Extra points to those of you who recognized the title of the post as being an ABBA song from the 80’s! Music is a bit of a passion of mine. I have music playing all the time when I am writing. The other major passion in my life right now is Mobile; mobile technology and mobile platforms. That’s why I was incredibly excited to partner with Qualtrics, who provides survey tools and are enabling me to reach out to a huge slice of the U.S. population and ask them questions about how they use their mobile tech (you can take the survey here).
Mobile technology is moving at an amazing speed. As Apple CEO Tim Cook said recently, “Apple’s lifetime iPad sales across all generations have now topped 67 million. To put that into context, it took us 24 years to sell that many Macs, five years for that many iPods, and three years for iPhones.” The world is shifting its preference for consuming and producing content to mobile devices. What can you, as a content producer, do about it?
With the increasing use of mobile devices for the consumption of content, you, as content producers, have to understand the mobile consumer so that you can produce content that reaches and appeals to them. This is not just about having a mobile-optimized website, this is about having the type of content that actually captures attention through all the other distractions that surround a mobile user. Content producers have to understand the setting and context of the mobile user and how it differs from that of the non-mobile user (even though those two may, in fact, be the same person at different times in their day).
The experience of consuming content while sitting at a desk is vastly different from that of sitting on a train or in front of the TV. While you may well believe you have optimized your existing content for mobile, did you do it because your audience needed it or did you do it because you were told it was something that should be done? If nothing else I suggest checking out your Google analytics and seeing how many of your readers/content consumers are viewing your content from a mobile device, and seeing which areas they are consuming. Then, place your focus for optimization on that content.
Remember mobile optimization isn’t about your content as much as it is about the audience experience. In our efforts to be better at what we do as content producers one of the most valuable assets in our arsenal is knowledge. Aside from reconnecting with friends and making new contacts, attending a conference like Blogworld Expo is one of the easiest ways of gaining new knowledge.
If you come to my session in New York, “Smartphones, Smarter Users – The Who, When, What of the Mobile Consumer,” I am going to discuss the day in the life of the mobile user. The research I will be unveiling is brand new, never seen before, and the presentation is tailored specifically toward content producers. So if you want to know the when, how, why and what of the mobile content, consumer I’ll see you in my session.
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