Mobile Content consumption from a rotary phone?Mobile content consumption is growing explosively worldwide. Mobile device users continue demanding increased written, audio, video and multimedia content.
Never before in this century has a communications medium raised the information and entertainment bar. Mobolites want mobile content of all sorts, and print, broadcast and cable aren’t providing it.
But traditional media sources are trying their best to enter the Internet/mobile arena, a place where consumers create and desire content made for smartphones, tablets, and hybrids. It’s like American Idol. Millions of people vote for their favorites.
It’s not that people don’t want to watch television, listen to radio or read magazines. They do in large numbers. But mobile users of all ages are heading online expecting to find a better experience, greater engagement with sports, news, weather, music, books, magazines and media yet to come.
It’s mobile media, which is and which will far out shadow “multimedia,” whatever that means. Perhaps mobile and multimedia will morph into “cross-media,” a place in time and space that takes you from listening to Pandora on your smartphone to an article about a music artist in Slate to a Yelp review of that musician’s favorite vacation spot. Mobile content consumption is integrative, combining new and innovative ways to experience life.
Mobile devices have become like blue whales and other animals who must constantly eat or die due to their high metabolism. Try taking away someone’s smartphone or tablet today and prepare for a fight. Mobile users are addicted to communicating and receiving content from friends, social network sites, and mobile publishers.
Mobile Content Consumption: Personal, Private, and Shared Experiences
One blogger wrote in 2006 before the age of smartphones, apps, 4G and social networks:
The personal nature of the information that is transmitted, received and stored in the heart of the mobile phone profoundly alters our relationship with mobile technology. The association of the phone with intensely private communications has helped imbue the device with a sense of intimacy.”
This intimacy extends from social networking to mobile marketing. Creating this intimacy is the key to increasing mobile content consumption of blogs, social networks, forums and chat rooms. It’s Google glasses and Pebble Watches.
As many MobileBeyond podcast guests have pointed out, there’s little difference between business and consumer mobile content users. Experts point out that every person–whether an IT Manager or Facebook user–consumes mobile content. It’s only the nature of the content that changes. And, in most cases, business users are the same as consumer users. They’re engaging in social media sites and watching YouTube videos just as much as any mobile device user.
Solving Your Mobile Content Needs
Companies today must address consumers’ mobile content consumption needs. If they’re not reading your blog (do you have one?), they’re reading your competitors’ blogs and content.
Suggestions for Engaging Web Readers:
- Make sure your blog or website is viewable on mobile devices. Helpful sources are GTMetrix and WebPageTest. You can test the download speed of any of your blog or website’s desktop and mobile pages on these two remarkable and free sites. GTMetrix, in particular, gives specific suggestions to WordPress users how to improve both desktop and mobile site speed which will increase mobile content consumption.
- Make sure readers engage with your mobile content. Write friendly and understandable posts and articles of interest to your readers.
- Consider adding audio, video or multimedia to your site. Always measure how content affects your download speed within the U.S. and globally. Investigate Google PageSpeed, MaxCDN or other content delivery networks to accelerate your website’s page download speed. As your download speed increases, mobile content consumption will follow. Most Web users today will only wait 2-3 seconds for a page to download before leaving your site. Mobile page responsiveness is key to getting and keeping viewers.
- Use Google Analytics, Facebook and other stats to measure mobile content interest. Remember that 60% of Facebook users access Facebook using mobile phones.
- Some Facebook and other social networking site users have restricted their mobile content consumption because of privacy concerns. Address these issues with your mobile Web users. Create a dialog and encourage feedback.
- Use your web hosting company’s malware tools or subscribe to other services. Mobile phone malware and mobile security, as people turn from PC’s to mobile devices, are becoming big issues.
If you need help, MobileBeyond offers content creation , Facebook and Twitter page set-up as well as WordPress website services. See our services page.