If you are the owner of a smartphone, chances are you have at least 10 apps on your home- screen that have become an integral part of your daily life, and why shouldn’t you? These days, mobile apps have become so advanced that humans can do most adulting right from their phone, like mobile banking (I LOVE the Wells Fargo app). I recently discovered only a year ago that you can actually deposit a check on the app just by taking a photo.
Another app that I personally can’t live without is the Weather app, ‘cause even though I live in sunny Southern California where every day is usually 75 degrees with clear skies, a girl can hope for rain cloud every once in a while.
Although there are thousands and thousands of apps out there, many of them fall under the same ‘genre’ if you will, such as: food delivery apps, banking apps, games, retail apps, etc. I wanted to find out if there was a common theme to the specific types of apps that people prefer to use and why by taking a poll in the office and doing some online investigating.
First, I asked the GC team to tell me their favorite social media app, and the majority of the office said Instagram.
Sarah: Instagram, because I like staying up to date on what my friends are up to and news in general. I think looking at things from the perspective of others is great as well. I’ve always been big on taking and seeing beautiful pictures. Instagram has that balance of both pictures and videos. Plus, you get to make cool stories of your trips!
Drea: Instagram because I love staying updated with people I know through stories.
Marshall: My favorite social media app has to be Instagram! Instagram is the best because it is image focused. Whether it’s my personal page or my work page (follow @iheartoldtowneorange), it is great to share updates with friends and family by showing them what you’re up to, not just telling them! I can get lost on the explore page for longer than I’d like to admit.
Ryan: Instagram and YouTube, because the visual nature of these apps makes them the most entertaining.
Kelly: My favorite is Instagram. I spend more time on Instagram stories than on the news feed, but I love getting a visual/live snapshot of people’s lives. Definitely more of a creative space.
According to Forbes.com, as of last year, Instagram has over 500 million active users and is in the top three most popular social media platforms. So, why do we love Instagram so much? The GC team mentioned staying connected through stories and visuals as their main reasons for loving the app. In the Forbes article, it says that “Human beings prefer to gather and interpret information through sight, which is why visual marketing has become so popular in recent years. Instagram appeals to that visual nature. Nearly the entire newsfeed is occupied by the horizontal span of images, and since they’re all reduced to the same square format, it gives a certain level of formality to the experience.”
The article also mentions that Instagram is so popular because of its mobile functionality – it allows users to capture moments on the go (SO TRUE!). I love being able to capture a sunset, a concert, or something I’m watching and share it with everyone instantly. All of these points are important to consider when marketing your brand as well, it’s simple and quick to post about what you are up to…and people love looking at photos
Just for fun, the second question I asked the GC team was to tell me their favorite personal apps. I found a cool similarity that popped up:
Paulina: The New York Times Crossword App. I like crosswords even though I’m terrible at them.
Ryan: Word Crossy, an addictive word jumbler game.
Sarah: Words with Friends. I get to learn a new word a day and play scrabble. It’s the best of both worlds. It’s the app that I’m on the second most after Instagram.
Since being a wordsmith is my profession, I’m going to jump on the bandwagon and say I love a good word game app, and it seems like most of the team agrees when it comes to using an app purely just for fun. There’s nothing better than the challenge of unscrambling words and competing with others to get the highest score. If you’re into word games, check out some of the ones mentioned above!
My final question to the team was what work apps they love using the most. We use a lot of different apps as part of our workflow here at Get Community, and everyone seemed to have a similar opinion on what is the most useful/helpful in the workplace:
Paulina: Slack! There are quite a few instant messaging apps, but the ability to integrate Slack with different programs makes it much more streamlined for work. The channels make it easier to follow themes of conversation and talk to a lot of people at once.
Drea: The Whitney Ranch and Mountain House apps of course (because we created those, haha!) but Slack would also have to be my favorite.
Ryan: Slack.
Kelly: Going to have to go with Slack for work. It allows me to stay in the know no matter where I am and it’s super easy to communicate with teams on projects from anywhere.
I found a great article by www.chanty.com that says, “Without an effective communication, we cannot have a good relationship in both our professional and personal life. If you are not well connected with the team, it becomes a challenge to get collaborative ideas at work. A meaningful, two-way communication will develop a positive relationship with a team and give an understanding of the picture other team members want you to see.”
I think we can all agree that being able to quickly and efficiently communicate with team members in the workplace is KEY to making everything flow smoothly. Having a messaging app like Slack is awesome because, as Paulina said, we can create multiple threads of conversation and keep our thoughts and ideas controlled for different projects. And, as Kelly said, it’s a simpler, practical way to send a quick ping! to someone about a project then the formality of writing an email.
If your team thrives on bouncing off ideas to each other in an effortless, timely fashion like ours does, Slack should DEFINITELY be integrated into your workflow. And, just for the record and according to www.business.com, last year Slack was dubbed the #2 most effective internal communications app.
We hope that some of our favorite apps can help make your workspace (and personal space) even more successful and fun! If you know of any other cool, exciting, genius apps you’d like to share with us, tell us the comments below!