As Flurry reported last year, the amount of device activations skyrockets on Christmas day (for obvious reasons). Naturally, along with it comes a massive deluge of downloads. In 2012, the total was well over 300 million. Total downloads numbers were up by a huge margin for 2013. In addition, Christmas day device activations tend to favor tablets. While the ordinary split is about 80% smartphones, 20% tablets, on Christmas Day, the split is about 50/50.

According to recent data from Branding Brand regarding Thanksgiving and Black Friday sales, about a third of all e-commerce traffic over the holiday came from smartphones. While this may not sound like a lot, the year-over-year gains are what we found most striking. Smartphone sales are skyrocketing, and are on pace to dominate the market in the very near future. Consider some of the Black Friday increases on smartphone-optimized sites from last year to this year: • Visits were up 76% • Views were up 88% • Average order value was up 22% • Mobile sales increased 187%

We’ve gotten an interesting look into the plans of small business owners for the holidays and the coming year. The findings show where small businesses plan to focus their efforts, and also show what strategies are expected to become more popular in the coming year.

2013 was the year that mobile reached the tipping point in terms of digital marketing priority for small businesses. Strategies targeted towards desktop users are still quite relevant, but new initiatives should now ideally be “mobile first.” The continued migration of users to mobile devices shows no signs of stopping, and the trend lines show that the future of digital marketing will be mainly mobile. Accordingly, here are five safe, non-controversial predictions about things to watch and take advantage of in the increasingly mobile world of 2014.

Orders may still be coming in through the phone, but with the popularity of online ordering increasing every day, the moments is fast approaching where most customers will expect to be able to submit orders without having to talk to anyone. If that isn’t reason enough to begin taking advantage of one of the fastest-growing opportunities in the restaurant industry, here are five more arguments for “going mobile:”

What is MOBe? Mobile Optimization & Better Experience for your customers. MOBe is a physical code that will allow you to deliver dynamic content to your mobile clients. With a single code you will be able to deliver Time Lapse Photography, 360-degree virtual tours, videos, and any other web enables services in minutes. Scan-Engage-Deliver!

Mobile strategies? What are you talking about? My “mobile strategy” so far is to ignore mobile devices and hope they go away. They’re going away soon, aren’t they? Nope. Not by a long shot. In fact, in many ways, they are replacing desktops entirely. And for the first time in history, a majority of all Internet activity this year is expected to come from mobile devices. Indeed, many of the most popular apps and web companies are now reporting that most of their users are connecting via mobile devices. And this trend shows no signs of slowing down as the capabilities of mobile devices continue to increase. So, what do small businesses need to know to stay competitive going forward? Below are five clear trends that each small business owner should keep in mind when charting a course through an increasingly mobile world.

If you haven’t been sending out push notifications from your business’s app, you’re missing out on one of the most effective ways to get users actually using your app. A push notification is a message that a user gets on the home screen of their mobile device. Push notifications emanate from apps, and can be turned on or off at a user’s request. They sound simple and boring, but get this: it has been reported that push notifications can lead to: • A 540% increase in daily app opens, • A 30% increase in social sharing, and • A 20% percent increase in mobile orders.