1. Determine how extensive of a mobile web presence you want to have. A dedicated mobile site? Landing pages, etc.
2. Evaluate the channels and decide what kind of content you need to create for your mobile users. SMS. MMS. Applications. Content. Email, etc. Of note: Forrester Research sees mobile devices and content marketing as two of the top three marketing trends to watch in 2012.
3. Build an integrated strategy that includes apps, display ads and email. Nothing successful stands alone, and your mobile strategy shouldn’t either.
4. Create multiple calls-to-action. Don’t assume your mobile audience wants to connect to you via a single connection point. Include multiple ways to connect in your promotions — from QR codes to text messages.
5. Finally, don’t forget to measure! If you can successfully track prospect interaction with a mobile device, you can justify your mobile program. But if you can’t quantify the value your mobile program is delivering, it’s likely to go the way of the landline phone.

Keep in mind that these tips just scratch the surface in everything you can do to market to mobile users. If you need more assistance, we are always happy to help.

Arketi recently launched Arketi Insights – a regular thought-leadership series of publications that examines top and emerging BtoB marketing topics, and what they mean for high-tech BtoB marketers. The first Arketi Insights focuses on mobile marketing in the BtoB space. The time has come for marketers to past their procrastination and give mobile marketing a serious look – because buyers are. Learn more about how to make mobile a part of your BtoB marketing mix. For a free download of Arketi Insights: Time for Mobile Marketing to Go BtoB, visit ww.arketi.com/2012mobileinsights.

Here are our top 10 picks for this week:

Why Great Design Is the Future of Content Marketing
from Mashable Tech
Although it’s still early in 2012, the importance of visual storytelling is clearly one of the year’s breakout trends. Facebook Timeline, Pinterest, and Instagram are forcing brands to think and act more visually. Couple that with the impact of mobile browsing, and these emerging trends give new meaning to the phrase “show, don’t tell.”

10 ways to use Pinterest for your business
from PR Daily
Your boards should support your strategy. Pinterest users will pin and organize your content as they see fit, but you should use your boards to help define your brand and company culture.

How to Make the Best Business Impression in 8 seconds or Less
from Forbes
The average adult attention span is 8 seconds. In reality, most people will stop listening after 5 seconds. Unless they have become hooked, they are lost or on to their next thought.  Telling someone what your business does in this amount of time is a talent and needs to be practiced word for word.

For marketing and PR, the future isn’t interactive—it’s unified
from PR Daily
“Unified marketing is about tailoring the right message to the right person at the right time,” explained Rachel Conforti, director of marketing at Definition 6. “It’s also about building genuine relationships—trying to evoke an emotional response between brands and people.”

Forrester says b-to-b marketers will increase budgets 6.8% this year
from BtoB Magazine
B-to-b marketers will increase their marketing budgets by an average of 6.8% this year, according to a report from Forrester Research.

How Fortune 500 companies use social media
from PR Daily
Want to benchmark your brand’s use of social media against that of the Fortune 500? Here’s your chance, thanks to a Go-Gulf.com infographic, which offers a host of statistics and facts about the Fortune 500’s use of social media.

Becoming a “Corporate Executive Tweeter”
from Social Media Today
In this digital age CEO’s are expected to tweet. An article by e-marketer on research done by social branding firm BRANDFog tells us that 78% of people surveyed on topics related to businesses using social media felt that CEO participation leads to better communication

5 ways to create irresistible content with limited resources
from PR Daily
A recent business study showed that 75 percent of buyers are likely to use social media in the purchase process, and 55 percent of business-to-business survey respondents search for information using social sites.

Annenberg’s PR study: Good news for the industry
from Ragan.com
The seventh biennial Generally Accepted Practices report finds public relations budgets on the rise (if only slightly), social media use on the upswing, and perhaps most surprising of all, a majority of executives on board with what their PR and communications staffs are doing.

Engagement ain’t nothing but a number – why 1% isn’t good enough
from Brian Solis
A recent study published by Ehrenberg-Bass Institute found that less than 1-percent of Facebook “Fans” actually engage with brands.

Here are our top 10 picks for this week:

Is technology PR broken?
from PR Daily
Here’s an unsexy truth: the majority of PR pros I meet are hard workers with a scary amount of knowledge about enterprise technology.

Upping the ante for b-to-b
from PRWeek US
After having spent hours upon hours over the last few years working with pure b-to-b brands on their marketing efforts, it’s become abundantly clear that the applications for social media aren’t always as immediately obvious as they are in the b-to-c sphere.

6 tips for effective Web copywriting
from PR Daily
Web writing can be difficult, but once you have mastered these six steps, you will be way ahead of the competition.

IBM study identifies four types of ‘digital personalities’
from BtoB Magazine
A new survey from IBM Corp. identified four “digital personalities” emerging among users of the desktop and mobile Web.

Tech PR: The Post-Product World of Ad Revenue
from Crawford
I tend to have a certain amount of faith in the high tech economy, but my opinion took a slight knock this morning when the WSJ quoted ad network Millennial Media’s IPO paperwork. Apparently, the folks at Millennial don’t know “when or if we will ever achieve profitability.”

How to hook readers with killer headlines and grabby leads
from Ragan.com
Headlines and leads ought to be examples of what Ragan called “refrigerator journalism,” writing that says something so valuable so concisely that someone would be compelled to cut it out and stick it on his or her refrigerator.

Pitching Notes, the Yelp of the PR Industry
from PR Daily
Pitching Notes is a new website devoted to aggregating important information about journalists in an effort to create in-depth pitching profiles accessible by anyone, free of charge.

The new definition of PR: ‘personal recommendation’
from PRWeek US
We need to start explaining to our clients that customer service is as important as PR, and that an army of half a million people screaming about how good your service is can be just as beneficial as a front-page article placement.

Study: For corporate news, journalists prefer press releases
from PR Daily
A recent survey of 72 journalists in the U.K. found that the press release is the most preferred method for receiving news about a company.

Result: The Only PR Metric That Counts
from Crawford
The only measure that counts is whether you achieve what you set out to do, a point so obvious that it’s odd how often some PR pros obscure their results behind a numeric facade rather say point blank whether they succeeded or failed.

Recently analyst firm Frost & Sullivan celebrated its 50^th anniversary (happy anniversary!) by releasing a list of the 50 emerging technologies most likely to make a meaningful impact on the world. The firm boldly predicts that their list of technologies will change industries, research agendas and even how we live.

Bold stuff for a list of 50, but after eyeballing the list (and having to look up a few terms) it does seem to be solid. I am most excited about:

• Wearable sensors (Star Trek is here!),
• Personalized medicine therapeutics (I’m over 40),
• Nanoviricides (Had to look it up, again 40+), and
• Carbon-fixing technologies (Do I need to say why?).

• Wearable sensors (Think about it),
• Artificial photosynthesis (Not sure why but seems like something we should not mess with, i.e. Jurassic Park but with plants),
• Energy harvesting (Can you say Matrix? I saw what Keanu Reeves when through), and
• Inductive wireless power transfer (I would worry about walking to a wireless “third rail” and getting an unexpected and unwanted jolt of energy).

Seriously, from the list below what excites or worries you…and what did the smart folks at Frost & Sullivan miss?

1. Accelerated carbonation technology

2. Biomass-to-renewable oil conversion technology

3. Microchannel process technology

4. Carbide-derived carbon (CDC) technology

5. Breathable antibacterial coatings, products

6. Plastic conversion to oil by gasolysis

7. Algal-based platform for production of a wide variety of chemicals

8. Destagnation and destratification of water

9. Non-woven coating spray-on technology

10. Artificial photosynthesis

11. BPA-free epoxy lining of plastic bottles

12. Hydrogen storage technology

13. Production of liquid biofuel from industrial waste gases containing carbon monoxide

14. Mini-chromosome gene stacking technology

15. Nanoparticles for use as anti-viral agents or “nanoviricides”

16. Substitute pancreas for diabetics using stem cells

17. Wireless sensors and ubiquitous sensors

18. Energy harvesting

19. Wearable sensors

20. Fiber optic sensor for security

21. Structural health monitoring sensors

22. Intelligent robots

23. Flexible electronics

24. 3D integration

25. Smart grid networks

26. Mobile projection systems

27. Advanced storage technologies (MRAM/PCM)

28. Hyperspectral imaging

29. Haptics and touch technology

30. Energy-efficient lighting technologies

31. EUV for higher transistor density

32. Energy-efficient variable frequency drives (VFD)

33. Reconfigurable manufacturing systems

34. Micro and nano manufacturing technologies

35. Machine vision systems

36. Charging infrastructure for electric vehicles

37. Inductive wireless power transfer

38. 3D cell culture systems

39. Personalized medicine therapeutics

40. Dendritic cell therapy

41. Vaccines for infectious disease and cancer

42. High-throughput sequencing technology

43. The infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) solution

44. Quantum computing

45. Energy management and carbon accounting systems

46. Fuel cell technology

47. Sea water desalination technologies

48. Green building technologies

49. Carbon-fixing technologies

50. Medical imaging technology

The Technology Association of Georgia (TAG) released the sixth annual State of the Industry: Technology in Georgia Report on March 28, 2012. As one of the nation’s leading technology states, during 2011, Georgia’s technology community had an economic impact of $113.1 billion in sales. Technology now accounts for more than one-third of Georgia’s total exports, and the state gained 6,000 technology jobs in 2011.

The technology industry is a major part of Georgia’s economy and vital to the state’s future. TAG’s annual report provides stakeholders with the information needed to support legislative, economic development and promotional efforts for the information technology sector. To learn more about the top 10 findings of 2012 State of the Industry: Technology in Georgia report, visit www.tagstateoftheindustry.com.

Here are our top 10 picks for this week:

Marketers ‘get’ social
from BtoB Magazine
For those who still believe b-to-b companies don’t get social media or don’t care, last year should have been a wake-up call.

Leaders See Positive Role and Growth for PR
from Culpwrit
Conducted by the USC Annenberg Strategic Communications and Public Relations Center in conjunction (SCPRC) with the Institute for Public Relations (IPR), the GAP VII study summarizes industry perspective from 620 senior communicators.

Facebook buys Instagram: What does it mean for your brand?
from PR Daily
Facebook announced on Monday that it acquired the popular photo-sharing app Instagram for $1 billion, marking the social network’s biggest acquisition to date. What does this mean for brands? Here’s London-based PR professional Adam Vincenzini’s take.

The Perfect Length Of A Presentation Is….
from Mr. Media Training
Twenty minutes. At least that’s what new research from Maureen Murphy at the University of North Texas (UNT) suggests. Author Susan Weinschenk, writer of the forthcoming book 100 Things Every Presenter Needs to Know About People, agrees. She points out that the terrific TED talks are usually 20 minutes long.

What you need to know about the state of social media
from Ragan.com
Social Media Examiner recently released its 4^th annual survey of social media marketing; 3,800 marketers answered the survey. Eighteen percent of B2B marketers, as opposed to 14 percent of B2C marketers, say they’ve used social media for three or more years.

LinkedIn introduces business targeting tools
from BtoB Magazine
LinkedIn Corp. will launch two new tools to enable businesses to better target followers and report on their brand engagement.

PR pros, 10 ways to woo journalists on Twitter
from Ragan.com
Twitter isn’t just for building your loyal fan base. It’s also an excellent place to start building your network of journalists. Here are 10 tips to help you begin making valuable connections with journalists.

6 tips for becoming more persuasive on social media
from The Publicity Hound’s Blog
Social media provides many tools that help marketers, businesses, and bloggers persuade readers to become repeat visitors and eventually customers. Here are six tips for effectively persuading visitors with social media.

How to create a Facebook page that’s irresistible to fans
from PR Daily
For social media managers, Facebook brand pages are a relatively simple way to connect with fans in real time. Making your Facebook page a destination isn’t easy, but some brands are doing it with aplomb. Here’s how.

Targeted media to grow 8.1% this year
from BtoB Magazine
The targeted media category, which includes b-to-b media, branded entertainment, direct marketing, outsourced custom content and pure-play consumer Internet & mobile services, is expected to grow 8.1% this year.

At a local presentation, a tech-savvy audience began tweeting at both the presenter and the organization only to find the Twitter handle for the presenter was a young poker player in the west coast who looked nothing like the presenter. Although the audience quickly adjusted by tweeting at the company instead of the individual, I’m sure the poker player was bewildered by the mentions accompanied with technical jargon about a presentation he clearly did not present.

While it’s not the end of the world if your company’s CEO doesn’t tweet, a Burson-Marstellar study in 2011 found that 77 percent of Fortune Global 100 companies are using Twitter. Although many brands post regularly on Twitter, how many times have you seen the CEO or CMO tweet? Outside of the SMB world, I’m guessing not very often. While they are few and far between, a study by social media branding firm BRANDfog found that consumers and employees regard company leaders who engage on social media platforms positively therefore affecting the view of not just the brand, but also of the executive leadership team. Here are a few statistics pulled from the survey:

• According to the respondents, 78 percent said CEO participation in social media leads to better communication, 71 percent said it leads to improved brand image, and 64 percent said it provides more transparency.
• In fact, 86 percent of respondents rated CEO social media engagement as somewhat important, very important or mission-critical. At 94 percent, respondents said C-suite social media participation actually enhances brand image.
• Looking internally, 82 percent of employee respondents trust a company more when the CEO and leadership team communicate via social media.

Although these numbers clearly indicate the importance of C-suite transparency in social media, C-suite buy-in along with speed of adoption of new online technologies continue to be two major challenges for many organizations. To view graphs and additional information, read the following article.

Recently I watched Sherry Turkle’s TED presentation “Connected, but alone?” It got me thinking about how as professional communicators we are expecting more from technology and much less from each other. This “new kind of connection” as Turkle puts it is not one we should be proud of; rather, it’s something that should worry us.

One 18-year-old boy she recently interviewed wistfully said to her, “Someday, someday, but certainly not now, I’d like to learn how to have a conversation.” WOW! This is just sad and is not good for our profession.

The art of true conversations with the give and take, the half-baked comments and the real person-to-person connections is what makes us human. It is also what makes the marketing and PR industry both exciting and important.

Turkle, a professor in the Program in Science, Technology and Society at MIT and the founder and director of the MIT Initiative on Technology and Self, gave me pause to think about how we use technology to communicate or to avoid real communications.

If you sleep with your smartphone, prefer to be with your iPad than with a friend, or favor emails over conversations with colleagues, you need to find 19 minutes and 48 seconds to see what Turkle has to say.  In fact, I think anyone that is paid to communicate professionally should see this presentation.

It just might cause you to rethink a few things. At the very least, I hope it will give you something to talk about, with maybe a coworker over coffee in the break room.

Here are our top 10 picks for this week:

Study: ‘Big Data’ poses opportunities, challenges
from BtoB Magazine
According to “Marketing in the Digital Age,” 75% of respondents said understanding “Big Data” can dramatically improve their marketing efforts, and 90% said digital marketing can reduce customer acquisition costs. However, 58% said they lacked the skills and technology to perform data analytics, and more than 70% said they aren’t able to leverage the value of customer data.

12 incredibly useful digital tools for PR
from PR Daily
What are the key social media tools that PR professionals need to go from bumbling amateur to results-driven superstar? Here are 12 of them.

Facebook Explores Search
from March Communications
Though Mark Zuckerberg tends to deny direct competition with Google, Facebook is rumored to be entering the search market. Though search has not been a priority for the social networking powerhouse, this Businessweek article reports that more than 20 Facebook engineers are busy working on an improved search engine within the site.

10 Ways to Humanize Your Brand On Social Media
from Mashable Business
Marketers are suckers for a catch phrase, from “join the conversation” to “think like a publisher.” Now, thanks largely to Facebook Timeline for brand pages, the new marketing slogan has quickly become, “humanize the brand.”

15 ways to boost your tweets’ click-through rate
from Ragan.com
How do you get someone to click on your links on Twitter? It’s one of the most pressing questions I see day in, day out—and rightly so. Attracting more people who like what you are posting is essential to success on Twitter. Here are 15 top techniques for improving your click rate.

Report: No. 1 social media question: ‘How do I measure?’
from Ragan.com
SocialMediaExaminer.com released its fourth annual social media report and, based on the responses of more than 3,800 surveyed, it reveals how businesses are using social media to grow and promote their businesses. In reading the report, there were several conclusions that I found interesting for anyone grappling with how to effectively integrate social media into their communications plans.

Custom Content Conference: New technologies enable, complicate content marketing
from BtoB Magazine
The major theme dominating the three-day Custom Content Conference, last month in Washington, D.C., was how technology has both enabled and complicated “engagement,” that elusive goal of all content marketing.

8 simple, yet powerful types of headlines
from PR Daily
The first thing most readers notice in print or online is a headline. Here are eight categories appropriate for selling something, whether it’s a product or an idea, along with a sample headline of that type:

The Objective News Story: Dead or Alive?
from Crawford by James Crawford
The New York Times story excoriating China for engaging in pay-for-play media, much of it placed by U.S. PR firms, might have horrified us all but for two things. First, the Times is a century late breaking the story — paying for coverage has long been common practice in other lands, and not just in emerging nations. Second, U.S. media are in no position to point fingers.

Top Five Reasons To Work With Startups On The PR Front
from Storytelling Techniques For Effective Business Communications
I decided to draft my own top five list on the benefits of working with start-up ventures.

I recently attended a Technology of Georgia (TAG) association meeting on alternative payments. The discussion centered around evolving consumer payment behavior and the proliferation of interactive technologies, among other things. Several familiar names kept popping up—Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google and Paypal. Javelin Strategy refers to these organizations as the Gang of Four (and possibly five). I have used four of the five to make payments, and I’m not alone.

The million dollar question is how consumers perceive trust, innovation and privacy in relation to these brands versus their primary financial institution. In the past year, consumers have shifted away from large financial institutions to smaller community institutions, signaling a sea change. But will 2012 be the year mobile payments truly take hold?

According to Yankee Group, more than 2 billion new users have adopted mobile technology in the past five years. Additionally, the firm projects U.S. tablet sales to total nearly 25 million in 2012 alone. Predictably, flip phones are going the way of the buffalo and smart phone purchases are increasing. I purchased a tablet in the last five years and I’ve been a smartphone user even longer than that. Though I have purchased items with my phone in the past, I’m not entirely ready to ditch my wallet yet in favor of mobile.

A surprising trend among smartphone purchases is the growth in the prepaid market. According to The Stevenson Company’s latest TraQline Wireless report, smartphones are gaining share at a rapid rate in both prepaid and postpaid, and now represent more than 50 percent of all phone purchases.  As a percentage of total cell phone purchases, prepaid purchases have increased 370 basis points from 2009-2011, and now represent 17 percent of total cell phone purchases. The top five prepaid smart phone retailers gained share year over year.

So what does this year hold for mobile commerce? Only time will tell. How you are using your mobile phone today is likely to evolve with the options available. As more retailers make paying by phone an option, it will be interesting to watch consumer adoption rates of this technology.