer do I have to carry all the heavy books in my backpack.
Given that I’m studying social media, I started looking for the different mobile applications available over the Internet. One trend I notice was that several companies had mobile versions of their application available for download. For instance, Facebook has a mobile version of their application designated for mobile users. Here are some alarming statistics to support the growing adoption of tablets and smartphones.
- Enterprise tablet adoption will grow by almost 50% per year.
- By 2015, there will be 7.4 billion 802.11 n devices in the market (ABI Research).
- 1.2 billion Smartphones will enter the market over the next 5 years, about 40 percent of all handset shipments. (ABI Research)[1]
- 43% of users said they use smartphones to access social media, while 16% connect using a tablet.[2]
Mobile should be at the top of the list for marketers this year; they need to incorporate a mobile strategy within their company’s social media strategy. If you haven’t done so already, here are some ideas to get you started:
- Set up a mobile website (there’s a free WordPress plugin available)
- Register your business on location-based services such as Foursquare, WHERE or SCVNGR
- Use SMS and MMS to attract customers
- Build your own app (even if you’re not a developer) using GENWI, Mippin, MobiCart or ShoutEm²
I’m going to start exploring opportunities to increase my personal branding by incorporating mobile applications into my WordPress account. Hopefully, I will have some success stories to share with you later this year.
