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SendHub Lauches Mobile App – Puts Mass Text Messaging at Fingertips
Forget emails, IM’s, DM’s or other social media inboxes, sending text messages is still the quickest way to deliver a message en masse that just about guarantees the message will be received (and viewed) by anybody with a cell phone.
Small businesses who want to keep their customers informed on the latest news, and deals should seriously consider adopting a SMS marketing strategy, in addition to adopting new ways like social media to reach out to current and potential customers.
SendHub is a service that lets users create up to 1,000 sms messages/month for free. Simply create an account, select a phone number and “opt-in” keyword, and start sending out your messages. Recipients reply with the opt-in keyword for further messages. Read more »
Accelerate Small Business Growth: 10 Mobile Apps to Consider
Curlis Phillip is a Senior Marketing Manager at AT&T. You can find more blog content from Curlis and other experts on mobility on the AT&T Networking Exchange Blog. AT&T has sponsored the following blog post.
Small business (SMB) owners face several challenges including attracting new customers, improving cash flow, retaining customers, automating business processes and increasing employee productivity. Mobile applications can help SMBs address these challenges and provide tremendous value.
According to an eVoice survey, seventy-one percent of small business owners have reported becoming more mobile over the past two years. Mobile applications are helping small businesses to save time, improve business operations, be more responsive to customers, and increase sales and profitability.
SMBs are jumping on the mobile apps bandwagon, however; finding the right apps can become a daunting task with more than a million apps available across Android, BlackBerry and iPhone. Here are 10 mobile applications you should check out that can help enhance your worker productivity, improve the way you do business and drive revenue growth. Read more »
Email: The Driving Force of Mobile
I love social media, I really do. Instagram, facebook, foursquare, and tumblr; these apps are some of the coolest available for our handhelds. And, it’s interesting to think about how all this communication would likely not be there if it weren’t for their big brother: email.
Email, and electronic communication in general, has long been the driving force of the internet. When the world went mobile, email emerged as the single most important feature of a mobile device (arguably even more important than the voice features). RIM built a massive company mostly based around the idea of instant, secure mobile email devices. Now, iPhone users spend less than half the time using their phone as a phone. And in the last year, the use of smartphones by IT guys has gone from two thirds to almost all of them.
More impressively, just like web views, mobile devices are cannibalizing the desktop’s market share of email opens. This means that important business messages are being read on phones more now then ever. My congressperson emails me, and at the bottom of the email reads the now-ubiquitous, ‘sent from my iPhone’. Read more »
I’m teaching a free class at Black Enterprise Magazine’s Small Business University. Sign up today!
With a new smartphone hitting the market every week, making decisions about the best tech tools and gadgets you can use to move your business forward and make your life easier isn’t always… easy. That’s why I’m here to help! As a teacher in the upcoming Small Business University by Black Enterprise, I’ll be helping you to put the latest tech to use for good in your business.
Want to know more? You can head on over to Black Enterprise’s site to watch a quick video I did explaining it all.
Venmo To Vegas: A Simple, Free Way to Pay Your Friends and Associates
I’m at that age where everyone I know is getting married, and that means one thing: parties. Specifically, for me as a guy this means bachelor parties, w00t! So this week, according to Bing, was the best time to book a July flight to Las Vegas because the prices would only go up. No one likes to travel alone, so since my buddy Paul will be heading out to the same party we decided to fly together.
I hopped onto one of the “flight deal” sites and bought two round-trip tickets to Vegas with my credit card. I told Paul over Gchat that I had booked our tickets, and asked him how he wanted to pay for his half.
“Do you use Venmo?”, he asked.
Well guess what? I do now! Venmo is a simple, fun, and free way to pay your friends. It took me less than 5 minutes to sign up with facebook, verify my bank account, and bill my friend for his part of our flight. Read more »
Nexus Remote Service Keeps Your Docs in the Cloud
Dropbox, Box, Microsoft SkyDrive, SugarSync, and Google Drive have been getting all the consumer cloud storage love as of late. The services are uber-popular, but may not be the best option for the enterprise due to the simple fact sensitive documents/files stop being sensitive once they are downloaded onto personal mobile devices. Nexus by ionGrid is a solution that lets users access and modify files from an iPad while they file stay protected by company IT policy.
Nexus is composed of two parts: the server portion and the mobile app for iPad. Nexus Server gives the Nexus app access to any SharePoint documents or Windows file shares. The app acts as a portal to these files, giving the user full access to files via a data connection. According to ionGrid, “The combination of the client and server software gives you access to your work files, even when you’re out on the road, and the best quality, pixel perfect rendering of documents that you can find.” Read more »
Eventbrite Adds “At The Door” Credit Card Ticket Sales Devices
Obviously, mobile credit card processing is where it’s at. Case and point, the online event promotions and ticket sales giant (for the rest of us) Eventbrite has announced their mobile “At The Door” devices that let users buy tickets to events, well, at the door.
Eventbrite is a quick, easy, and less expensive way than its more popular competitors *Cough Ticketmaster Cough* to promote and sell tickets to your event online. You can set up an event in minutes, promote your event across social media networks, and track sales numbers and other analytics. At any event, there are people who will ignore all your attempts to get them buy tickets in advance, and will walk up to the door the day of the event and ask “can I still buy tickets?”. Read more »
Small Biz Challenges? AT&T Premier Has Mobile Solutions.
Most small businesses could do more business if their employees could work while on the move. Want to mobilize your operation? Premier has the tools you and your business need to stay connected and productive outside of its walls.
Choose 4G smartphones that deliver fast, almost-anywhere access to email and the Web. Add applications to give your business a professional phone presence, remotely sync with Microsoft® Outlook®, process payments, and more. Get Wi-Fi connectivity devices to set up workstations-and share access-while out and about.
Start with one of these affordable 4G smartphones:
- BlackBerry® Torch™ 9810 – $49.99
- HTC Inspire™ 4G – $0.01
- Samsung Galaxy S™ II Skyrocket™ – $199.99
See if you’re eligible for this offer and other discounts at Premier today.
This message brought to you by our sponsor, AT&T. 2-yr. agreem’t on voice plan & min. $20/mo. (IRU) or $30/mo. (CRU) data plan req’d. 4G not avail. everywhere. Add’l restr. apply.
Video: Dual Monitors On The Go With AirDisplay
Speaking from personal experience, it is true that you’re more productive with multiple monitors. Now my setup at home is pretty dope, but there are times when I’m out an about and sure could use multiple screens to get things done, sans all the window switching.
An app that lets you use multiple mobile gadgets at the same time to be more productive is AirDisplay. Simply put, you can use your mobile device (iOS or Android) as a second screen for your desktop/laptop. (Mac or PC). Read more »
Advertise on Twitter
When I first heard about twitter, I was skeptical. However, I’ve really come around to it, and in some senses it has really come around to more pragmatic users. Specifically, if you have ever wondered what it is that twitter can do for your business, especially something measurable and tangible, they have the answer to that question for you. Over at their advertising blog they have announced a product aimed squarely at the small business market.
Last month, twitter partnered with American Express to offer its small business card members and merchants the chance to use Twitter advertising. Initially, only a small group of had access, but access is expanding.
So what’s good about this? Read more »
