1. Taking notes: Creating quotable moments
The simplest way businesses can use their phone for content creation is by taking notes. For small businesses, some of the most interesting and engaging content can come from the most basic and routine parts of your day. Things you may take for granted—opening your store in the morning, ringing up a customer, or just having a conversation with your employees— are all great sources for content ideas your customers will find interesting.
There’s nothing worse than coming up with a great idea for a Facebook post or a newsletter story and not being able to remember it. Instead of carrying around a notepad everywhere you go, use your smartphone to record ideas you can save and revisit when you’re ready.
2. Bookmarking stories: Read now and save for later
Almost as bad as not remembering a great idea, is reading an article or story you know you’re customers will love and not being able to find it when you need it. With your smartphone, you can now bookmark those stories and revisit them when you’re ready. If you want to share it right away—you can (most sites should let you connect directly with your Facebook or Twitter accounts). You can also bookmark them and use them again later in your email marketing.
3. Recording audio: Share your thoughts in your own words
One source of rich media people often overlook is audio. Using your smartphone to create shareable audio doesn’t mean you’ll have to walk around saying, “Note to self …” (please don’t do that), but it means you can use it to capture your reaction to events or interactions in your own words or use them to create educational or even entertaining pieces of audio.
Sure you could record your own podcasts, but you could also use your phone to record feedback from customers (with their permission of course) or even your own thoughts about new products or announcements.
4. Shooting videos: Catching live action
The capability smartphones have given to business owners when it comes to shooting, editing, and sharing videos is really unbelievable. With the quality of cameras continuously improving and video sharing sites like YouTube making it easier to share videos on-the-go, marketing with video is no longer a Hollywood affair.
A lot of the videos you’ll find on this blog were taken with a smartphone and uploaded to the Internet in a matter of minutes with the YouTube iPhone mobile app. As a small business, you can shoot videos at your place of business, at events, or anywhere else where something is happening you want to share with your customers, and then either save them to be used later, upload them to YouTube, or share them with your social networks in a matter of minutes.
5. Snapping photos: Capturing a moment, as it happens
“A picture is worth a 1,000 words” may be about as cliché as they come, but when you look at the amount of engagement photos are driving on Facebook or how they are helping businesses drive open rates for their email newsletter, it’s tough to argue with this sentiment.
Photos aren’t just incredibly effective, they are also incredibly easy to use—especially when you have a smart phone. Find something you want to take a picture of, snap a photo, log on to your phone’s Facebook or Twitter app, upload the photo with a caption or create a tweet, and press ”Send.” That’s it! You can also save those same photos on your phone and use them again when you’re ready to design next month’s newsletter or update your business’ website.
