Win a Business Consultation with Mario Armstrong!

Want to know how to best take advantage of your smartphone or tablet? Have questions about branding or social media? Just want someone to bounce some business ideas off of? Mario Armstrong is here to answer your pressing questions. We’re giving away three 20-minute business consultations with Mario, and entering couldn’t be easier. Just follow these simple steps and you’re good to go!

  • Send us an email to editor@smallbizgomobile.com with the subject line CONSULTATION. Explain in no more than 5 sentences what your business is and how you could benefit from a meeting with Mario. Our team of writers will be evaluating these and picking the three most-promising small businesses to meet with Mario. Let us know why you stand out but also what you need help with!
  • Like Small Biz Go Mobile on Facebook. That way you can easily stay on top of our tech tips, app and devices reviews, and more!
  • Follow SmBizGoMobile on Twitter and retweet our message to let everyone know about our contest.

Thats it! The contest is open to anyone worldwide, excluding employees and family members of employees of Mario Armstrong Media, LLC. We’ll be running this contest until 5pm on Friday, July 22nd, so get the word out and get your application in!

ON24 Brings Social Media to Online Webcasting

You can tell from the minute you sign into an ON24 webcast that something different is going on. For one, the interface looks like the Mac operating system, with a dock-like area of icons at the bottom of the screen. This is the interface to ON24’s widgets, programs that run inside the webcasting application, including Twitter and Facebook apps. Currently, there are about 20 widgets available with ON24, with more being added each week.

Picture of ON24 Webcasting Demo Page

I had the chance to sit down and try out some of ON24’s features recently, and came away impressed. Whereas other webcasting solutions are often dull, with a single video pane or slideshow available, ON24 seamlessly combines video, slides, Twitter feeds, sharing buttons, LinkedIn, presenter questions and even group chat into a single interface. You can move windows around, hide windows you’re not interested in seeing, and share links live all from their easy-to-use interface.

The ON24 webcasting platform brings a rich feature set together as well, with multi-presenter webcam options and desktop sharing. They bill it as a solution for “one or few to many,” meaning that a single person or a small team can manage the webcast stream (handling different tasks within the platform, like video or fielding questions) that goes out to a much wider audience.

Because the entire platform is built on Adobe Flash technology, mobile users are already able to access ON24 webcasts with their Android phones or BlackBerry tablets.  Although iOS support is not possible with the current version of the product, I’ve been told that h.264 video streams are being added and that iPad and iPhone users should expect to be able to join ON24 webcasts by next release of the software, coming this summer.

To learn more, be sure to check out the ON24 Webcasting Platform 10.  If you’re interested in seeing how the technology works first-hand, there are live demos coming up tonight, Friday and next Monday.

SocialCamera Allows Easy Tagging, Uploading, Sharing

We all know that social media plays an increasingly important role in our small businesses, yet keeping up with it can be very time consuming.  Tools that make it easy to keep engaging, fresh content rolling into your company’s social presence are a must.  Visual analysis company Viewdle launched Android app SocialCamera last Wednesday, and it fits this description well. SocialCamera allows users to tag, caption and share photos on Flickr, Facebook, email or MMS immediately after capturing the image. Jump to the demo video below for full details.

SocialCamera is still in beta, and is not to be confused with Justin.TV’s Socialcam app. It’s free of charge, and should be available through Android Market now.

How does it work?  Simple.  The first time you use the app, you’ll have to identify your Facebook friends. After that the app will detect and tag your friends automatically, which I think is the most endearing feature of this app.

Protip: you’ll need a device running Android 2.x with a 1GHz or faster processor to run SocialCamera.

Viewdle SocialCamera – Beta from Viewdle on Vimeo.

Finding your social media ‘voice’

Social media has changed the way that small businesses connect with customers.  Whether on Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare or any of the other social media platforms businesses can share news about their products and promotions, seek feedback on their service or product, raise their visibility, address complaints and share compliments.    It has allowed small businesses to compete on a level playing field with the largest of organizations–something that would previously be unheard of.  But before you jump in some basics on finding your business’s voice:

1.  Know your voice.  As part of your business’s start-up you probably had a mission statement: a clear statement of your company’s aim and your approach in meeting that goal.  Having a confident grasp of your company’s ‘personality’ will help you form your voice on your communication strategy whether through paid advertising or with social media.  Really take the time to think about how humorous/ serious you want to be; how formal or casual; how chatty/reserved you want to be.  Why did you start this company?  Your communication strategy should get that message across with all of the messages you send out.

2.  Keep your professional / personal on-line lives separate.  While your business should reflect your talents, your values and your  personality–remember to keep some separation between your business and your personal lives.  Both your customers and your friends/ family will appreciate it!

3.  Social media isn’t just marketing.  It is about opening up a new line of communication:  one that is fast, reactive and informative.  Share news and insights but also listen to your customers.

4.  Be persistent.  Don’t jump in and out of the fast lane of social media.  Schedule it into your daily routine.  Don’t get discouraged and keep on connecting.

5.  Let your old school methods of communicating help you connect in the new school world of social media.  Add the magic words “Follow us on Twitter” and “Find us on Facebook” to all of your print advertising, on your website and in your emails.

Be willing to do more of what works and less of what falls flat.  Think of what intrigues you when you follow others and learn as you go.  Your voice will evolve as you get more confident, and your customers will be glad you spoke up!

Mario (Ur Digital Lifestyle Expert®) on the Rachael Ray show

Tune in this Friday to catch Mario’s Rachael Ray interview! Check Show Times for your area For my Baltimore peeps, Ill be on WMAR-TV from 9-10a then on Rachael Ray from 10am EDT. We are having an informal “viewing party” at One World Cafe in Baltimore near Johns Hopkins University. They’ll have the tv’s on full blast, so come have breakfast & mimosas from 10a-11a! :-)

It was awesome being a guest on the Rachael Ray show! She was a gracious, professional and savvy host and her production team is incredible! The behind-the-scenes perspective really shows how hard these folks work! From booking to going on-air they made sure everything was completely smooth, even though it looked like complete chaos! The producers J & A were really great peeps! Thanks, ladies!
iPhone, Rachael Ray, Mario Armstrong, Facebook, iPad

On the show Rachael & I talk about some online safety tips. This episode was taped before the FaceBook privacy changes so keep that in mind when you watch. I honestly feel that many people should pay more attention to what they are revealing about themselves online. Some of the sites I mentioned like; FourSquare, Gowalla & Loopt! I love to use these sites BUT many people are NOT using these sites safely and they need to be educated and made aware to enjoy the services more and be safe while doing so!

Tune in this Friday 10-11a EDT on ABC OR hit me on twitter or FaceBook for the Baltimore viewing party :-)