SMEs are Embracing Global Mobile: Here's Why

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Opportunities abound for entrepreneurs in the new year.  Yet, finding and capitalizing on them requires knowing what to look for and how to decipher quality from quantity and which ones offer the greatest impact for business growth.

Jim Squires, director of market operations at Instagram, shares insights with Small Business Computing, predicting that entrepreneurs will face no shortage of opportunities for success in 2017.

Read more:  Small Businesses Going Global and Embracing Mobile in 2017

Today in Global Small Business: The World of Global Mobile According to Numbers

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What's affecting me, my clients, my colleagues and other global small business owners:

• What trips up most small business owners when it comes to importing and exporting?
• How to pick a market for expanding your commerce store?
• Why PayPal Canada launched PassPort for small businesses.
• Are small businesses pulling back on capital spending?
• Why many small businesses in Iowa desire to expand their businesses globally.
• The world of global mobile according to numbers.

Today in Global Small Business: Why Businesses Are Thinking Globally From the Start

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What's affecting me, my clients, my colleagues and other global small business owners:

• How the U.S. government is trying to get more businesses to go international.
• With the launch of Apple Pay, is time running out for physical cash?
• IMF survey tells us what's in store for global growth.
• Why businesses are thinking globally from the start (hint: global mobile).
• How IBM is going global with its artificially intelligent computer system that processes vast amounts of big data to answer questions asked in natural language to the global corporations.
• How the economic recovery has given the richest countries in the world a boost.

Global Mobile: Put It First in 2014

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Want to go global?  According to Nic Newman's article for CNN.com, you should put mobile first.

Gartner, the market research firm, has predicted that by 2015, tablet sales will be higher than those of PCs and laptops combined. There are now more connected mobile devices on earth than there are people.

 Read the entire article here.

Note:  I devote an entire chapter to mobile business - the greatest challenge and greatest opportunity facing businesses today - in my new book:  Exporting:  The Definitive Guide To Selling Abroad Profitably (coming out this month!).

Who Are the Mobile Consumers in Our World?

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Do you have questions about the mobile consumer in our world?  Our Mobile Planet has answers. Learn about smartphone adoption and usage across 40 countries. Develop your mobile strategy now.

Our Mobile Planet

Small Business Owners Are Driving Smartphone Domination Globally

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A new Cisco Visual Networking Index Global Mobile Data Traffic Forecast Update projects that by the end of this year, there will be more mobile-connected devices than there are people on earth, and by 2017 there will be nearly 1.4 mobile devices per capita.

Who is driving this device domination?  Small business owners.  

According to the survey conducted by eVoice, more than one in three small business owners (36 percent) use three or more mobile devices to run their business. 

Read the entire article here.  Are you ready for a mobile world?

Everything Global Mobile: mobiThinking

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Are you ready for the explosive growth in mobile?  If so, that means you have raised the bar to set new marketing standards for your global small business.

Read on to see how and what others are doing in the mobile space - from mobile sites to click-to-call campaigns -- get your global mobile marketing fix here.

mobiThinking

And while you are here, grab your insider's guide to mobile Web marketing:  France, Japan, Canada, Germany, USA, India, UK Australia, Spain, South Africa and Brazil here.

Global Mobile "R" Us

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How mobile are you? What kind of global tech user are you?

Is Facebook your window to your social world? Is your mobile device the last thing you put aside before shutting the light out at night? Or does the deluge of digital information leave you flat and the ring of your cell phone leave you cranky?

Find out what kind of user you are at Pew Internet by taking a quick quiz here. The range is:

• "Digital Collaborators"
• "Media Movers"
• "Tech Indifferents"
• "Off the Network"

When you press the 'Calculate My Results' button, a new page will tell you in which group you fit, along with a description of the general characteristics of that group.

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