In a short space of time the mobile phone and the apps that go with it have become essential items for communications people. Here's 11 essential apps that one PR professional who works wth many public sector clients relies on when she is out and about in the South West.
by Mandy Pearse
Despite wifi and 3G being variable across the South West the ability to use my iphone out and about has become essential to delivering my day to day work.
Obviously I have loaded on my phone a full range of social media apps for Twitter, Facebook, Facebook pages, Google+ which mean that when I am on site at an event for a client I can post live comments and photos.
I do a lot of work at events and on site so I swear by the the Met Office weather app which can have up to ten loactions loaded. In a rural area where you can get considerable variation in weather from coastal winds to moorland rain it's a must.
For photos although the camera on the iphone is quite good even in low light I tend to find the pre-loaded camera app quite basic so I use an app called Camera+ which is low cost and gives a number of extra editing tools. It also has good social media integration but as Twitter will only show photos in the timeline if loaded via the Twitter app I use this less now. This is a shame as when I post direct from Camera+ I get stats on photo views on the go which I can’t get now.
I’m still a novice on video apps preferring to shoot video and edit in the office on my mac but I do use Vine, the six second video app, which integrates directly into Twitter and Facebook to get some multimedia content online while on the move.
Local radio in our region has suffered its share of cutbacks so many of the commercial stations will take a good audio interview. My favourite app to deliver this was suggested by a friend who is a radio station editor. VR+ is easy to use and gets the job done. You record the question and answers, save the file and email to your radio contacts. They can then re-edit the questions to one of their interviewers and job done.
For keeping in contact with people its Facetime for one to one calls but when it's a group call then Google Hangouts works OK as long as you are in a wifi area. Just make sure the spot is quiet as the speaker and microphone on the iphone struggle in wind or with too much background noise.
And for large files its Dropbox. There are some security issues so nothing confidential goes in but its great for sharing large photo or video files as well as .pdfs.
I also find travel apps invaluable to keep my carbon footprint down by using public transport. The Trainline app is good for finding rail times and booking tickets and Skyscanner my favourite for air travel.
Well that’s my top 11. I’d love to hear what other people are using.
Top 11 apps
Twitter 140 character updates.
Facebook/Facebook pages social media's biggest platform.
Flickr social photography site for individuals and organisations.
Google+/Google Hangouts Google's social media platform and video conferencing app.
Camera+ camera app for iphone and ipad.
Vine six second videos on a loop.
Met office weather instant weather updates.
Trainline booking train tickets.
Skyscanner booking air tickets.
Dropbox document storing and sharing.
VR+ audio recording and sharing.
Mandy Pearse is director of Seashell Communications.
