Mobile apps become Facebook’s protein-shake for bulking up
As a heavy Internet user, it gave me a fright when I saw an infographic showing how the Internet is ruining our brain.
Despite the unflattering comments criticising the infographic’s colour scheme, it was interesting reading about the average Internet user’s habits. Apparently we now consume triple the amount of information per day than we did in the 1960’s – whether we’re shopping, reading the news or knowing what’s happening with our friends.
How do we cope? We multitask to manage our busy lifestyle and switch windows or programs online every two minutes. We need to be able to absorb this information whenever and wherever we can and it helps if it’s pretty to look at.
This explains Facebook’s latest acquisition of mobile apps Tagtile, Glancee, Lightbox and Instagram. Facebook will start trading on the Nasdaq stock market today and Mark Zuckerberg is looking to increase demand for shares as much as possible.
The commercial possibilities with Tagtile are obvious. The app acts as a virtual rewards card, offering users special deals based on their loyalty. For businesses on Facebook, knowing more about people’s purchasing behaviour and how they use their smartphone is always handy.
Glancee is a location-based mobile service which promises to bridge the gap between connections made online and in the real world. The app uses a person’s current location to instigate a meeting. Glancee pushed the user to log on with Facebook so meetups are only with known or mutual friends. Now it’s likely the app will be fully integrated with Facebook. More location-based data = win for Facebook.
As a photo-sharing app, Instagram is simple, aesthetically pleasing and exudes trendy chic. It is also widely used on mobile devices now an android version has been released. The latest number of users counted was 50 million and there are a number of notable users who use the app for business and enterprise. Lightbox used to be the competitor, now it’s another Facebook entity.
Why does this matter?
There are plenty of opportunities for organisations to use each of these popular mobile apps. The basic principle remains the same for companies using other social media platforms – target your audience and engage with them by sharing rich and valuable content.
And Facebook is making it easier.
There’s now less reason to be daunted by all the apps and social media platforms out there – Facebook has a lot of them under its expanding umbrella. And a bolstered Facebook means its services offered to companies are only better.
Three reasons why Facebook has integrated these apps and why they’re important:
- Smartphone use and development is continually on the rise.
- People are generally sharing socialites.
- Pictures tell a thousand words and can help build brands.
Have you considered using mobile apps to build your presence online?
Image courtesy of beta75.se