“Wow, you have a lot of apps!” That’s the typical reaction I receive when someone takes a look at my iPhone or iPad – and they’re right, I do. I like to try everything from organizational apps, to new social media apps, food and recipe apps to streaming music and radio. Today, I’m sharing the wealth. Below are my three favorite new apps that are not only fun, but also functional for businesses. They are especially useful for those of you in the marketing and social media professions, but even if you’re not, you can still find these apps useful and relevant.
Source: gadgetbox.msnbc.msn.com viaPamela on Pinterest
Chirp
The Chirp app is a unique way to share content using audio waves. To put it simply, it’s like text messaging using sound. If you have the Chirp app, you can send and share texts or photos with anyone else that has the Chirp app open, even if you don’t have their phone number. Simply hit the “Chirp” button and your phone will give off an audio signal/sound to anyone else with the app open and your content will be sent to them. Since the phone is sound based, your phone needs to be able to hear the “chirp” in order for you to receive the message. You can send images or text-based messages. It’s not the quietest app, but it’s definitely innovative and unique.
Source: fastcodesign.com viaNLE | RR on Pinterest
How Is It Relevant For Your Business?
So, you’re giving a presentation or speech to a large group of people and you want to share an image, a quote or maybe even a tweet suggestion – Chirp is perfect for that. Have your audience download {free} and open up the Chirp app and send them the information. It’s an interesting and new way for you to get your message to your audience.
Flayvr
I have well over 1,000 images in my iPhone camera roll. They range from family events to images here at Elements and everything is mixed together. Flayvr is an app that auto-organizes the images from your camera roll into different groups. It starts by grouping everything by the date you took the image, then you can label them accordingly with more descriptive titles and add a location – Christmas 2012, Amy’s birthday party, blog post images etc. You’re not limited to just sorting by date, you can add in any image from any date to make a complete collection. The overall design of the app is also visually appealing. The large blocks of images rotate and change so that you can see all of the photos from that group. They also make it easy to share entire collections via Facebook, Twitter, email or text.
{image via itunes.apple.com}
How Is It Relevant For Your Business?
Smartphones have cameras that rival some digital cameras. The best part is you almost always have your phone on you so you won’t miss as many photo opportunities. With popular photo filter apps such as Instagram and Afterglow, more people are using their camera phones to alter their images. If your business has a blog or other social media platforms, taking your own images is essential. Keep your images in order and organized is very important.
Perch
If you’re a small business owner, you need this app. Perch allows you to “watch” businesses or competition in your area and see what type of social media they are posting and also what digital promotions they might be running. Competitive research is key for any business and staying on top of social media initiatives and promotions is just as important. Is your competitor running a Groupon this month? Did they attend a local event and post pictures on Facebook? Are they ranked higher on Yelp? Stay in the know with this app. If your direct competition isn’t just around the corner you can put them on your “watch” list and monitor directly from the app.
How Is It Relevant For Your Business?
It seems like social media espionage but it can really help you stay on top of your competition. Since it also monitors other sites, such as Yelp, it can also be effective to see how others respond – or lack their of – to customer complaints, comments and feedback. If website updates are also being made regularly, you’ll know that you might need to step up your SEO to make sure you’re appearing on top of the search engines.
Have you used any of these apps? Are there any other apps that you’ve found useful for your business?
~Allyson
