This article was written by Yael Warman, Content Manager at Leverate.
I’ve talked often enough about the critical role content plays in today’s Marketing strategies and how it is the single most effective way to generate loyalty and one of the most cost effective ways to increase brand recognition, but where is this content you are producing being consumed?
To unlock the Asian market, register now to the iFX EXPO in Hong Kong
According to Polar’s most recent reports on branded content consumption, engagement with branded content on smartphones is significantly higher than on desktop and tablet with a 127% higher CTR.
Content consumption on mobile represents a huge chunk of your audience’s views and the trend of mobile dominance seems to be on the up. The scales have shifted in favor of mobile and desktop is quickly becoming the new print.
Once you realize which way the world is turning, here are three things you should keep in mind when developing content for mobile:
Optimization
As you produce content, you have to keep in mind that the user experience on a mobile device is entirely different than that of PC.
There is no double click on mobile, but instead there is touch, zoom ion, drag, swipe and slide. Depending on the type of content you are distributing (infographic, video, blog post), you need to keep the level of interactivity in mind.
Mobile is also ‘one screen at a time’, so depending on the type of content you are developing, keep the design in mind to fit this type of interactivity.
In many cases, content is consumed via apps, which allows users to immerse themselves in the information without outside distractions, more typical of content that is distributed using URLs.
Responsiveness
Do I even need to get into this? Nobody likes scrolling (especially sideways) and a page that doesn’t display right on mobile is a sure way of getting your audience to bounce right out, so make sure your content is mobile-friendly.
Companies who optimize their content with a mobile-first approach and who focus on branded content within their mobile marketing strategies, have a great opportunity to reach their audience more frequently and on their terms.
Consumption time
While more people are consuming content over mobile, they are spending less time doing so. While the average time spent engaged with branded content on desktop was three minutes, mobile was closer to the two minute mark. Creating content that can be consumed in under two minutes then is crucial.
In the financial industry in particular however, users spend almost three times that amount of time on branded content, at an average of 323 seconds.
Be headline driven
Have you ever commented on a post after having just read the title, but not bothered to even click through to open the full article? Don’t be embarrassed, you are not alone. Headline-driven, micro-content is the future of the content industry as it means people can feel up-to-date and consume a lot of news in a short amount of time.
Click-bait type headlines are slowly taking their last breaths and it is genuinely written headlines that summarize the content of the article that will dominate the internet sphere.
