The popularity of tablets is on the rise and nowadays, if you take a look around in any public place, chances are that you’ll see one or two people using one of their own. Now, nine times out of ten, people will be using them for personal use. However, they are great for professional use too! In fact, they are the perfect business tool to help you get your work done. Here’s everything you need to know about the tablet and what it can do for you!
What Is a Tablet?
Not all too long ago, you had two options when it came to connecting to the web and carrying out computer tasks away from home – to take a laptop (which would leave you dependent on finding a wifi connection) or taking your smartphone (which would limit the kinds of actions that you could carry out). Product developers spotted a hole in the market and this is how the tablet was developed. A tablet is a smart device that can be considered a hybrid between the laptop and the smartphone. While they can function as computers with many of the same features and capabilities of a laptop, they are also a lot smaller, are touchscreen and can be handheld. Their most popular uses tend to be browsing social media, viewing presentations, reading online articles, writing emails, watching films and videos, and even taking photos.
What Are Its Benefits Over Desktop Computers and Laptops?
The main benefit of a tablet over a laptop is its portability and its connectivity. While you can carry a laptop around, you’re going to have to lug it around in a bag that is large enough to accommodate it. Tablets tend to measure sizes between 5 inches and 10 inches and there are plenty of sleek, lightweight, and waterproof cases for them on the market. Now, when it comes to connectivity, tablets tend to have three options. While laptops are generally dependent on a WiFi connection, tablets can use WiFi, but you can also sign up to a data plan and access 3G and 4G too. This is perfect for those of us who want to work on the go!
Which Tablet Should I Invest In?
There are so many different types of tablets out there. Nowadays, the popularity of white brand or “unbranded” tablets is on the rise, as they come with a lower price tag than the well-known, branded options. Now, these are useful. But most have individual, specific uses. One, for example, may simply stream videos or have pre-installed games (which will prove popular with markets such as parents who want to keep their kids entertained on car trips). Some will purely focus on displaying ebooks, which is great for those who are looking for an alternative to Kindles and e-readers. However, when you’re using a tablet for business, you want something versatile that can meet all of your needs, including needs that you might not currently have but which may be develop in the near future as your brand expands. So try to stick to popular brands, such as Apple and Microsoft. Their products will be well developed and reliable.
Software Development
So, now we’ve established what a tablet is and why you might want to invest in one, let’s take a look at what business-specific uses they can have for you. Let’s start with apps. When you take your tablet, the home screen will have various different square icons on it – these are apps (which is a term that is short for “application”). If you click any given one of these it will open specific software. For example, a calendar app will open calendar software, a messenger app will open messenger software, and a calculator app will open calculating software. Now, your business is likely to use all sorts of different software in its day to day process, but many businesses will need specific programmes to get certain jobs done. Pre-existing software may be good for odd jobs, but if your business has specific needs you’d be much better off having specialist software that will do exactly what you want. Unless you have a serious knowledge of coding, you’ll have to bring a team in to do this on your behalf. It is important that you know how to measure productivity of your software development team before taking anyone on. After all, you want to ensure that they’re going to do a good job! They should have a strong track record of good time keeping, precise planning, and effective communication so that they can bring your ideas to life!
Pre-existing Software
While specifically developed software may cater to your business’ needs more precisely, there is plenty of pre-existing software out there that can help you to deal with other more generalised tasks that come hand in hand with business ownership and management. Some will be free, while you will have to pay for others before being able to download them onto your tablet and access their features, but generally speaking they are pretty affordable. So, let’s take a look at a few crowd favourites!
Mail Chimp
Keeping in touch with your customers is an absolutely essential part of boosting brand loyalty and encouraging people to return to your website in order to browse your latest product range and make purchases. This is why the majority of business’ websites have a newsletter sign up form or a mailing list sign up form. This allows customers or potential customers to give you their contact deals which you can then use to your advantage. As soon as you have received their email address and they have consented to receiving mail marketing, you can keep in touch! One of the best ways to market your products and services to your customers is email marketing, and it’s almost always best to semi-outsource this to a company such as Mailchimp. Mailchimp have a simple to use app which can be downloaded from the App Store for free. You then select a package, depending on how much of your work you want to conduct yourself and how much you want to leave to the company’s professionals. The more you do yourself, the cheaper the service you can sign up for! In fact, there is a completely free package if you already feel comfortable in your knowledge of email marketing. When you’ve linked up Mailchimp to your mailing list, it collects all of the data submitted by people on your website in the newsletter sign up form. You can then use the company’s design software to custom create email marketing campaigns, such as newsletters, coupons, and informative announcements. It will then send out your custom designed newsletters and emails on an automated basis after you input the desired time and date for each notification to be sent out!
Microsoft Word
Microsoft Word has plenty of professional uses that we are all more than familiar with – writing up proposals, creating resumes and cover letters, taking notes – but people generally associate it with laptop use. It is, in fact, available in app form for tablets. Now, the idea of typing up a lot on touch screen might seem relatively unappealing, but seeing as small usb connected keyboards have been developed specifically for tablets, you can now type away to your heart’s content on them!
As you can see, tablets are extremely versatile and, when used in the right way, can be extremely productive for your business. Hopefully, this has helped to establish some of the best tablets out there and how to incorporate them into your professional life!
