Why You Need to Care About the Mobile UX of Your Facebook Content
Posted: May 23, 2013 Filed under: Content, Content Marketing, Engagement, Facebook, Mobile, Technology | Tags: content optimization, engagement, engagement rates, facebook, facebook content, mobile, mobile content, mobile facebook, photos, text, video, video content 1 Comment »
I’m going to start with a couple of incredible statistics, though you’ve probably seen them before.
Facebook has roughly 1.06 billion monthly active users (Source: CNET)
Facebook has roughly 680 million mobile monthly active users (Source: CNET)
I’ll do the quick math for you; that’s well over half of Facebook’s monthly active users that are accessing the world’s most popular social media network on their mobile devices.
Why should you care about this?
Well, the fact that over half of all people are going to be consuming your content on mobile devices, should impact the format of content you choose to produce, and be considered when measuring and analyzing the performance of your business’ Facebook updates.
Plain and simple, the user experience (UX) of consuming different formats of content varies on mobile devices versus on a PC. The experience of consuming photos and text, for instance, does not suffer on a mobile device. Video, however, requires a time commitment, strong connection speed, and device processing power that is inconsistent at best on different mobile platforms and networks.
Here are a few things you can do to maximize the UX of consuming your content and considerations that should be made when analyzing performance:
Adjust your content mix to ensure it is mobile-friendly
A bit of a no-brainer, but important none-the-less. We are all well aware that photos tend to garner the highest engagement rates of all content types on Facebook. This is fantastic, as the UX of consuming photo content on mobile devices does not degrade versus consumption on a PC.
Even when planning your photo or image-based content, remember to account for a wide array of mobile devices and screen sizes. Impactful and vibrant photographs that are a standard size will look amazing on most mobile devices, whereas lengthy infographics that requires scrolling for days to view in entirety will be a complete pain to view on most devices.
Don’t overlook the power of text updates
Text-based updates on Facebook aren’t typically thought of as being particularly exciting or effective.
Did you know that text-based updates receive the second highest engagement rates on average of any type of content?
Again, the experience of consuming a text update on a mobile version of Facebook does not degrade versus consuming it on a PC. Consider investing more time and energy in your text-based updates. You’ll be rewarded for your efforts by seeing higher engagement rates from mobile users.
Modify performance expectations for content that isn’t mobile-friendly
A result of so many Facebook users consuming content on mobile devices is that some types of content may appear to underperform – video, being a prime example.
When assessing the performance of your content that isn’t mobile-friendly, it will be worthwhile to modify expectations to account for lower engagement from mobile users.
You can get a sense for the proportion of your audience that may be consuming your content on mobile devices by viewing your Facebook Insights and checking out your ‘Like Sources’ to see how many are from mobile. This certainly isn’t perfect, but it may give you an idea of how many community members are predisposed to checking their Facebook news feeds on non-PC devices.
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As the technological landscape continues to shift, and users consume increasing amounts of content on non-PC devices, it’s will be increasingly important to the success of your social media marketing efforts to cater to these users by optimizing your content to provide a great mobile user experience.
How do you cater to mobile users of Facebook with your content?
Have you noticed higher engagement rates with certain types of content?
Conversely, have you noticed particularly low engagement rates with certain types of content?
It would be awesome to chat with you about this more in the comments, or on Twitter @RGBSocial
3 Links (#4): Blog Posts Worth Checking Out
Posted: December 24, 2012 Filed under: Marketing, Mobile, Pinterest, Social Media Marketing | Tags: 2013, 3 links, marketing, media fragmentation, mobile, pinterest, rgb social, rgbsocial, social media, social media marketing 2 Comments »
Before we get into this, let me wish you a merry Christmas Eve, December 24, day off of work, or whatever you are celebrating today. No matter what it is that you’re celebrating or up to, I hope you’re happy, enjoying the company of those that matter most to you, and staying safe.
This is the fourth installment of 3 Links. Day-to-day I spend a fair bit of time reading other people’s blog content. These are 3 blog posts that I’ve read in the last week or so, that I recommend you read as well:
WE ARE NOW A SOCIETY OF MULTI-TASKERS AND MULTI-SCREENERS
In this article, Brian Solis details the fragmentation of media consumption on digital devices and how they are used sequentially and/or simultaneously. This article is packed full of interesting information and stats.
13 BOLD MARKETING MOVES TO TRY IN 2013
Drew Neisser lists 13 marketing strategies and tactics that could be worth your effort for the New Year. Included in the list are thoughts such as decreasing dependence on Facebook for social marketing, build and nurture your own communities, cull actionable insights from social data mining, and better taking advantage of the natural synergies that exist between events, social media activity and content generation, to list a few.
THE 1 BIG DIFFERENCE BETWEEN HOW MEN AND WOMEN USE PINTEREST
This isn’t an overly long or detailed article, but Jay Baer details the main difference between how women and men use Pinterest. If you use Pinterest as part of your social media marketing efforts, you’ll want to read this article and shift your content strategy accordingly.
Take a read, let me know what you think. If you find these posts to be interesting, valuable or entertaining, I encourage you to leave these bloggers a comment with your thoughts as well.
Have you read anything great that you’d like to share? Please feel free to do so in the comments, or on Twitter @RGBSocial
5 Reasons To Use Foursquare And 3 Compelling Stats
Posted: December 6, 2012 Filed under: Foursquare | Tags: digital marketing, foursquare, mobile, rgb social, rgbsocial, social media, social media marketing Leave a comment »
I’ve been a fan Foursquare for somewhere in the neighbourhood of 3-4 years now. Foursquare is an easy social media platform for consumers to use on a regular basis, can provide great value through the sharing of tips, allows businesses to reward consumers with specials, and is an amazing way to engage people on their mobile devices when they are physically experiencing your brand. Pretty good right!?!
If your business or brand operates out of brick and mortar locations and you’re not using Foursquare, I’d recommend paying more attention to this social media network.
Following are 5 reasons why you should be putting more effort toward your Foursquare presence:
31% of mobile social media users use Foursquare*
A presence on Foursquare will instantly contribute to your mobile presence. If you offer your consumers value through your Foursquare specials, they will reward you with an increased number of check-ins. Check-ins can be seen by users’ social graphs, can be intriguing to those who are unfamiliar with your location, and can attract new consumers, to list a few benefits.
80% of active Foursquare users have acted on another user’s tip*
Activity on Foursquare can directly influence purchase behaviour. Before a consumer enters your doors for the first time they have access to the shared experience and knowledge of all tip-leaving consumers before them. Positive tips will obviously work to your benefit, but make negative tips a positive experience by addressing them head-on, make changes to rectify any issues presented, and work to mitigate repeat negative tips.
More than 66% of active Foursquare users post tips*
Foursquare users are not just checking-in, but many are leaving tips that are essentially micro-reviews. Not only is this demonstrative of a high level of engagement with the platform, but also serve as the best kind of advertising for your business. It has been show, in fact, that 70% of consumers trust reviews more than any other form of advertising.
Opportunity for social media amplification
Sorry, I couldn’t find a statistic to support this, but anecdotally, many Foursquare users cross-promote their check-ins on Facebook and Twitter. What this means for business owners is that check-ins are reaching a much broader audience than just peoples’ friends on Foursquare.
Tie social media activity directly to real-world results
The catalyst for all engagement on Foursquare is a check-in at your physical location. Because of this, it’s easy to measure the correlation between check-ins and special redemption with key metrics that really matter. Cross reference check-ins with in-store traffic to see if Foursquare activity is bringing new consumers to your store. Cross reference check-ins with sales to see if Foursquare activity results in higher sales. Cross reference check-ins with special redemption to measure loyalty. There are numerous opportunities for meaningful measurement.
Have you included Foursquare as part of your social media strategy?
Have you had any success rewarding customers with specials?
Have you learned anything about your own business by monitoring consumers’ tips?
Let me know in the comments, or on Twitter @RGBSocial, it would be great to hear from you.
* Stats from Factbrowser
Your 24-Hour Mobile Marketing Action Plan
Posted: November 5, 2012 Filed under: Mobile | Tags: digital marketing, mobile, mobile marketing, rgb social, rgbsocial, social media, social media marketing 5 Comments »
I know you’ve been hearing for years now about the tremendous opportunity that mobile marketing presents; but have you acted on it? How are you reaching your consumers on their mobile devices? How have you optimized your digital presence for mobile?
In my experience, I can tell you that despite smartphone penetration nearing 50%, and tablet penetration expected to reach the same level by 2013, for many businesses, mobile marketing continues to be something that’s talked about, but not acted upon. It’s time to take action.
Following are 6 easy ways to start connecting with your consumers on their mobile devices, that you can have up-and-running tomorrow:
SOCIAL MEDIA CONTENT
A huge number of people use their mobile devices to access social media sites. In fact, roughly 60% of active Facebook users, and 60% of active Twitter users access those sites on their mobile devices. You can optimize your social media marketing efforts by including mobile-friendly updates into your content mix. Pictures and short text-based updates are easy for consumers to absorb on their mobile devices. Updates containing links to longer format content, such as text-heavy blog posts, are going to be difficult for smartphone users to consume.
YELP
The numbers really tell the story here: 1 in 4 searches on Yelp are made on their iPhone app, which has got to be a huge number given the site receives approximately 84 million monthly views. Yelp offers many benefits, so be sure you claim your business on this immensely popular platform, keep an accurate and up-to-date profile, and take advantage of being able to engage with your consumers who write reviews – be they positive or negative.
INSTAGRAM & PINTEREST
The experience of consuming photos on mobile devices holds up incredibly well in comparison to PCs. It’s no wonder that Instagram has become such an incredible success as a mobile only social platform. While Instagram doesn’t boast the same incredible penetration of other major social media players, about 70% of Instagram users are female, which is a hugely compelling statistic given that women make the majority of household purchase decisions. Similarly, roughly 65% of Pinterest users are female, and given Pinterest’s fantastic mobile app design, you can count on mobile driving huge engagement for the platform. If you’re not on Instagram and Pinterest, it’s time to dive in.
FOURSQUARE
Foursquare is primarily a mobile location-based social media network and has logged over 2 billion check-ins since inception just 3 years ago. If your business operates out of brick and mortar locations, take the time to claim your business on Foursquare to take advantage of the free tools at your disposal for connecting with your consumers. Create ‘specials’ to offer discounts, freebies, and loyalty programs, or automatically share updates with your consumers on their mobile devices when they are nearby.
WEBSITE or BLOG
Given that 28% of all internet usage comes from mobile phones, if your website or blog breaks when viewed on a mobile device, the time to fix that problem is now. For some of you, this will be easier than you might think. Many blogging platforms, such as WordPress, offer free templates with mobile counterparts and some themes are built with responsive design to ensure they look great on any screen. If you’ve got a site that has been custom built without thought given to mobile, not to worry. There are many resources available such as Google’s mobile landing page builder to create free mobile sites to provide basic, but critical, information to consumers on the mobile web.
EMAIL MARKETING
82% of consumers check and send email on their mobile devices. If you are running an email marketing campaign, ensure that your email is just as appealing on mobile devices as it is on a PC. Try to keep your emails concise so they aren’t daunting to read on a smartphone, and ensure that any pictures scale properly on mobile screens.
If you manage a business or brand that has yet to dive into mobile marketing, the time to do so is now. As you can see, there are some easy to implement ways to boost your brand’s mobile presence and start connecting with your consumers on their mobile devices.
How do you connect with your consumers on mobile?
If you don’t, what’s holding you back?
It would be great to hear from you in the comments, or on Twitter @RGBSocial
10 Ways Yelp Can Boost Your Social Media Marketing
Posted: September 6, 2012 Filed under: Social Media Marketing, Yelp | Tags: advertising, android, content, digital marketing, facebook, iphone, marketing, mobile, photographs, reviews, rgb social, rgbsocial, search rankings, SEO, social media, social media marketing, yelp Leave a comment »
For many businesses, Yelp can be an incredibly useful social media network for driving real and measurable business results.
Following are 10 ways that Yelp can boost your social media marketing efforts:
1. REVIEWS
As has been discussed in a previous post, consumer reviews have huge impact and influence over other’s purchase decisions. With over 30 million user generated reviews of local businesses and counting, reviews are Yelp’s bread and butter.
2. BUSINESS PROFILES
Business profiles on Yelp provide pertinent, factual information about businesses including hours of operation, your location, link to your website, payment options, required attire, price range, and accessibility. This information could be make or break when it comes to consumer purchase decisions.
3. PHOTOGRAPHS
As far as social media content is concerned, photographs drive higher levels of engagement than any other type of content, and Yelp predominantly features user’s photographs as part of every business profile. Photos, particularly user photos, give prospective consumers an unbiased glimpse of your business and offerings from a peer’s perspective.
4. CONSUMER INVOLVEMENT
Yelp’s many user-driven features allow for your consumers to deepen their involvement in your business and/or brand. This involvement can help to strengthen affinity for your business and will increase the probability of consumers endorsing your business amongst their social graphs.
5. SEARCH RANKINGS & VISIBILITY
Business profiles and reviews tend to rank highly in search results on Google, Bing and Yahoo! You can greatly enhance your business’ ability to dominate the first page of search results by ensuring that you have claimed your profile and garnering a significant number of positive reviews.
6. MOBILE
It was recently revealed that roughly 40% of all Yelp searches are conducted on one of their mobile apps (iPhone, Android, Windows, Blackberry and Palm). Mobile access to all of the benefits Yelp has to offer is a good thing because it empowers consumers while on their purchase journey and when they are closer to the point of purchase.
7. ADVERTISING
If raising awareness of your business is one of your primary digital marketing objectives, Yelp offers a suite of advertising options for independent local businesses, national or regional businesses, and national brands or advertising agencies.
8. FACEBOOK INTEGRATION
Facebook has been integrated on business profile pages allowing consumers to share their affinity for your business with their friends, organize groups of their friends to visit your location, or share reviews.
9. CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT
In one of my previous posts about The Positive Effect of Negative Reviews, I discussed how negative reviews can actually support strategies for continuous improvement. While it should not be your focus to collect negative reviews, in the event you should receive them, they can be parlayed into opportunities for improvement and rectifying a consumer’s negative experience.
10. AWARENESS
Yelp gets over 78 MILLION monthly unique visitors, giving you great opportunity to raise awareness and the profile of your business.
Do you have any additional thoughts on how Yelp can help to produce real business results? If so, let me know in the comments.
If you’d like to contact me, I can be reached in any of these places:
Email: matthew@rgbsocial.com
Twitter: @RGBSocial
Facebook: facebook.com/RGBSocial
