Internet Marketing Information and Resources

Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Delicious, Technorati, You Tube and Stumble Upon. These are 7 social media sites that offer the tantalising prospect of reaping unrealised SEO benefit.

The trouble is, who has time to keep on top of these 7, let alone the hundreds of other social media tools out there? Recently I found a way to use otherwise dead time to keep on top of social media.

Look no further than the humble iPhone. Perhaps the iPhone isn’t quite so humble, but don’t surf off just yet. I didn’t pay any attention to the iPhone until a friend of mine showed me just what it could do.

I’ve had it less than a month, yet it’s already made me far more productive. Here’s how…

• I run my day using an iPhone app called Pocket Informant. It’s a Personal Information Manager. I’ve never been able to run one of these on a desktop, as typically it’s not present when I need it. And a laptop means always having to lug my laptop around. I’m carrying my iPhone anyway, so I finally have a PIM I can live with. It takes care of my projects, to do list. and appointments. It cost £7 or thereabouts (i.e. nothing I’ll miss). Thanks to Pocket Informant and the iPhone, I completed a project this month that would otherwise have completed in January. This increased my billings in December by over £1,000. Sure, I would have finished next month, but now I have all this extra time to focus on my next big project (and it’s really big). I’ve also been able to bring forward another client, and that particular project is a lot more interesting
• I’ve installed iPhone apps that allow me to work Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and You Tube. Yesterday I invited 3 people to connect in LinkedIn while standing in a long supermarket queue
• This morning I responded to client emails while waiting for a tyre to be repaired
• The nearest tyre place wasn’t able to repair my tyre, so I used the built-in browser to locate another tyre repair place. I called them by pressing a finger on their phone number right there on the web page, and confirmed they had the required repair patches before making the trip (it’s easy to underestimate the utility of being able to make a call by clicking a number on a web page when you don’t have the means to write the number down)
• On the way there I overshot. I realised I’d gone too far, pulled over, and told the built-in map to locate me by clicking a single icon. I could see I was about half a mile too far down the road, so turned around and headed back
• Last week I resolved a problem for a client during a break in an SEO seminar I was running. This was possible thanks to the iPhone’s ability to handle all my email addresses (including Google Mail), and surf the web from anywhere. Sure, I could have done it when I got home that evening. Instead, I put my feet up and relaxed after a hard day of training
• All my music sits on my iPhone, which has a built-in ipod
• While out for a walk one afternoon, I was listening to music when my iPhone rang. I was able to answer and talk using the supplied earphones. I didn’t need to fish the phone out of my pocket. Neither did I know the earphones could act as a hands-free system. The music faded automatically as the phone started to ring. I suddenly had a hunch, and squeezed the ‘pause/play’ button on the earphones. I said “Hello?” in an experimental sort of way, and to my surprise the person on the other end (an important client) started talking. I ended the call by the squeezing the ‘pause/play’ button again. The call ended, and the music started up automatically
• I booked myself into a B&B using an app called B&B. This located me automatically, and displayed a list of suitable B&Bs in the area. I selected one based on photos and user reviews, and completed the booking there and then on the phone itself

This is a sample of various ways I’ve found this thing to be enormously useful. It’s made my life considerably easier. If you’re in business, and find you have little time to make use of social media, go get yourself an iPhone.

I got mine through Orange. I get 600 minutes of talk time and 500 texts in my plan. While this is plenty for me, there are loads of other options should you require less/more to meet your needs.