If we were going to name one technology-related thing that has boomed in the past few years, it would definitely be mobile web browsing. Look around any street, waiting room or office and you will see probably tens of people looking at their phones. Those who aren’t, probably have their phones nearby, ready to grasp at any moment. The cynics may claim that this is a dangerous sign of the times, but really, the use of smartphones has enabled us to be more connected with each other than ever before. If you are a small business owner or if you are launching your startup, it is important that you make use of this trend and cash in on it as much as you can. Knowing your consumer’s patterns of behavior is vital to succeeding in business, and yours are likely to be looking at their phones very frequently. In order to make the most of this and therefore connect with the modern consumer, you need to optimize your business for mobile devices. This means both making sure that your web pages actually work on a cell phone, and also creating content that is suitable for consumption on the go. Taking your company into the digital age doesn’t need to be scary – here are some ways you can do it effectively.
Video
More people than ever are now watching video on their smartphones. This is due to a couple of different factors. Firstly, mobile buffering has improved drastically over the last few years, so consumers are being able to watch almost anytime, anywhere. But also, smartphones have become much larger in terms of screen size, meaning you no longer have to hold a phone inches from your face just to see a YouTube video. Video virality can also owe a lot to mobile devices, as they are very easy to share on social media. Much of the traffic on such videos comes from mobile devices. If you want to get in on this for your business, make use of the fact that you can film wherever and whenever with your smartphone. Going ‘live’ on social media is a great way to draw attention to your company, providing you have something worth sharing of course! To ensure you still maintain a high level of quality, use a live video sdk when you plan to stream from either an Android or iOS device.
Search engines
When you search for a company in Google, you will know that a few basic details come up that enable you to take your search further. This will include and is not limited to a Google map placement, a phone number, opening times and a link to the website. In order to make sure that your business appears like this in search engines, you will need to go into your Google Business settings and update all your details. It is also worth doing this for other search engines such as Yahoo and Bing just so you have all bases covered. On mobile devices, many search engines also give the consumer the option to call the business direct from the results page, without actually entering a phone number. This can be an incredibly useful tool as it makes it easier than ever for your customers to get in touch with you. It is also worth updating your company’s profile on various online directories such as Yell. They may not be used as much as search engines anymore, but for a lot of people they are still quite popular due to the review aspect they include.
Website
For those customers who click on your website, you need to make sure that in functions well on a mobile device. It is easy to tell when a website hasn’t been optimized for mobile viewing. The text is generally all over the place, the graphics are skewed and often, the links won’t work. In order to get this right first time, you might want to consider building your website via a pre-optimized provider such as Wix or Squarespace. You will still need to do a bit of tweaking, but generally speaking, it is fairly easy to create a mobile-friendly site on providers such as these. Consider the resolution of your pictures – a high-quality photo might look amazing on an Apple Mac, but it could take ages to load on a mobile device. After a few minutes of this, you potential client might simply get bored and click onto a different site. This means you could have lost a potential customer for a very simple reason, so always check that your website works on mobiles before it goes live.
Social media
Social media is arguably the biggest and most important part of business on-the-go. It is used far more often on mobile devices than it is on desktop computers or laptops. Some social media platforms are even specifically designed for use on a mobile phone rather than a larger device – Instagram is one good example of this, as you cannot upload photos to it from a computer. It has to be from a mobile phone. If you are hoping to take your business further and increase your outreach, getting on social media is one of the most important things you can do. Choose a number of platforms you want to utilize and make sure they are suitable for your business. For example, if your business is a creative one it may well be worth creating an account on a visually-inspired app such as Pinterest. But, if you company is a bit more on the corporate side, it may be best sticking to more traditional forms of social media, like Facebook and Twitter. Social media is also a great place to advertise, and features such as Facebook for business easily allow you to do this for a cost. Even Instagram now includes sponsored posts, which could enable you to reach a much higher number of clients in your area. The future certainly looks mobile, so if you’re not yet involved with your business in this respect make it your priority to change that!