Social Media Marketing for Business

Mobile devices are quickly taking over as the preferred medium. What has your business been doing to take advantage of this trend? Read on to find out why 2014 may be your last chance to get the jump on mobile optimization.

Have you heard all the talk about “going mobile” and making sure you are “mobile optimized?” Chances are that you have, but if you haven’t, don’t worry, I’m going to tell you all about it.

For those of you that know about mobile optimization but still haven’t taken advantage of it for whatever reason, you don’t have to worry either, there’s still time to get ahead of the game.

I wouldn’t wait too long though – 2014 may be the year you have to go mobile optimized with your content, or get left out in the cold.

KPCB, a venture capital firm whose investments include the likes of Amazon, Electronic Arts, and Google, recently released a report  on current internet trends. The report has a treasure trove of data that seems to indicate a mobile takeover.

We know time is important to you, so we’ve sifted through the 164 page report here at Heyo and extracted some of data we felt would be most important to you.

What is Mobile Optimization?

Not sure exactly what mobile optimized means? That’s quite alright – most people don’t – though chances are you’ve encountered the benefits of a mobile optimized site without realizing that’s what you were experiencing.

A mobile optimized website is simply a site that is designed to look great on the small screens of phones by taking on a single column appearance with simplified navigation to include larger text, buttons, and images.

Have you ever visited a website on your phone only to be presented with miniature text and images? You had to zoom in and out, scroll left and right, and probably got lost on some distant corner of the page. Yeah, that’s not mobile optimized, and an increasing number of users are shying away from that experience in favor a mobile optimized one that is much, much better.

Below is an example of an application that has been mobile optimized.

Heyo Mobile Optimized Campaign

So now that we all know what mobile optimization is, let’s take a look at some trends that show just how important mobile.

1. Mobile Usage is Skyrocketing

The amount of people using their phones to access the web on a regular basis is skyrocketing. As a global trend, the percentage of web traffic coming from mobile phones has nearly doubled since last year, going from 14% to 25%. That means one in every four page visits is coming from a mobile phone.

If your site isn’t mobile optimized, you’re going to miss out on an opportunity to take advantage of all those clicks. Mobile users will recall their forays into various sites and quickly pick up on which ones are serving up a mobile optimized experience versus the one’s that aren’t.

If 25% of total web usage isn’t enough to compel you to optimize your mobile content, perhaps 50% will, as that’s likely to be the number surpassed in 2015.

The increasing number of mobile devices finding their way into the hands of people is staggering.

Does the graph below remind you of any particular laws involving computers? It appears to almost be a direct reflection of Moore’s Law! Just picture another graph below the X-Axis that shows computer hardware getting smaller and smaller at a similar exponential rate.

Of course, where there are billions of people using mobile devices at an accelerating rate, there is opportunity.

2. There’s a $30B Opportunity on Mobile

The mobile market has grown so fast that businesses are still playing catch up in the ad spending department. As busy eyes spend more time glued to mobile devices, a giant opportunity to earn revenue has emerged and is still waiting to be taken full advantage of.

It would appear that old habits die hard as the traditional means of spending on advertising still outweigh mobile by a landslide, especially when balancing that against time spent in the medium. You can bet that discrepancy won’t last for long as the vacuum of that 30 billion dollar opportunity will soon fill itself.

3. Engagement is Higher with Mobile

When it comes to internet traffic, Facebook is king of referrals with an estimated 21% of the distribution followed by Pinterest at 7% and Twitter at 1% (per Shareaholic 3/14). Having a presence on social media is a must for engaging your customers and driving traffic to your websites. Take a look at the news publishers grabbing the largest piece of the pie.

Social media plays an important role in mobile device usage and that role is amplified when combined with other mediums.

As mobile usage increases, so does the time it shares with traditional mediums like the television. 84% of mobile owners used their devices while watching TV, a number that has doubled over the last two years.

What do users do with their devices while watching TV? Surfing, shopping, checking sports scores, and looking up actors are some of the top activities but the most important thing to draw from this is that these are all opportunities to engage them.

The more devices a user owns, the higher their engagement is. They spend more time overall watching and engaging for every device they own and they often use these devices in tandem.

With people spending so much time on their multiple devices, there is an opportunity to deliver more content in even less time. Simply put, a person who owns a TV, PC, Phone, and tablet is going to engage media at a much higher rate than someone who just watches a television.

The use of to television and social media together has been shown to boost ad impact. In KPCB’s report, those ads that made use of Twitter in tandem with their television presence saw higher rates of recall, favorability, and purchase intent than those ads that did not take advantage of the engaging combination.

Are You Convinced?

It can’t be ignored – mobile is the future. And 2014 just might be the last chance you have to get on the train – so don’t wait! If you’re looking to launch a mobile optimized campaign that will drive engagement, email captures, and sales, click here to sign up, and we’ll show you how to launch one that converts at 10% or higher.

Tell us what you think and we may quote you in a future article:

Are you already mobile optimized or planning to be? Or are you not buying all the mobile optimized hype? What are your experiences with mobile optimized content versus non-mobile optimized? Please share your thoughts and comments below.

Meet Brooks Tiffany

Brooks Tiffany is the Customer Engagement Leader and Technical Writer at Heyo in Blacksburg, VA. He's an Air Force veteran with a B.A. in English from Virginia Tech. He'll start pursuing an M.S. in Human Centered Design and Enginnering at the University of Washington this Fall.