You are a business leader and understand the value of a lifetime customer. Whether you have a subscription business or function on one-time sales, continuing to reinforce your value is a must. The best way to build value while minimizing cost to you? Technology. Software. Plain and simple. Great customer service is a glorious thing, but when you can add tangible products with obvious functionality, your clients won’t question why they stick with you. Be the hip company that reminds your clients that you are the cutting edge company - and those stinkin Bieber-loving kids have nothing on you. Here are a few ways you can ensure your customers understand that they are making the right decision by working with you.   Give ‘em an Exceptional Website It’s pretty obvious that you can’t screw up a client’s website and you need to do an adequate job - but I’m not talking about adequate. Make sure your client’s website is boss. Sharp, neat, and so thoughtfully organized it’s easy to find information. Don’t forget to include responsive and mobile friendly design, rich with features and compatible with the latest technology and social media platforms. You don’t want to provide a single website where users are second guessing navigation. Think of a sharp website like a sharp suit. It’s your first impression of someone you want to do business with, and if every piece of your client’s appearance is well put together - you have proven you are one attractive firm people want to do business with.   Mobile Apps Mobile apps, mobile apps, and oh, did I mention? Mobile apps. You have the burden of proof that you are an innovative company to work with, are consistently on top of your game, and know what technology is most utilized in today’s market. A short 5 years ago mobile apps weren’t nearly the rage that they are today. However Internet users and business professionals alike are increasingly using their phones to get their jobs done, and need your help to do so. While responsive design is a step in the right direction, providing a downloadable app - for both iOS and Android - reminds your clients that you are the knowledgeable company to trust and do business with.   Google Glass App Google glass and other wearables are a crazy new bit of technology. And by crazy I mean mind-bogglingly innovative and something you need to understand and offer to your clients. It can be intimidating and a little weird, but HEY. Remember that you must be the cutting edge company and who isn’t afraid to embrace the newest technology. Building an app compatible with your savviest clients proves that you are not only interested in new technology, you embrace it and are championing ways to use it to their benefit.   Lightning Speed Development No one wants to wait – ever. When was the last time you actually sat through a commercial when watching TV? Probably the Super Bowl, and probably won’t again until the next one. Using the same logic, your clients don’t want to wait around on a slow development team to complete specifications. The more time passes, the less you proof you have your act together, and the less your clients will enjoy working with you. Pick up the pace and exceed expectations.   Demonstrate Technical Expertise The reason your clients hire you is because they don’t necessarily know what they are doing. While you may not be in charge of writing code or designing websites, it is important to surround yourself with the best professionals who do. By doing so your clients will know that you take them and their time seriously, and don’t bother dealing with amateurs. You know you are the best out there. But adding value for your clients starts with working with the right companies with proven experience. We can help.  

Think back to the last time you were in a place teeming with millennials: it was probably difficult to find people who weren’t tethered to their smartphone. For better or worse, a stereotype of the millennial generation is that they’re constantly connected. That connection happens through apps — ones that have integrated so deeply into their lives that they can’t imagine living without them. If you’re thinking of building your own app, it’s important first to know which ones are reining in the popularity points. Without further ado, here are some of the apps that have the highest concentration of millennial users, according to Statista’s 2016 report on the matter. Social Media While currently in a tumultuous period, Vine remains an incredibly popular app, with millennials making up 78% of its 200 million monthly users. The app is a micro-entertainment platform where anyone can share six-second looping videos. As of January 2017, Vine has rebranded to become Vine Camera, where users publish their short videos directly to mother company Twitter, rather than into a Vine community. Several video gaming apps also serve as hybrid social networks. Apps such as the PlayStation Official App and Twitch have social sharing and messaging functionality integrated into the app, allowing gamers to chat and live stream the video game they’re currently playing. Apps that target a specific niche market — in this case, millennial males who love gaming — have huge potential to be successful. Messaging Yik Yak is a social messaging app that allows users to scan their geographic area and anonymously chat with people in their vicinity. An online community center, Yik Yak users share news, photos, and questions with people around them in the form of “yaks.” They also have a say on the popularity of those yaks, casting an up or down vote for individual posts. Unlike Twitter, where anyone can chat in a specific area if they use a geographic hashtag (i.e. #NewYork), Yik Yak users must be located within a five-mile radius of where they’re chatting, guaranteeing that the commenters are genuinely in the area. Yik Yak has the highest concentration of millennial users for 2016 — 98% of its audience is within this demographic group. The popular GroupMe is a group messaging app that works across every platform — perfect for the millennial who is equipped with five devices. Three-quarters of GroupMe’s users are millennials, and the app makes it simple to coordinate dinners with friends or this year’s trip to Coachella. [gravityform id="9" title="true" description="true" ajax="true"] Music SoundCloud is an app used by millennials to publish, listen to, and discover new music. Initially seen as competition for MySpace, SoundCloud’s advantage is that it allows users to reshare music and sounds via a specific link, making the app more social in nature. This shareability and its usability on the go is a reason why 74% of SoundCloud’s users are millennials. YouTube Music is another app with a high concentration of millennial users. It’s a standalone app that allows users to listen to the same number of tracks they’d be able to hear on competitor platforms. The app also creates a daily playlist for users and integrates other interesting features such as karaoke tracks and the ability to view live concerts. Finance When it comes to personal finance, Mint is the leading app among millennials. This could be because of its easy-to-navigate interface and its functionality: users can view all their financial accounts in one place, and the app automatically categorizes spending into categories such as groceries and utilities. Millennials recognize that budgeting is important, but are less likely to create a spreadsheet in Microsoft Excel. Mint puts budgeting and financial management in the palm of their hand. Venmo is excellent at simplifying the daily finances of a millennial. The app is a digital way to keep track of what is lent and owed money-wise amongst friends and family. Whether it’s buying festival tickets for a friend or splitting the cost of dinner, Venmo can be used to track those transactions. Once that information is entered into the app, Venmo users can securely send and receive money using the app, saving friendships from a potential slog of IOU lists and reminders. Millennials clearly find the app useful — 94% of its users fall into this age category. Reason for Popularity Amongst Millennials Each of the apps above tap into a different part of a millennial’s daily routine. What they all have in common is a simple interface and the ability to enhance a user’s social behavior. When creating or improving an app, consider how your app will integrate into a twentysomething’s daily routine. If you can’t picture them pulling out their phones and intentionally opening up your app or talking about it with a friend at least once a day, it’s probably not going to be a hit. If your app is shareable, provides deep value, has a chic look, and is easy to understand, it will have a greater chance of success among this population.

iOS8 was one of the most exciting updates Apple has yet offered from a developer perspective. A big reason for this is the update came with Extensibility, which enabled developers to extend functionality of apps into other important parts of the phone. One of those parts? The keyboard. App developers can now build the custom keyboards you’ve always envisioned, while still experiencing the security benefits of iOS. This is because extensions run in the same sandbox as the apps they extend from but operate within separate containers. Basically - you get all the functionality you dream of yet maintain the privacy and security of the system Apple has become known for. Now that developers can essentially replace the default, system-wide iOS keyboard with almost anything you can think of, we wanted to explore the possibilities that have been released so far.   Swype + SwiftKey For years Android users have enjoyed the Swype and SwiftKey keyboards, and both are now available on iPhone and iPad. While theses are two different keyboards, they are similar in function and benefit. The user begins both typing experiences by simply placing their finger on the first letter key of the word. Then without lifting a finger, they then slide to the next letters. A few more swipes like this and the Swype and/or SwiftKey will offer options for what is predicted to be the word, and the user then selects the intended word. Both keyboards get “smarter” with more use, as the predictive technology both feature starts recognizing frequently used words. The one big difference between the two is SwiftKey offers emojis, while Swype does not.   Gifmoji  There’s no better way to express excitement than with a GIF of Stephen Colbert happy dancing. Gifmoji had the same opinion and created the solution for mobile comedians to express themselves through moving GIFs and slapstick emojis. The app comes with three different sections, the first being moving emojis.These are those familiar emojis texters have been using for years, except they perform the movements of blowing kisses or shaking heads from side to side. The second section is a collection of popular kaomoji, such as o/ or (-_-*), making these communications more easily accessible rather than typing them out. Finally is the best part of the app, the GIFs. These are complete with short  2-3 second expressions of popular actors and cartoons acting out full ranges of emotion such as flipping over tables or dancing in happiness. Your friends will not misunderstand your meaning again.   Stack Most of the keyboards we’ve seen thus far focus on features like glittery emoji, predictive text or gesture typing. Stack took a different approach and focuses on an entirely different type of keyboard - by not even opening a keyboard at all. Instead, the area where a QWERTY keyboard usually appears simply displays a blank space, in which the user can draw letters. The keyboard is fast enough to recognize each letter that the user can write the letters on top of each other. This is a good option for those who don’t tend to like traditional keyboards and prefer drawing. We see this most likely being predominantly used on iPads with a stylus pan as opposed to on an iPhone, but the keyboard is available for both.   TextExpander 3 While messages usually must be typed in their entirety, the app developers who created TextExpander are making the ease that is the texting game even easier. With this keyboard new to iOS, users can access a database of commonly used abbreviations, which TextExpander will expand into full phrases or sentences. Such commands can include typing “TY” which TextExpander will translate into “Thank you very much!” This keyboard can also be customized with whatever abbreviations you commonly use and prefer.   Texting can be viewed as a lazier form of communication, in that it doesn’t require much of a greeting or a goodbye, and ideas can be conveyed in one simple line of text. This is much to the delight of the socially awkward or the plainly lazy. However the possibilities have now opened up in such a way that entrepreneurs filled with ideas and developers anxious to try something new, can now create new custom keyboards for the iOS audience.  Do you have a favorite iOS keyboard? Let us know what you think in the comments below.  Or perhaps you have an idea for a new keyboard that hasn’t been released yet. We’ll be happy to help you get started.