More than half of Facebook users access their accounts from a mobile device. On Twitter, that number is more than 60 percent. The modern world is one people can take with them wherever they go. People want to stay connected and access their lives and their social circles at any time. But the mobile social media experience isn’t the same as it is when sitting in front of a computer. And that’s something that needs to be taken into consideration when designing an effective social media strategy. Here are some tips for marketing in the mobile age.
Make It Bite-Sized. There’s a reason Twitter only allows 140 characters per post. People on mobile media don’t have time to wade through a long tirade or an entire dissertation. They want something they can glance over while waiting in line at the deli. Mobile content needs to get the point across quickly and simply. Links, videos and images are effective in this regard.
Use Multiple Voices. The flip side of bite-sized information is this: though people don’t want to be bogged down by copious amounts of information at once, they do want more options for where and how they can get it. So one way to get more information across in smaller chunks is to use several different accounts, from different people in the company. Each can post with their own unique voice, providing a variety perspectives, while communicating a larger amount of information and reaching a wider audience base. The target audience can choose who they want to follow and the kind of updates they want to receive, effectively customizing their own marketing consumption.
Encourage Interaction. A lot of content is designed for passive consumption: the audience sits and watches a video or reads a blog. But mobile devices are active—more so, even, than regular computers. They’re designed for communication. People text, they make phone calls, even video calls. An effective mobile marketing plan should cater to that. This can be done in any number of ways, from holding contests to encouraging the audience to create and submit their own content such as photos and videos (which can be done directly from their phones), or simply asking a direct question that people can respond to. Hashtags are also useful. A good hashtag is like its own movement on Twitter. The audience is encouraged to use a particular hashtag related to the brand, and the more they do so, the more popular it becomes and the more people use it. With enough audience participation, a hashtag can even go in the sidebar of Twitter’s main page as a trending topic, so that the rest of Twitter can see it as well.
Mobile media is the way of the future. An effective content marketing strategy is one that takes advantage of that. People can be reached anywhere, and anywhere they can be reached, they can be marketed to. It’s just a matter of providing them with an experience that they’ll want to take with them.
