Social media helps you build a relationship with other people on both a personal and professional level, assuming you remain active on your social networking sites and provide useful information to your friends and followers. When social media first emerged, you had to log into your account on a computer to create or read posts. For the one in three adults who own a smartphone, however, it’s no longer necessary to wait to get to a computer to update social media. Through your smartphone’s internet browser or social networking apps, you can get immediate access to your accounts – a clear asset in a world where people want their information now, not when you get home to your laptop.
Get the Free Apps
Most social media apps are free – companies like Facebook and Twitter just want you on their sites, so they don’t make you pay for access to them. Download the apps created for your particular phone, like the BlackBerry.com Facebook application or the iPhone Twitter application. If you plan on managing more than one account from your smartphone, consider getting a dashboard. With a dashboard, you can monitor more than one account from the same place and even schedule future updates so you don’t forget to post.
Monitor Your Mentions
In addition to sending out information from your smartphone, it’s also important to keep abreast of what others are saying about you and your company. Sites like SocialMention or TweetDeck let you see the comments others’ have posted about you across a variety of social networks. You can set your phone up to monitor these sites from its internet browser. Some monitoring tools, including SocialMention, also tell you if what people are saying is positive, negative or neutral. Once you see a current report of your brand perception, you can immediately sign on to a social network to post an update about a piece of circulating misinformation, or respond to a question that many users seem to have.
Don’t Forget To Do Your Research
Social media is ever changing, so it’s important that, if you have access to the internet at all times, you stay up to date. Remember, it’s not just about whether you’re posting, it’s also about whether you’re posting about things that are relevant and trending. A smartphone can be a great way to stay up-to-the-minute with news and gossip that means the difference between your own posts getting forgotten and getting shared.
The trend towards mobile access is undeniable, so if you haven’t gotten on board with mobile social media, you’re on your way to being left behind. Cell phones are increasingly equipped with web browsers and smart applications – one day, it may be unheard of to have anything but a smartphone.