That’s the conclusion of Jinal Shah, a digital strategist at JWT in New York. Shah and her team conducted a quantitative study, zeroing in on anyone 18 years old and above who used a smartphone or tablet to shop during the holiday season. She found several ways in which consumers are using their smartphones to bridge the gap between brick-and-mortar stores and ecommerce. Here are a few:

• Mobile shopping doesn’t equal mobile purchasing. “While browsing is up, mobile shoppers aren’t necessarily using their phones to complete the purchase cycle,” she writes. “In fact, of all the activities for which shoppers use their phones, purchasing is one of the least popular, with price comparison ranking the highest.”
• Men are more likely to consult their phones. “Men are more likely to use mobile devices as in-store companions for all types of shopping activities, from price comparisons to gathering information for a purchase.”
• Mobile devices often trump computers. “The majority of mobile shopping is done in locations where computers are more readily accessible, such as at home and work.”

You can read the rest of her findings at Mashable.

Here are three of my favorite suggestions:

• Provide visual customer stories. Find a way to tell stories—the history of your brand, for example—through images.
• Pin material from key journalists and bloggers. You can drive traffic to them, get noticed and start a relationship.
• Change descriptions with search engine optimization in mind. Change captions that read “This is so cool!” to something like “Extra kitchen storage.”

Here’s one she didn’t mention that’s essential to all media relations:

• Know your audience. Pinterest abounds with people interested in architecture, fashion, travel and photography. There are also a number of teachers and amateur cooks on the site. Match your clients’ offerings to the audience and you’ll capture some attention.

Within the past 30 days, smartphone or cell phone owners said they used their phone to:

• Decide whether to visit a business, such as a restaurant.
• Look up a score of a sporting event.
• Get up-to-the-minute traffic or public transit information to find the fastest way to get somewhere.

“The growing adaptation and functionality of smartphones has made them more entrenched in users’ daily lives,” The Pew center said. “Just-in-time cell users — defined as anyone who has done one or more of the activities above using their phones in the preceding 30 days — now comprise 62% of the adult population.”

Such real-time queries will have implications for organizations from financial services and healthcare institutions to B2C companies that want to reach consumers before they initiate a search.

We used to have luncheons and speeches to feat the troops. Social media has given us a more dispersed and immediate way. Sarasota Memorial in Sarasota, Florida is honoring staff on its Facebook page with tributes and a button to “Thank a nurse.” And the folks at HCA are giving a shout-out to their nurses in a humorous way. Here’s the video posted on the corporate site.

Rounding out the top five were actuary, human resources manager, dental hygienist and financial planner. Rounding out the bottom five were reporter (newspaper), oil rig worker, enlisted military soldier and dairy farmer. I’ve worked as a reporter. CareerCast might be on to something. (For a snapshot see the graphic in the Wall Street Journal.)

Looking at my new profession (writing, marketing and social media strategy), online advertising manager came in at number eight, web developer at 15, public relations executive at 70 and advertising account executive at 98. Authors logged in at 113, just slightly above nuclear decontamination technician (115) on the hit parade. (Maybe the common element is “The Simpsons.”) Others in the allied professions did ever worse: publication editors (118), film and video editors (121), advertising salespersons (136), photographers (147), photojournalists (166) and broadcasters (191).

Ah, glamor.

In an era of 140-character messages, Riley Gibson has written a thoughtful post on why business leaders should master the art of storytelling. (His allusion to Harry Potter is not only contemporary but spot on.) Here are three of his reasons, with a few editorial comments tossed in for effect:

1. Stories are memorable. Stories not only hold people’s attention during the presentation but remain with the person long after the facts have fled.
2. Stories travel further. It’s easy for stories to go viral because we like to tell and hear them.
3. Stories inspire action. That’s because people inspire action. Not presentations or mission statements or strategic plans with gobs of information about monitoring and measurement.

Time to pack the suitcase. Leave the slides at home.

The results were published last week by the Pew Research Center.

“Reversing traditional gender roles, young women now surpass young men in saying that achieving success in a high-paying career or profession is important in their lives,” according to results of a survey released last week by the Pew Research Center. Two-thirds of young women ages 18 to 34 rate career high on their list of life priorities, compared with 59% of young men, Pew reported. That’s a shift from 1997, when 56% of young women and 58% of young men felt the same way.

Pew also reported a rise in the share of middle-aged and older women who say being successful in a high-paying career or profession is important. “Today, about the same share of women and men ages 35 to 64 share this view.”

During a webinar this week Baer listed the right and wrong questions agencies ask about social media. I’m not going to spoil an entrepreneur’s work by divulging all eight but three may convince you that Baer knows whereof he speaks.

• What is the best way to get Facebook “likes” and Twitter follows? A better question is, How can we encourage existing fans to take action in social media?
• How can we create a killer social media campaign that gets noticed? A better question is, How can we develop a sustained, ongoing social strategy that turns customers into advocates over the long run?
• How can we make a viral video that gets thousands of views? A better question: How can we optimize a video so our customers can find it?

His bottom line when marketing via social media? The advice you live by in all of your business dealings: Strive to be helpful.

One in five American adults does not use the Internet, according to the Pew Internet Project, which interviewed 2,260 adults age 18 and older in English and Spanish, by landline and cell phone, in July and August of 2011.

Internet adoption among U.S. adults increased rapidly from the mid-’90s to about 2005.  That means adoption topped out at least a year before the advent of the Great Recession. Since then, the number of adult Internet users has remained stable at around 75 to 80%. The Pew Internet & American Life Project’s latest poll shows that this trend continued in 2011.

Here are the major findings:

• Senior citizens, those who prefer to take interviews in Spanish rather than English, adults with less than a high school education and those living in households earning less than $30,000 per year are the least likely adults to have Internet access.
• Among adults who do not use the Internet, almost half said the main reason they don’t go online is because they don’t think the Internet is relevant to them. Most have never used the Internet before and don’t have anyone in their household who does.
• The 27% of adults living with disability in the United States today are significantly less likely than adults without a disability to go online (54% vs. 81%). That’s a small number, thought. Pew found that only 2% of adults have a disability or illness that makes it more difficult or impossible for them to use the internet at all.

While Internet use has reached saturation among most residents, another trend—the move toward mobile computing—may counteract the former. Pew reports that 88% of American adults have a cell phone, 57% have a laptop, 19% own an e-book reader and 19% have a tablet computer. About six in ten adults (63%) go online wirelessly with one of those devices.

For marketers, that means a deeper dive into data on those subgroups.

Drill, baby, drill.

Here are five tips straight from the latest IRS Tax Tips bulletin.

1. Normally, tax records should be kept for three years.
2. Some documents — such as records relating to a home purchase or sale, stock transactions, IRA and business or rental property — should be kept longer.
3. In most cases, the IRS does not require you to keep records in any special manner. Generally speaking, however, you should keep any and all documents that may have an impact on your federal tax return.
4. Records you should keep include bills, credit card and other receipts, invoices, mileage logs, canceled, imaged or substitute checks, proofs of payment, and any other records to support deductions or credits you claim on your return.
5. For more information on what kinds of records to keep, see IRS Publication 552, Recordkeeping for Individuals, which is available on the IRS website at www.irs.gov or by calling 800-TAX-FORM (800-829-3676).