Android Archives

Instagram Apps for Small Business
Instagram is a powerful way for small business owners to connect with your community. However, sometimes you want to do more from your mobile device than you can with just Instagram. For that, there are plenty of other app options before reverting to Photoshop from your computer.

Sharing the job of uploading content among a few people can be a challenge. People likely take pictures with their phones, and have their personal Instagram account logged in there. Without a good way to quickly switch between accounts, my solution has been that other managers log in to a shared Instagram account using their tablets.

Remember, as Instagram started on iOS most of the apps are only still available for iOS. Android users, leave a comment below to tell me what I’m missing with links to the apps you are using.

Also, Instagram doesn’t really have any ways for people to upload photos outside of the Instagram app on their mobile device. If one comes out, please let me know.

Here are the apps that I am using:

Photo Editing Apps:
- Camera+ – This is my go to camera app. I use it for all photos that I take instead of the default camera. It has many filters and effects built in. I can layer multiple effects at once before exporting the photos to my camera roll.
- Snapseed – Android or iOS – now owned by Google, this app is very similar to Camera+.
- Diptic – Create a photo collages
- Brushstroke (iOS) – turn photos into paintings
- Afterlight – go retro with this 35mm film set of filters, lighting effects, and bokeh
- Average Camera Pro – fix photos taken in low light without it becoming grainy
- Tilt Shift Gen – iOS Android While Instagram has some tilt-shift effects, this will take it to another depth
- Facetune – iOS only. While I’m not a fan of advanced Photoshop effects, I am okay with photo editing that conceals blemishes like acne.
- SuperImpose – iOS | Android – place the subject on a variety of backgrounds
- SpacePaint – iOS – add effects like sparks, fire, lightning, clouds, and more.
Community Management:
- Repost – occasionally you may want to repost someone else’s photos. We use this when our community has taken photos
- Fotogramme – Manage multiple Instagram accounts including likes, comments, following, and more. This still doesn’t help upload photos outside of the Instagram app.
- Iconosquare – key metrics about your Instagram account
- Followgram – stats about your followers
- Websta – Like, comment, repost from the web. Stats and other metrics too.
Quotes:
- WordFoto – turn your photos into graphics that are made with words.
- InstaQuote – texture backgrounds with text
- Overgram – add text over your photos.
Watermarks:
- Marsta – iOS – place your logo, web address, and username as a watermark while on your mobile device
Cross-posting method:

Cross-posting on my personal profile is easy to manage within Instagram. However, from business brands, it becomes more complicated. I want the photos to appear natively in Twitter and Facebook, as well as reach the Google+ page. For that, I use IFTTT.
- Instagram to Buffer to Google+ (this is my only known way to get the photos into G+ pages that I’ve found)
- Instagram to Twitter – as a native Twitter photo, not a link to the Instagram post
- Instagram to Facebook Page – not a link to Instagram but a native photo on the page
WordPress integration:
- Enjoy Instagram – embed a gallery of Instagram images as a sidebar widget or in the content of a page
- How to embed 1 Instagram image into your website http://en.support.wordpress.com/instagram/instagram-images/
Please connect with me on Instagram at http://instagram.com/courtneyengle
April 28, 2014

Courtney Engle Robertson

Social Media

Android, apps, Instagram, iOS, iphone, mobile, social media
Can Your Business Be Found by Voice Search with Siri or Google Now?

Have you searched for your business using voice search on your smartphone? If you have an iPhone or an iPad, ask Siri for a phrase that should suggest your business, as well as searching for your business by name. Android users can ask a few phones for voice search by stating “Ok Google” followed by the question, or launching Google Now.

Siri

You’ll notice results are provided by Yelp. It is important that you claim your business on Yelp and that you ask for a few reviews there as well.

Google Now

Wether or not someone has Android is less significant than how your business is found using Google Search. iOS users can use the Google Search app and gain the same results that users on Android will get. The only difference on iOS is that you’ll need to launch the Google Search app then press the microphone button on the search screen.

It will be increasingly more important that you have strong reviews on Google+ Local Pages.

Claim Your Business Listing To Be Found On Mobile

If you haven’t yet claimed your business listing on all these free platforms, you really need to. How your business is discovered on mobile devices is a mix of SEO, local directories, reviews, and additional code on your website that will tell the search engines where your business is located.

Google’s Hummingbird Update Targets Voice Search

At the end of August 2013, Google announced the Hummingbird update to it’s search algorithm. This tweak to the formula is directly aiming to help voice search results by mobile users. Think about what questions you would ask Siri or Google Now to get the answers you need. What would your customers be asking? Will they search by your business name? Google is working to provide mobile users asking questions with the best possible results that are most relevant to their location and detecting what the question should result in.

Once you’ve got an idea on what questions are being asked, you’ll want to see if your business is part of the answer and if it should be. Do you see your business in search results? What reviews go with that? Is your phone number or hours correct?

Your business needs to monitor it’s voice search results.

November 4, 2013

Courtney Engle Robertson

Mobile Marketing

Android, Google, Google Search, Google Voice Search, googlesearch, iOS, IPad, iphone, Siri, Yelp
Facebook sharing to pages on mobile

Did you notice that Facebook recently enabled mobile sharing to now include pages, groups, and friends timelines? I stumbled upon this rather accidentally. Click share on your Facebook mobile app and see what your options are.

Now if we could just interact with other pages via the Facebook Pages app.

May 23, 2013

Courtney Engle Robertson

Social Media

Android, Facebook, Facebook Mobile, Facebook Page, iOS, Mobile device, Online Communities, Social network
Mobile Optimized Website Checklist
Is your website mobile optimized? By making sure your website is ready for the mobile traffic already visiting, you’ll want to review these 7 points to give users the best experience.
1. Mobile responsive
  
  When a visitor loads your website on their mobile device, does the site scale to fit that evice? Avoid expecting users to pinch & zoom or squint at their screens. They won’t. They’ll just move on.
  
  To easily test this out, grab the side of your internet browser on a desktop and make it very skinny. You should see the items resizing themselves automatically.
2. Media visible
  
  Does all the media on your website display or play properly? Flash elements were all the rage but no longer work well. Flash isn’t visible on iOS devices, and will stop being supported on Android devices. Make sure that if you include media on your website that it will play on a mobile device.
3. Does media scale?
  
  When someone loads your page, is the Youtube video half off the screen? When properly coded, your theme should scale the video. However, not all theme developers adhere to the standards that would support scaling.
  
  Likewise, any other form of media, whether an image or an embedded pdf, should fit to the width of the device in horizontal and landscape modes.
4. Action oriented – click to call & email
  
  Near the top of your website should be your business phone number, with a click-to-call option enabled. This will help mobile phone visitors easily press a link to place a call. The code to make it click to call would look like:
  
  <a href=”tel:8005551212″>Click to call 800-555-1212</a>
  
  Likewise, your email should open an email program. You’ll want to add some code or a plugin to your website to obfuscate the address, preventing an open invitation for spam.
  
  <a href=”mailto:someone@example.com?Subject=Hello%20again”>Send Mail</a>
5. Thumb ready?
  
  Can you navigate the entire website with your thumbs? Think here about the navigation bar, search box, email opt-in form, blog titles, etc.
6. Readable?
  
  How is your font size on smaller mobile screens? Often it works well to use font larger than you may have been used to for the past few years. I like 14pt for body text, and up to 24 for title text.
7. Social Sharing?
  
  While I like using a floating sidebar for social sharing icons, like Google+, it is also good to duplicate it into the footer of your blog post so that mobile viewers can see it. Floating sidebar buttons often aren’t visible on the screen.
May 20, 2013

Courtney Engle Robertson

Mobile Marketing

Android, Click-to-call, Google, Mobile device, Mobile phone, Website, Youtube

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Instagram Apps for Small Business

Photo Editing Apps:

Community Management:

Quotes:

Watermarks:

Cross-posting method:

WordPress integration:

Can Your Business Be Found by Voice Search with Siri or Google Now?

Siri

Google Now

Claim Your Business Listing To Be Found On Mobile

Google’s Hummingbird Update Targets Voice Search

Facebook sharing to pages on mobile

Mobile Optimized Website Checklist