Category Archives: Blog

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How to Improve Churn Rate – Part 2

Welcome to part two of this series on reducing churn rate. Let’s jump right into a few methods for keeping customer retention high and making sure no one is jumping ship!

Shamelessly One-Up

Savvy businessmen and women know that keeping an eye on the competition is key, and nowhere is this more important than in customer acquisition and churn rate assessments. Take time out of every day, week, or month – depending on the cycle time and speed of your market – to research what your competitors have been up to. Are they doing something that you aren’t? If so, is it something that you, as a customer, would want and benefit from? Be honest here. If the answer is “yes,” think about how you could not only implement something similar, but how you could improve on it.

This is simply part of the process of continuously adding value to a business, and keeping an eye on competition helps you to gauge the rate at which you should be doing so. Rather than trying to slowly dole out new goodies to your customers, challenge yourself to give away new value as it comes about in real time. This also means that you won’t be able to rest on your laurels, and will have to constantly innovate in order to have bigger and better offers for your customers. Seem like tough work? It is – and it’s also how industry leaders get to the top.

Get Personal, Don’t Automate

Automation is one of the trickiest things to master when your business begins to grow. You want to be able to manage everything at once, but losing the personal touch you may have begun with can be detrimental to your relationship with leads and customers.

As a rule of thumb, it’s ok to automate, but don’t fake it. This means that things like post-purchase emails, etc. can be automated, and are expected to be. By the same token, don’t fake communications so that they are automated but are actually canned, pre-written, and going out to 5,000 people.

For example, let’s say you write an email for your list to announce a new offer. Don’t use silly name tagging to fake personalization. People see straight through that, and it is (rightfully) perceived as phony. People understand that they are part of a mailing list, so don’t try to convince them otherwise.

If they write to you, however, respond personally. If that becomes logistically impossible, then make it clear that a support team is the one helping to field questions and concerns. Also, keep in mind that “impossible” should mean something different to you as an entrepreneur. You should be a time management ninja, and also realize that your work day might be 10 12, or 16 hours, not eight.

Ride the Wave, Don’t Chase It

Even more important than watching the competition is to keep your finger on the pulse of your industry and the context within which it exists. Recently, Facebook noticed (and has helped champion) the bringing of rudimentary mobile internet to new countries that have never had such services. The company launched a stripped-down, Facebook Lite app to better accommodate these low-bandwidth markets. As soon as new mobile plans hit these countries, Facebook will be one of the first apps available.

Be the Facebook of your industry. Sound like big shoes to fill? They are! But the point is that you should be looking to ride along with new trends as they crest, and leave everyone else to chase after you. That is, of course, the mark of an industry leader after all, isn’t it?

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The 2 Social Media Sites That You Aren’t Taking Advantage of In Your Business

Social media apps and sites popup with alarming frequency. Also alarming, is the rate at which these platforms seem to overtake each other in traffic and popularity. While you can’t go wrong growing your influence at the top of the food chain where a couple of massive entities still dominate, you can sure as heck get innovative and ride the wave on newer trends to quickly become a standout resource for potential followers. With that in mind, here are a couple of platforms most marketers aren’t taking adequate advantage of.

Pinterest – Pinterest is the iceberg of social media platforms: Unless you’ve spent some time exploring, it might seem like not that much is going on over there, but you’d be dead wrong. When measured in monthly unique visitors, Pinterest is actually the 4th most visited social network on the English-speaking planet; it trails only Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Yep, it even beats out heavyweights like Tumblr and Instagram.

The nature of Pinterest, which is all about quickly sharing images, whether original or curated, makes it such a great opportunity for brands. On Pinterest, “boards” can be created within a theme, so a board may consist of “nature scenes,” for example. Your business can take advantage of this unique tagging system, no matter what niche you’re in, and grant itself massive exposure. Let’s say you were working with an offline client who was a construction contractor, for example. You could create an account for them and start adding images of their stellar work to boards on houses, architecture, even remodeling. And, yes, those all exist.

With unique monthly hits in the hundreds of millions per month, don’t pass up on this opportunity to turn your brand, site, or niche expertise into a visual, sharable commodity.

Periscope – “Peri-what?!” you might say (especially if you’re not on the cutting edge of social media already). Periscope is a new app that allows individuals to livestream what their phone camera is seeing to the internet. In turn, users can follow their stream and comment and chat in real time. The concept of livestreaming is years old, but Periscope seem to have finally been able to popularize it on mobile. Since that’s where most people are spending their time these days anyways, it’s started to really take off.

The whole point of Periscope is to teleport users to another location, lifestyle, or adventure. Savvy social media marketers have taken to announcing that the most interesting parts of their day will be streamed – and you’d be surprised at what really seems to hit home for people! Make a live Q&A session happen during your lunch break, show off your daily work ritual that really gets you in the zone. Even if the majority of your day involves sitting at a computer, you can find a way to deliver some livestreamed value to people out there who are in the same boat or who are trying to follow in your footsteps.

Of course, these are far from the only social hangouts you should be working on, but they’re good places to start. Depending on the needs and demographics of your niche, you may also find certain platforms make a lot more sense for content presentation, so don’t be afraid to deviate when it makes sense.

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Redeveloping the Headline – How to Generate and Narrow Down Headline Ideas

Ever wondered how professional copywriters, ad agency creatives, and online marketers arrive at killer headlines that draw readers in and have them pulling out their wallets like nobody’s business? Wonder no more, because today, we’ll be taking a look at exactly how many of those headlines come to be.

The Process

One of the things that too many people don’t understand about headline writing is that it is a process. Just like anything else worth doing for your business, proper headline writing takes up time and concerted effort. The misconception that time spent on headlines should be relatively smaller compared to, say, the time spent to write a sales letter, is probably rooted in the fact that the final product where headlines are concerned is fairly small.

A small final product doesn’t mean a small effort, however. The next time you’re writing a headline for your email, sales letter, or even just your next blog post, try this:

Sit and write 25 to 50 headlines. Don’t stop until you’re there. How do you come up with so many ideas? Go bigger than you think you can, go more ridiculous than you think you can. In this initial phase, we’re too often already wearing blinders and filtering out ideas that could be developed later on if we gave them a chance.

Even if any idea seems too risque, “out there,” or bold, jot it down to get the juices flowing. A big mistake many people make when trying to write their own headline copy is that they don’t actually write ideas down unless they think they’re “good enough.” Most people aren’t able to visualize in our heads as well as we can do on a piece of paper, and you’re doing yourself a disservice by not letting the process take its course out in the open.

Once you’ve got your ideas on paper, go through the list one by one and ask yourself if there are other directions you can go with it (variations, slight changes, etc.), or if the idea just wasn’t up to snuff and needs to be eliminated. In this stage, you’ll drop out the weaklings while simultaneously developing your stronger ideas.

When working on variations and trying to pick out your top contenders, here are a couple of things to keep in mind:

– People generally buy on emotion: things like love & acceptance, the want for wealth and popularity, etc. are almost always elements of a successful headline. Don’t hesitate to push a bit with your headline, oftentimes a (not-too-misleading) shock means that people will stop and read.

– The age-old trick about including numbers of tips, tricks, and steps into a headline holds true. People like things that sound logical, specific, and easy, so “3 easy steps to eliminating acne at home” is likely to perform better than “Here’s how to eliminate acne at home!”

Finally, your overall champion of a headline, once you’ve narrowed it down to 2-5, will probably not be able to be determined by intuition alone, especially not without experience, so get ready to split test, split test some more, and then split test again.

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5 Ways to Increase Click-Through Rates with Killer Meta Descriptions

You can increase traffic to your website in one of two ways. The first is to improve your page rankings on the search engine results for your keywords. The second is to improve your click-through-rate (CTR).

Most Internet marketers focus on the first approach. But improving CTR can provide you with huge results, especially since it’s so easy to do.

Over the years, I’ve discovered dozens of effective ways to increase CTR, some of which yield better results than others. Here are the seven that are easy and provide huge results very quickly:

 

1. Copy Off Other People

While this technique may have been frowned upon in high school, it should be standard operating procedure for successful internet marketers.

A lot of online marketers are allergic to the idea of paying for traffic. But that doesn’t mean that you don’t have anything to learn from the people who do buy paid ads.

The truth is that people who pay for traffic spend a lot of time and money testing their ads to make sure they get the optimal results. The result is ads that already are fully optimized.

All you need to do is swoop in and steal their optimized copy and use it as your own.

In fact, because Google Ads are limited to the number of characters they can contain, it’s a safe bet that the keywords paid marketers include are the ones that perform best and get the most conversions.

 

2. Copy from Non-Paying Competitors

As long as you are stealing your competitors’ best ideas, why stop there? You also can take the copy from the most successful competitors who use organic SEO strategies.

Look to see which keywords and phrases they are using. What benefits or features do they highlight? Then take them for your own and use them within your copy.

This isn’t stealing. It’s known as “not reinventing the wheel”.

 

3. Tickle Your Customer’s Curiosity

Curiosity may have killed the cat, but it also caused billions of web users to click through on links because they were dying to find out what happened next.

In fact, this is a strategy you see all the time on social media sites such as Facebook. Marketers will post something like, “A Woman in Texas Stopped to Give a Dollar to a Homeless Man on the Street. You’ll Never Guess What Happened Next … Wow!”

This may be an overused trope, but it’s overused because it works like magic. Try other clickbait phrases in your meta descriptions like this to exploit people natural curiosity. Other phrases include:

– “Find Out How …”

– “What You Do If … “

– “Discover the Amazing Way …”

– “Have You Ever Wondered What Would Happen If …”

 

4. ‘Features Tell, but Benefits Sell …’

This is a phrase that is as old as advertising itself. People aren’t interested in the facts and statistics about what they are buying. What they really want to know is what it can do to make their life better. Explain that and you can sell practically anything to anybody.

Start your ads with benefits. Features like how much something weighs, how big it is, how long it lasts, and so on, should only be included if they drive the story you are trying to tell. If they don’t, leave them out.

In your meta descriptions, include benefits phrases like “Make More Money by …” or “Lose Weight and Feel Great with …”

 

5. People Love Numbers

Getting clicks is easier when you use numbers in your meta descriptions. That’s because people believe something is more factual if you qualify it with real number.

For example, which would you be more likely to click on?:

– Learn How to Improve Your Click-Through Rate

– 5 Ways to Increase Click-Through Rates with Killer Meta Descriptions

Considering you already are reading this, I think you just answered the question!

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Give Before You Take – A Brief Exploration of Value in Internet Marketing

Most anyone reading this is going to be familiar, at least in some abstract way, with the concept of “value.” The concept of value, or utility derived from content, products, or other offerings, is not unique to IM, however, and those working across a variety of markets, both online and offline, have to be keenly aware of the ways in which their value is perceived by customers. In this post, we’re going to go over the importance of balancing your ‘give’ with your ‘take’, and a few ways in which you can maintain that balance when working with IM clients.

 

The Why

Basic economics courses teach students that most people make their purchasing decisions based on a concept called ‘utility cost’; whenever someone is deciding whether or not to purchase an item or make a trade, they weigh whether the utility of what they will receive is greater than the utility of what they already have. Most commonly, this is the often quick and (nearly) subconscious assessment you would make as to whether an item is “too expensive” or seems like a “good deal.”

 

In online marketing, your customers make these decisions several times throughout your sales funnel:

– Is the freebie being offered worth more to me than the potential privacy giveaway and possible unwanted messages that entering my email could incur?

– Is the information this person posts on their site helpful enough to me that it’s worth taking ten minutes out of my day to read?

– Do I trust this person enough to take their recommendation that what they’re offering is worth my hard-earned money?

For many marketers, the second and third bullet points are where they lose people.

 

The Mindset Swap

Even though your end goal may be to make as much money as possible, your customer always wants to feel like they’ve “won.” In most IM-related instances, this means feeling like they’ve gotten the promise of greater future value from a product, tool, or training/coaching course than what they paid for it. However, there is another crucial evaluation that happens long before they’ll ever get close to purchasing, and that’s value-based-trust.

I recommend marketers practice a mindset swap, which involves taking the focus off of their bottom line and simply becoming a customer. Read every offer you’ve got, every promotional email, every review, and ask yourself, does this feel valuable? You are not smarter than your customers; if you know deep down that something you’re offering feels like a half-solution or copout, they’ll pick up on it too.

Most marketers, both experienced and novice, have a sales funnel riddled with these holes where offers feel like they’re doing more for the seller than the (potential) buyer. Remember, when perceived utility of an offer is viewed as a loss, people aren’t going to bite.

 

Actually Over-Deliver

Many of these low-value gaps occur because marketers are afraid of giving away ‘the whole solution’, system, or secret. Why then, you might ask, would someone make a purchase if they feel they’ve already been given the solution to their problems? It is a tricky balance, but too many err on the wrong side of the scale and come across as withholding value from their customers.

It shouldn’t be surprising that customers are often more likely to purchase after they have already had success with your methods and recommendations, and you offer them up a paid product that complements that success, rather than offering them a tiny piece of the puzzle with what they need to see any positive results locked behind a paywall. Which scenario do you think is more likely to foster an ongoing, positive relationship with a new customer? An opt-in freebie that gives visitors a complete system to make $1,000 per month, which you then upsell to a different version with larger earning potential later on, or just offering them the first page of the main system right off the bat, which essentially renders it useless to them and gives them nothing they can act on immediately?

The former has a high chance of resulting in a lifelong customer, the latter might just tick someone off and see them opting out of your email list as fast as possible.

The point? Give before you ever ask to take, work from the customer’s shoes, and always over-deliver.

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5 Quick and Easy Ways to Ruin Your Blog’s Credibility

Blogs are becoming one of the fastest-growing ways for people with common interests to share information, ask questions, and dig deeper into their passion subjects. They also are increasingly being used by companies to build stronger relationships with their customers.

But whether you are publishing your own special interest blog or writing a blog for your corporate masters, your objective needs to be to attract and hold onto the largest possible reader base.

Sounds simple enough, right? Yet thousands of bloggers routinely shoot themselves in the foot by making stupid mistakes that could easily be avoided.

Here are the top five ways many bloggers inadvertently ruin their credibility and turn off readers so they never return:

 

1. Talking Too Much about Yourself

This is more of a problem with company-sponsored blogs than with individual bloggers. But the purpose of both types of blogs should be to provide readers with content that consistently informs and educates readers on new and interesting topics.

Blogs should be commercials for products or companies. When you only write about what your company is doing (or about yourself), you are going to turn off a lot of readers, especially if you keep doing it blog after blog.

A better plan is to establish yourself as an industry thought leader and give you readers high-value content. When you do this, you can increase loyalty bonds and keep them coming back for more.

 

2. Shamelessly Hawking Your Products

Unless you are Amazon.com, most people don’t visit your blogs to buy products.

While it’s generally acceptable to include links to affiliate products or to promote products you endorse (and hopefully get a commission from), you can’t be obvious about it. Don’t hit readers over the head with your sales pitch. Educate first and sell subtly.

 

3. Not Selling Enough

Sure, this sounds like it runs counter to the last item, but it actually doesn’t. While you want to provide your readers with high-value content and avoid bludgeoning them with your sales pitch, you also should remember that your blog is there for a reason: To increase interest in your company or subject.

Tie your valuable content back to your brand and include a soft sell to get the message across to your blog’s readers.

 

4. Turning Off the Comments Section

Some companies are so concerned about their online reputation that they try to manage the way they are portrayed on their own blog by not allowing comments. Big mistake.

Not allowing comments doesn’t encourage readers to engage with your content. It sends the message that you don’t care what they have to say, that you don’t value their opinions.

While there may be some (minimal) risk that somebody is going to post something critical and that it will be read by other readers before you can get rid of it, if you properly maintain your comments section on a regular basis you can address any negativity quickly and effectively. In many instances, your best customers are those that had a bad experience that you addressed to their complete satisfaction.

 

5. Being Too Long-Winded

People aren’t clicking on to your blog because they want to read “War and Peace”. Keep your blogs short and information-dense. Providing too much information can make reader weary and wary of future blogs posts.

Remember the old show business adage: Always leave them wanting more!

These five common land mines can destroy the credibility of any blog. Avoid these and you can improve your chances of attracting many new followers, and holding on to your existing ones longer.

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Amazon’s Unmanned Delivery Drones One Step Closer to Lift-Off

Many people in the tech industry can remember exactly where and when they were when they first heard about Amazon’s plans to use unmanned flying drones to deliver products to their customers in as little as 30 minutes from when they were ordered online.

When Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos first unveiled the plan to Charlie Rose on “60 Minutes” in December, 2013, it had the same impact for many as watching the first moon landing, the Challenger explosion, or 9/11. We all knew instantly that everything had changed forever.

 

Future Shock

So far, the 21st Century has been lived up to expectations as far as futuristic developments. Unrestricted mobile access to the Internet has connected us all. Driverless cars are only a few more years away. And big data analysis has allowed governments to spy not only on their enemies, but on all of their own citizens simultaneously.

So perhaps we shouldn’t have been so surprised by Bezos announcement that the world’s largest online retailer (and world’s largest store, for that matter) was developing tiny unmanned helicopters that could transport the books, small appliances and other products we purchased online directly to our doorstep in literally minutes after we clicked the “Buy Now” button.

After the initial “gee whiz” shock of the announcement wore off, next came the naysayers: “The FAA will never let them do it.” “There are too many power lines, phone wires and other detritus for drones to actually work.” “Aren’t those the same type of drones we use to drop bombs on the heads of our enemies?”

 

It’s Finally Happening

The pushback from the Amazon announcement had all but erased the idea from most people’s minds. Until now, that is. Now, it look as if it’s actually happening.

Earlier this month, the FAA granted Amazon a special exemption that allowed the retailer to begin real-time testing of its Prime Air drone fleet of unmanned helicopters.

Despite objections from airlines and agricultural pilots, the FAA gave Amazon Prime Air the green light, stating that the drones posed less safety risk than larger drones used for defense and aerospace purposes. Some observers said that suggests the FAA would be okay with Amazon’s unmanned drone delivery plans, as long as it was limited for the time being in location, site access, two-way communication capabilities, and pilot experience.

 

Pilot Program to Start Right Away

The FAA’s exemption allows Amazon to roll out a pilot program using drones that weigh less than 55 pounds – including the payload – and that travel below speeds of 100 miles per hour. The drones can only be operated at altitudes lower than 400 feet and, for the time being at least, must be within the unaided sight of human controllers at all times.

Although opponents asked that Amazon be limited to using controllers who hold commercial airline pilot license, or at least private pilot licenses, the FAA agreed to allow the online retailer to use controllers who had only recreational or sport pilot certificate, which requires far less training and certification. Controllers also will need to have a valid driver’s license.

The ultimate goal of Amazon is to dispatch squadrons of drones from regional distribution centers located all over the US. Consumers would be able to receive delivery of their orders in 30 minutes or less.

If the program is successful, it could change the face of package delivery permanently. Other retailers would almost certainly follow suit. And soon the low-altitude airways could be filled with unmanned drones flying back and forth overhead like something out of a science fiction movie.

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‘Pin’ a Tweet to the Top of Your Twitter Profile to Attract More Traffic

Do you have a Tweet pinned to the top of your profile on Twitter? Wait, wrong social media network, right?

Not really. Twitter will actually let you “pin” a Tweet to the top of our Twitter stream so that people visiting your page will always see that particular Tweet first, as opposed to the default setup in which your most recent posting appears on top.

What are the benefits of this? Well, first you have more control over what visitors see when they land on our Twitter feed (uh, duh!). But that means that you can create whatever kind of image you want to project, something that can be extremely helpful if you use your Twitter feed primarily to support your other Internet marketing platforms or offers.

There’s also a social benefit. For example, if you want to attract members of the opposite sex or people with similar interests to yours, you can “pin” the most appropriate Tweet so that it’s always present at the top of your page – such as the photo where you appear most buff, or something related to your hobby or interests.

If you use Twitter a lot, not everything you post is going to be something you want to represent who you are to other Twitter users. For example, you may Share something you found funny but that other people might find offensive. Or you could Tweet something off the cuff that could be taken out of context later.

This is something that happens to sports starts and celebrities all the time. Who’s to say you are immune to it, especially if you are prone to “Tweeting under the influence”.

Setting It Up

Setting up the Tweet you want to pin to the top of your Twitter feed is super easy. All you go to the Tweet you want pinned, then click on the “…” icon at the bottom right hand corner. (You probably never noticed this before, did you?) Then all you have to do is simply click on the “Pin to your profile page” option and there you go.

Make sure you pick a Tweet that truly represents the image you want to project. In other words, don’t just arbitrarily pick some Tweet you think is pretty funny or an okay picture of you. Remember, you only get one chance to make a good impression. Twitter is worldwide and your profile could potentially be visited by thousands of different people, so you want to make sure you get it right the first time.

And if you don’t, well, you can always change it later anytime you want!

The Downside

The biggest drawback to this is the pinned Tweets on your profile can’t be seen by people who access the social media site from their smart phones. And, let’s face it, Twitter and mobile phones were made for each other. When was the last time you accessed Twitter from your PC or laptop? It was probably at least a couple of years ago.

So will posting your best Tweet to the top of your Twitter profile actually make a difference? Let’s put it this way: It couldn’t hurt. You can’t control how people what kind of devices people use to access your Twitter profile. If someone does happen to stumble upon (oops! Wrong site again) your Twitter feed from their laptop or PC and they do happen to like your great Tweet enough to re-Tweet it, well, then that’s bonus!

The bottom line is that if you want to increase your popularity on Twitter and do a better job of managing your reputation, why not pin the best Tweet possible to the top of your profile?

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Ways to Create Fresh Content to Keep Visitors Coming Back for More

Creating new content is critical to the success of your web pages, but let’s face it: It’s also a pain in the butt.

It often seems like you’ve already said everything you want to say about your blog or website’s subject matter. Yet if you don’t provide a constant stream of fresh, engaging content, you risk alienating your regular visitors and you could stop attracting new fans.

‘Refresh’ Your Pages with Engaging Content

Here’s some easy ways to keep your blog or website engaging and interesting to new fans and loyal return visitors:

– Engaging Content Is Critical – This is something you hear a lot, but what does it really mean? Engaging content can mean any number of things, such as a lively debate about a controversial subject relating to your niche to reviews of the latest news. It could mean stories from your own real life or somebody else’s that are relevant to your subject matter.

Developing engaging content is something that should come organically to you. If you are the author of a popular blog or website, you probably already are constantly on the lookout for articles, images and other content you think your readers might find interesting. But you don’t always have to give your readers long blocks of text. In fact, it’s probably better if you don’t.

Infographics are one of the hottest types of engaging content being used online right now. These are images that present information both textually and with engaging graphics. The purpose of infographics is to make your content easier to be absorbed by your visitors.

Videos are another great type of engaging content, especially if you don’t usually post videos of yourself. If your readers have following your blog for a long time and then suddenly, BOOM!, there’s a video of you in your own home or office, it can be like: Mind. Blown.

– Put Your Visitors First – The most successful sites make their readers the blog or website owners’ top priority. This pays off because when visitors feel valued, they are much more likely to come back another time.

Did you ever read a blog or website and think, “Boy, this person is such a know-it-all?” How did that make you feel? Now compare that to a blog or website where the author is actively responding to visitors’ questions, sharing stories about interactions with fans, and inviting visitors to share their stories or tips as they are relevant to the blog’s subject matter. Big difference. Much more inviting.

– Mix It Up A Little –If you’ve been using the same theme since the first day of your blog or website, or always use the default layout, it may be comfortable for you but it can be a real turnoff for your visitors. People like it when you shake things up every once in a while.

Think about the way Google will change their home search page for special holidays or just for fun. You can do the same thing with your blog or website to make it more engaging for your visitors. At the very least, change your theme to reflect the season, such as having a snowy background in winter, a sunny one in summer, and so on.

Okay, these techniques of enhancing the users’ experience when they arrive on your pages may take a little time or effort on your part. But they will pay off royally when you build your subscriber list and start attracting hundreds of new visitors every day. See for yourself!

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Cool New Android Apps to Check Out on Google Play?

I don’t know about you, but I download a lot of apps – mostly free but some are paid. Periodically, I have to go through and clean out my iPad and other devices because I have so many apps it’s sometimes hard for me to navigate through them all. Plus, they slow down my mobile operating
system.

Anyway, the other day I was cleaning out those apps I never use anymore and I was left with a core group of relatively new apps that I find myself going back to time and time again.

Here then – in no particular order — is my list of the coolest new Android apps that I use all the time. Incidentally, all of them are currently available on Google Play:

Tribesports

This is the year that everybody is rolling out a fitness app. From FitBit to iPhone’s Moves, tech companies suddenly think we all want to know how many steps we take per day and whether or not we should eat that last maple cruller in the Dunkin’ Donuts box (Spoiler Alert: You shouldn’t!).

Tribesports is Android’s new fitness tracking app that comes complete with a GPS tracker. It’s pretty much the same as most of the other fitness apps available today, but it’s still pretty cool. It logs how far you’ve run, walked or cycled. It keeps track of the fitness classes or sporting events you participated in. And it even gives real-time stats and can chart your progress (or in my case, lack of it) in handy, neat looking graphs.

This app comes with thousands of workouts that other people within the Tribesports community can share online, including detailed instructions about how to do specific exercises, workout plans, diets, and so on.

If you’re looking for a good, reliable fitness app that gives you everything you need to keep your weight loss or fitness plan on track, you should definitely check out Tribesports.

QuizUp

If you are still into Words with Friends, you should know that that app is soooo 2013! Today, trivia is the cool thing to do. And QuizUp lets you match your wits against your friends in trivia smack-downs online from wherever you are. You can even face off in trivia battles against total strangers located all over the world.

This is a really hot app right now. In its first week of release, it was downloaded by more than a million users!

CALCU

You wouldn’t think that an app that served as a pocket calculator would be all that exciting. And, well, maybe it’s not. But it’s one that I use all the time.

Now, I get it, most smart phones come with a calculator built-in. But CALCU performs all the same functions, but also allows you to change to various themes and screen colors. It also lets you look at your calculator tape, or all the calculations that you’ve done historically, which can be pretty handy when you are balancing the checkbook or calculating how much you spent on gas last month (two things I actually just did using CALCU this morning!).

If you want a cool-looking calculator and a whole lot more, CALCU is the app for you. Too bad it doesn’t come with a plastic pocket protector!

Timehop

Did you ever wonder where your Facebook and Instagram friends were getting all those “Throwback Thursday” photos or resurrecting stuff they posted online from years ago? They’re probably using Timehop, an app that collects all of the stuff you posted using your smart phone on Twitter, Instagram and Twitter then replays them for you whenever you want to see them.

It’s like having a little time machine right on your smart phone.

So that’s it, my new favorite Android apps. See you next time I clean out my smart phone screen!