For the first time in history, the Olympics opened their doors to social media. Working for months on developing their social media strategy, the Olympics fully embraced Facebook and Twitter as a way to report on the two week competition and to communicate with Olympic followers around the world.

Over 150 million tweets were posted, and they hit an all-time high of mobile devices accessing their website. Reports show that Usain Bolt racked up an astonishing 962,756 Twitter mentions, or 80,000 tweets per minute, while McDonalds led amongst brands with 159,410 mentions.* More than 116 million posts and comments relating to the Olympics were posted on Facebook.** Now going back to the Olympics and mobile websites, recent reports show that this is the first time that users accessed the official Olympics webpage, London2012.com, on a mobile phone or tablet more than a desktop computer.

Now that's impressive....

Let’s start by looking at the most important question: “WHY?”, so you can decide whether you even want to keep reading!

If you think about it, there are 2 main ways you can increase your profits: You can either
1. increase turnover, or
2. decrease cost of sales/expenses.
So when we look at the “WHY” of doing anything on the Internet, it is with these 2 questions in mind: does Mobile Marketing (or any other Internet related activity) help increase turnover or decrease the cost of sales?
With that in mind, let’s first look at the “obvious” reasons everyone keeps telling you about:
The Facts

The mobile revolution is pretty much global and it touches all customers. Over the last 5 years alone, 2 Billion new users have gone “mobile”.
It is estimated that in 2012, around 49 Million new mobile smartphones will ship in the UK alone.

In other words:
Mobile phones are everywhere, and people use them everywhere.

We could now give you hundreds of stats to back this up, bot it's late so I'll let you off.

What Exactly is 'Mobile Marketing, How Does it Work & Why Should I Care

If you are like most other business owners, you will have heard that you “must” do mobile marketing.
And most likely, no one has really sat down with you and explained to you 
1. WHY you should care, (or: if you should care),
2. WHAT “Mobile Marketing” really is, and
3. HOW it works in practice
And that’s exactly the purpose of this short guide on “Mobile Marketing For Business”:
After reading this guide you’ll have a good enough understanding of this whole “Mobile Marketing thing”, so you can make an informed decision on
- Whether you actually want to do Mobile Marketing, 
- Whether you want to do it yourself, or rather get a Mobile Marketing service provider to do it for you, and
- If you’re planning to outsource the work, how to select a reliable and trustworthy service provider

To follow.....
 Why Should You Care? (or Should You Care At All?)

A quick thought about mobile websites and mobile marketing I wanted to share with you

It's me again with a quick thought about mobile websites and mobile marketing I wanted to share with you. I also know you're busy, so I'll keep it brief.

A lot of people I talk to about the mobile world get confused and think that apps & websites are just for big companies and giant corporations. They don't always see the benefits for small businesses.

The truth is there is room for a mobile app in just about every business. All you have to do is wander down Main Street in your nearest town to see how it could work.

Think of the restaurants that could use a mobile website to take reservations and show off their menu use our unique push technology to entice customers in with special offers.

... or the hair and beauty salons that could post inspirational pictures of the latest styles for customers to enjoy...

... or the retail shop that could send out promotions and discounts via our push technology to people with their app or mobile website...

... or the service provider who could post samples of his latest work along with news flashes from his industry for people to read.

And that's just for starters!

Now think about how you could use an app or mobile website for your own business purposes. Well I never, it doesn't take too long to come up with some great applications of your own.

I'm constantly amazed by what is happening in this industry. It really is a level playing field for once - both giant corporations and small business owners have an equal opportunity to create something of significant value for their customers.

I hope you're taking this opportunity to apply mobile media to your business!

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RIP FLASH: LONG LIVE HTML5

Flash is out. Big time. Google can not index or read it. Apple’s iPod, iPhones and iPad devices do not support it. And its maker, Adobe, stopped developing new versions of it for mobile devices. With the rapid growth of mobile and a need for a friendlier mobile experience, HTML5 stepped in to take its place.

WHY HAVE A MOBILE WEBSITE?

There are two main reasons for having a mobile site.. well three actually.

Simple, it’s all about REACH and ENGAGEMENT

1. Reach
Mobile is today by far the most personal gadget, accompanying us 24 hours a day, 7 days a week wherever we go. Businesses understand this and have followed by creating websites that are tailored to the mobile user. A reports by Nielsen Mobile show that businesses that have added a mobile website have increased overall traffic to their website by 13%.

Top activities among mobile shoppers include in-store price comparisons (38% of mobile shoppers), browsing products through their mobile Web or apps (38%) and reading online product reviews (32%).

Source: Nielsen


2. Engagement

Now the truth is that most website display poorly on mobile devices as they were not built to fit a small screen. A recent study shows that the average success rate for a user to complete a task via his mobile device was only 59%. The reason is that websites were not tailored for a mobile on-the-go type of interaction. Mobile users have different needs, they might be standing in the corner of a street trying to get precise information like your businesses address or the price of a product. How long will it take them to get to that information? 

If the information is not visible and the site is not appealing, chances are that they will just give up and search for a more mobile-friendly website that is willing to provide them with that information and keep them engaged.

3. Your Customer
Your website like a mobile site is your shop window to the world and your customers. If you don't have mobile website what are you telling you new and old customer alike.

Well, I think your telling them two things. (1.) Your business is not innovative and (2.) you don't really care about how your business interacts with your customer... The big sign post is "GO SOMEWHERE ELSE" Mr or Mrs Customer.


So what do you do about it?

You basically have two options:

Do nothing and hope that the mobile browsers will improve with time

Have an optimized site for mobile

CLICK-TO-CALL INCREASES CALLS TO YOUR BUSINESS – SERIOUSLY!

A click-to-call button on a mobile website could quite possibly be just as important to a local business as the mobile site itself. This little button bridges the gap between business owner and consumer and is the quickest connection your mobile browsers has to your business.

When clicked, it automatically places a call to a pre configured number, eliminating the need for your on-the-go customer to flip back-and-forth from your site to their key pad. I’ve noticed how the click-to-call button has proved itself beneficial to many business types. Here are some interesting findings that came from a recent study.

In a sampling of 500 businesses from different industries, they found sites that were actually using the click-to-call button. As revealed in Google Mobile Ads recent blog post, Learn about mobile-friendly sites from Dennis Mink, an average of 16% of visitors to these 500 mobile websites placed a call to the business.

So all I can say to you is ..... GET CLICK-TO-CALL ... Now!!

Happy clicking.

Kevin

The Dawn of Mobile Websites is here!

The Dawn of Mobile Websites is here!

Over the past two years Mobile websites have been growing in importance to businesses of all shapes and sizes. As usual there are followers and leaders, those leading the way are picking up on the huge traffic increase which is driven through mobile devices.

So many companies are just not grasping the importance of having a mobile-friendly website. All the major search engines have put huge emphasis on the importance of every business having a mobile presence and in many cases penalising those who don’t. 
Forget the search engines, how do you think your customers perceive you when they go to your website and don’t have the same experience they would / should they go via your standard site. Stretching and squinting to read content is becoming less and less exceptable in the eyes of your clients.


As always we want to over deliver to our customers, so come and try our free site preview.

Mobile websites are for all.

Mobile Riding High

Samsung has been riding high on the success of the 5.3 inch screen Galaxy Note, the first successful phablet to hit the market. Selling a reported 5 million devices since its release, it is something that will surely be followed up by Samsung and others.

Ever since Apple released the first iPhone, all other device makers have been struggling to find a physical feature that really differentiates them from the iPhone. Apple is now behind on this trend, somewhere they have not been since the iPhone was first released. The high-end smartphone decided that bigger is in fact better. The Samsung Galaxy Nexus, HTC One X, Motorola Droid Razr and Lumia 900 all boast screen sizes well above the 4 inch size, leaving the iPhones 3.5 inch screen begging for more.

Mobile is going to be huge

OK, so we know that mobile websites are huge and are only going to grow in ubiquity from here on out. That means they'll be available with lots of different features. 

But just like web pages, so much of the success of a mobile website comes down to great design. Not graphic design, per se, but the user interface (UI) and how easy and intuitive it is for people to use the site. 

With that in mind, here are a few things to think about when you're designing a mobile website. 

1. Think On the Go. 
Remember that people are using mobiles when they're on the go, so there's no need to cram every last detail about the company on there. Save that for your website. Keep it convenient and simple and tell them only what they need to know about your business. 

2. Placement Matters. 
People use their thumbs and fingers on mobile devices. Give your buttons some space between each other so users can press the right ones the first time. And keep in mind the way users hold their devices and place buttons accordingly. 

3. Work Within Size Restrains. 
Mobile devices have small screens and various download speeds. Not everyone's eyesight is perfect and you can never be sure what coverage will be like. So plan and design accordingly so that users can see the information they want as fast as they want to see it. 

These are just 3 of the many things you need to consider when designing a mobile website. There are plenty more to think about once you get going. 

Hope you'll look forward to the next post from me where I'll talk about the different ways that businesses can use mobile websites to connect with customers.

The mobile movement...

The mobile movement...

OUR NEW CUSTOMER PROMISE ( 0844 414 8103 )

If you already have a mobile-friendly website, give yourself a big pat on the back — you’re an early adopter. You’re leading the way in the mobile movement, and you’re showing your customers (and potential customers) that you'r ahead of the pack. You understand that they’re constantly on their smartphones; and you appreciate that they want a great mobile experience.

We at M.A.D will guarantee our customers a Mobile site to be proud of or you wont have to pay a penny.  

It’s hard to believe that, only a year ago, any discussion around mobile was focused nearly 100% on apps. Apps were exciting and fun to play with. We had Angry Birds and the latest release of Facebook. But over the course of the year, a very subtle but noticeable thing started to happen. While all of us iPhone and Android users continued to download and play with mobile apps, we started to spend A LOT more time browsing good old fashion websites on our phones. And industry analysts started paying attention. And they started analysing this behavior of ours. And they came up with some interesting findings.

They told us things like “by 2015, more people will browse the internet on their phones then they will from their desktop computers (IDC, 2011)”. Or that “95% of consumers use their smartphones to search for whatever they may need” (Google, 2012). And as anyone who has ever spent time browsing websites not designed for mobile phones can tell you – myself included – the experience is awful, and becoming quite unforgivable.

The analysts looked at this too – given that they own smartphones themselves and share in our experience. What they found is that “nearly 2 out of 3 users are unlikely to return to a mobile site that they had trouble with. And a good 40% of us would visit a competitors site instead” (Compuware Inc., March 2010).

Now being a startup, focused on enabling businesses to create mobile-friendly websites, drawing attention to the importance of the “mobile web”, backed by data and statistical analysis, was good for us. Finally we have some good solid data that speaks to the necessity of a mobile website. And by last year, the shift toward the mobile web picked up steam. We launched MobileAppsDirect, an online initiative designed to educate businesses about the importance of having a mobile website – by November, the conversation in the press switched from “apps vs. the mobile web” to “every business needs a mobile website.” And while this shift has occurred, the number of businesses grew just as rapidly, with MobileAppsDirect about to convert a huge number of UK businesses mobile websites sometime over the next few months.

Kevin Ryan

MobileAppsDirect