It barely needs highlighting that our reliance on technology is growing with each passing day. There was a time when mobile phones were used only for talking and exchanging messages, but the arrival of smartphones took the communication technology to a whole new level.

In just a few years, smartphones became an indispensable part of our lives; today, they are being used for various purposes including entertainment, documenting, payments, contact tracing and more.

Amid a global slowdown due to Covid-19 pandemic, the world, both developed and developing, saw a phenomenal rise in the sale of smartphones. Cheaper data rates, a strong push towards digitization, huge competition across segments and a surge in the demand made smartphones a particularly exciting segment that took steps in the right direction. To keep the impetus going, we’d like to look deeper into the space and find ways on how to improve the journey for a consumer — from better products to more effective communications.

Here are the top 5 smartphone trends that are likely to dominate in 2021.

5G – Future is Now

With a number of gadgets launching with 5G capabilities already integrated into them, 5G technology is no longer a thing of the future. This is in step with consumer expectations also, who consider 5G as a key smartphone buying factor, as emphasized by a recent Cybermedia study. This is due to the opportunities that the technology brings with it – better quality video creation and consumption, quicker downloads, unforgettable AR/VR and gaming experience, and the capacity to stream UHD videos.

Compact Phones

Gone are the days when a phone with a 5.5-inch display was considered a phablet and anything over six inches was a tablet. Today, even the smallest of Androids are in the same approximation. While there are noticeable benefits of a bigger phone, a small market for small phones still exists.

But we do comprehend why it is so hard to pull that off, as a smaller phone means a smaller battery, poorer thermal management, smaller camera sensors and bad loudspeaker performance. The iPhone 12 Mini is the only phone that is slightly unbeatable to these inadequacies, but it too is not quite satisfactory. Compact phones are possibly the least likely to materialize from this list. Thin and lightweight phones are what we might have to make do with.

Curved Displays 

Curved displays continue to be a heated topic in the world of smartphones, as fans strive to come to an agreement, as do brands. On one hand, they provide a far more premium touch, along with an improved viewing experience and a higher screen-to-body proportion, offering a bigger display in a smaller body. On the other, they are more vulnerable to damage, take up more internal space and can be held back by poor palm rebuff.

Although brands are addressing some of these cons, the progress appears rather stationary. It’s generally felt that the issue here is that the more popular phones with curved displays, such as the flagships from Samsung, offer the worse experience in terms of functionality and inadvertent touches. Remarkably, other smaller brands such as Huawei, Oppo and Vivo do not encounter the same issues, making one believe in the future of flexible displays.

Foldables

These smartphones are a very stirring category that is still very promising. So far, it has been a pokey race in the form of whatever Samsung has offered. The alternatives have been nowhere as competitive nor extensively available. If foldables are certainly the future, we think that brands are wasting valuable time in achieving their expertise while the market is fledgling. Indeed, the first couple of generations are improbable to be great, but you have to begin somewhere. It might not be that apparent at the moment, but Samsung’s lead today will be helpful in its future.

Fast Charging Standards

Last year, fast charging on smartphones reached new heights; even many economical phones offer unbelievable charging speeds of under one hour for a full tank. In some ways, it offsets the limited battery size that small phones suffer from. Nevertheless, there’s one key obstacle which doesn’t appear to be going anywhere anytime soon: interoperability. Every company has apparently chosen a different approach with its fast-charging application. Some have gone with higher voltage; some augmented the current while others used numerous inflow points. This disintegration has led to an odd problem where USB Type-C is ubiquitously but your preferred charging standard isn’t.

Over the years, machine learning has evolved, helping us to obtain more and more information from the data we gather. Thus, it has brought great changes to the lives of a UX designer, product designer, and interaction designer and made UX-analysis easier.

Here are five ways machine learning transforms the UX-landscape!

If you have been ignoring Facebook marketing, you need to stop doing that now because whether you like it or not, it plays an eminent role for a business. However, we all would agree to one thing and that is, Facebook marketing is only getting more competitive. This competitiveness has also surged the cost per click making the marketing even fiercer by basically decreasing the Return on Investment (ROI).

So, if you are just working as per Ad strategies and not using your brain, such a scenario puts your marketing in a difficult situation. If you want to stop losing money there, then it’s time to revisit your Ad strategy by using some of the best hacks for your next marketing campaigns.

Competitors

The trendiest Facebook marketing ad hack is to use your competitors for targeting. It means using the feature of Facebook that allows you to see your competitor’s audience, their behavior, and demographics. You can choose the same demographics and behavior to target the audience effectively. This feature also lets you look through your competitors’ ads. You can find out which Ads are working for your competitor and why.

You can simply do so, by clicking on the ads insights option on any of your competitors’ pages in the page transparency field. You will see “Ads from this page” where you can see whether your competitor has an active campaign or not and what ad structure they use for their campaigns with what success rate.

Messenger Ad

Since Messenger Ad is the newest Facebook Ads feature, it has comparatively less competition, which can get you better results. Messenger Ads enables you to hold a conversation and sales interaction with your potential customers. It helps a new business in getting noticed and recognized faster.

There three main types of Facebook Messenger Ads:

1. Destination Ads have a CTA button “Send Message” instead of “shop now”.
2. Sponsored messages send designed messages to user’s inbox to boost strategic engagements
3. Home action Adscreate direct conversations with customers in the home of the app.

Video Ads

If you ask Facebook users whether they like to read an Ad or watch it, most people would say that they prefer watching. This is why Facebook Video Ads have better results. Although video Ad takes time, efforts and are also costly to create but it creates high engagement. People find video Ads are more informative, interesting, and unique.

You can use multiple variants offered by Facebook to build these video ads. With the help of browse a video through the library or create a slideshow with images, you can also benefit your business through this hack.

However, there are certain pointers that you should take care of, and that is:

1. Use the correct size and ratio of the video ( I.e. square 1:1 or vertical 4:5, 2:3, 9:16)
2. Use minimum text (no more than 20% text) because if your audience still has to read then what’s the use of video Ads.
3. Keep the Ad short(15 seconds or less), but interesting and impactful.

Never Duplicate Your Ads

Facebook marketing services give you the option to duplicate an ad or use an ad’s ID, however, it will negatively affect the engagements of the previous Ad. Hence, your social proof and impressions will be lost. People like to follow these social proofs therefore Facebook marketing company uses the preferred post’s ID. Or create your new Id but never duplicate your Ads.

In addition to these useful hacks Digital marketing company in the USA can guide with other useful ways of digital marketing services that will boost your business.

E-commerce platforms have been garnering great response especially in the current time of the pandemic. Many brands have shut down their outlets, however, their online store only seems to boost its sale. The e-commerce giants, since the 2000s, have remodeled the way people make purchases which are only rising in 2020 lockdown.

The extraordinary potential in online markets is attracting more stores which is resulting in too much competition. Amid the strong competition, it’s not easy to even stay in the spotlight of e-Commerce. Now, the mere presence in the online market is not sufficient, rather you need to know the right strategies, and limitations to work around them.

Many platforms facilitate marketers to become an e-Commerce seller within a few clicks. But doesn’t this facility has made the market saturated? Well, the online market has infinite scope to make money with an opportunity to attract customers from all around the world. However, the most important thing an online store owner needs is to have an amazing marketing strategy. Following are the pro tips that can help you get online store marketing money fast:

Use Real Data

Real data is an efficient way to make an up-to-date marketing strategy depending on the current patterns of the market. Out of all the ways, social media is a highly effective way to carry on brand marketing. People on social media receive product marketing as a personalized suggestion from their favorite influencer hence, it has a great impact on their choices. Therefore try to get in touch with famous influencers or outlets on Social Media and ask them to market your product. With so many influencers out there, it also gets difficult to decide which one to choose however, data capture can help in choosing the best one depending on the niche of your brand. Always try to reach out to the outlet that has a higher engagement rate on social media.

Authentic Image of Brand

Glitz and glamour do attract people but that’s not what turns them into customers. A true and authentic representation is the key to create a strong impact on your audience. The customers should relate to your brand’s image. Only then, they will be able to interact with your brand. This interaction would penetrate the ideas of your products through them. Giving them a sneak peek behind the scenes content will develop this integration.

User-Generated Content

User-generated content is a great way of marketing your online brand. You can get it by displaying reviews of your customers or by sharing the unboxing of your product which usually excites customers. For unboxing content, a product should have attractive packaging. You can ask your customers to share their experience of your product or tag your brand. This will build up your brand image, boosting your online sales.

Don’t Be Intimidated By More Or Fewer Followers

Many brands make their social media accounts and when they see the underwhelming response on their accounts, they get discouraged and keep waiting for the right to launch their products. However, the higher number of followers on social media does not guarantee you higher revenue. You need to invest quality, hard work, and passion in your brand to make it a success.

Learn to Use New Platforms

If you want your brand to be recognized by more people or reach more potential consumers then try to use growing social media platforms for the advantage of your product. This, not a traditional way of marketing an online brand, however, platforms such as TikTok help influence customers. It also helps in keeping them engaged with your brand using tags such as “#BusinessTikTok”.

Instagram is one of the most famous social media platforms all around the world. From common people to celebrities, and from small business outlets to large organizations, everyone uses the app to get in touch with friends, family, and customers. The photo-sharing app managed to win everyone’s heart by its amazing features such as photo-editing options and interesting features you get with your friends via Story posting.

The on-going pandemic has rather fueled the craze for this app with many viral challenges. However, there are so many features of Instagram that not many users are unaware of. Here are some of our favorite features of the social media platform.

Saved Posts

Every time we open Instagram, we get bombarded by hundreds of posts. We see a post that we fall in love with but, unfortunately, it goes missing in the pile of pictures and no matter how hard we try to find it again, we fail. But thanks to one of our favorite features of Instagram, the save feature, we can have our collection of these posts that we always want to keep with us.

You can also create your exclusive collection of photos and videos that you liked without notifying any friends or followers. So the next time you see an Insta post that you don’t want to lose, remember to press the rightmost button under it. By pressing this “bookmark” option, that particular post is added to your saved list which you can access at any time.

Hide Unwanted Ads

Do you also get irritated by ads coming next to every story while using Instagram? Well, we guess that you didn’t know you can get rid of these irritants with the help of the Ads disappear feature.

Marketers are seeing great potential on Instagram and, therefore, we are getting so many ads that usually ruin a user’s experience. However, Instagram has enabled its users to disappear these ads. Whenever you see an ad that you don’t like, click on the top-right icon above the ad post. You will see many options; simply hit the “Hide Ad” option and no ad will ever disturb you again.

Shopping Bag

Another feature of Instagram that you probably didn’t know about is the Shopping Bag.

You must have seen a little shopping bag icon on a photo. But have you ever wondered what does it do? Well, this icon tells us that there is an item in that post that you can purchase on Instagram. This feature lets you buy the products shown in a picture easily while being on that platform.

So, if you see an item next time that you want to purchase, then click on the photo and you will see a “view products” option in the bottom left corner. Tap on the product that you want to purchase and simply, click on “proceed to checkout”

User Post Notifications

Instagram is a great platform for influencers to get loyal followers, who don’t want to miss even a bit of their recent activities. Instead of wasting a lot of time checking their accounts again and again, Instagram lets you turn on user post notifications.

This feature allows the app to send you a notification whenever your favorite user posts something on their account or even adds a new story.

Clear Search History

Many users don’t know about the clear search history feature of Instagram. Whenever you click on the app’s search bar to search for something, previously searched items appear as recommendations.

At times, we don’t want some of our searches to haunt us. So, with the help of this feature, you can simply clear your previously searched content or accounts.

• Excellent Design

A website with an excellent design will create a lasting impression on its visitors. Web design services can get you new and upgraded designs. Therefore, you can take help of the best web design company in the USA to give a modern look to your site.

• Quality of Images and Videos

Try to use high-quality images and videos to grab visitor’s attention to your site. It’s even better to use your original content.

• Use Animations

Rather than just adding up Texts, Menu, and pictures, you can make it more appealing by adding animations to it. It will stand out even more. Using simple animations, will not take that much effort but it will surely look more sophisticated.

• Keep Up with The Updates

Make sure to at least keep the website updated with current content such as pricing, product, or service details, etc.

• Incorporate Parallax Effect

Try the Parallax effect as it can give your website a 3D look with minimum efforts.

Patch management is the process of handling a full system of computers by constantly testing different patches on them to keep them as up-to-date as possible. Automating this process is known as Patch management. Using patch management, experts detect missing patches and then implement the process of sending out different patches. The entire process is an automated one, starting from the detection of the missing patches to the deployment of the patches. This whole process is done on a centralized patch management server.

Advantages of Patch Management

• Patch Management improves productivity and reduces costs because it eliminates the cost spend on poor patch management. It increases productivity because while this process is an automated one, you can focus on other more important tasks. This helps get more things done.

• Patch Management removes the risk of any serious security issues. If any company does not have patch management then they are putting their security department at a huge risk.

• Patch management is mostly useful when new patches come out. Whenever new patches come out, hackers and cybercriminals are already trying to get their way into the patch and exploit in some way possible. To avoid these, it is necessary to add security updates to your patch management.

• Manually taking care of so many patches on a day-to-day basis is a very stressful and hard task to do. Many times, it can result in huge errors, which can end up you in a dangerous spot.

• You do not need to pay your Patch management employees to do the tasks for you manually. Why not just automate the whole process. This will save you time and money and benefit your company greatly in the end.

• If your product is receiving constant new patches and they are fully functioning then your customers will be very happy with you as a company. They will consider you as a company that cares about their product and sends out consistent patches so that their product stays top-notch for its customers.

• You can add new features to your product using a patch management system. This will improve your product, can help you experiment with what your customer likes, and does not like. If they do not like it then you can just come out with a new patch and remove the new update you added.

Best Practices for Patch Management

It is always best to keep your Patch management of the highest quality and highest safety possible. Do not worry as we have the best practices for you to implement into your Patch management.

• Make sure to implement scanning into your patch management system always. An automated scan will detect any sort of trouble or error in your system. It eliminates the need for you to manually go and find the error.

• Make sure to release patches for your system or software regularly. This results in any hackers trying to exploit your previous patches and they cannot keep up with regular patches.

• Whenever your scanner scans and finds a critical severity level problem always make sure to fix it and dispatch the missing patch. This can result in huge problems as if you do not take care of serious problems quickly or they can ruin your whole system. You should deal with critical severity levels problems s as soon as possible and medium or handle low severity level problems within a week or so time.

• Always make sure to scan for any anti-virus updates and send out patches regularly so that you can keep yourself up to date.

• Always make sure to get your patch management system from a properly managed service provider such as Amsat who provides one of the best patch management systems out there in the industry.

You can always contact us for more information and assistance with Patch Management.