Writing
The Art of Socializing and Mobilizing
The Evolution of Content Consumption
The way consumers gather information is continuing to shift. Print media is slowly dwindling, with twenty-five of the largest newspapers experiencing record declines.[i] According to Jeff Bezos—founder, president, chief executive officer, and chairman of the board of Amazon.com—book sales for the Kindle have tripled since the first half of 2009 and now outpace hardcover book sales.[ii]
TiVo allows viewers to skip ads, and 90% of them do.[iii] In the past year, the number of Americans who reported watching a short video on their phone grew by 52%.[iv] Smart-phone sales are at an all-time high, and new products, like the iPad, are giving consumers a variety of ways to stay plugged in while being mobile. And many places—now including Starbucks[v]—offer free Wi-Fi, making staying connected online even easier.
But how are those consumers staying connected to your business? Many are talking about your brand on blogs. Currently, there are more than 130 million blogs,[vi] and 34% of bloggers post opinions about products or brands.[vii] And those opinions influence the opinions of their peers, 90% of whom trust peer recommendations[viii] while only 14% trust advertisements.
With this constant, on-the-go approach to online activities, consumers are becoming more distracted and less tied to their desktop computers. They may browse a site or blog on their phone while waiting at a bus stop, and whether that site or blog belongs to your business depends on the coding of your site and the type of smart phone the consumer owns.
Mobile applications, more commonly known as apps, give consumers yet another way to connect with your business. Instead of leafing through the pages of the New York Times over a cup of coffee, people are now reading the Times on their phone or iPad through an app while commuting to work on the bus or subway. If they forgot to place their bill payments in the mail one morning, they can access their accounts through apps or smart-phone browsers to pay their bills, completing in minutes what used to take a week or more, depending on the speed of mail delivery. Even gaming apps, some of the most popular among consumers, are being used to drive users to point-of-sale activities. Many apps also allow for additional advertising within the app itself, like Apple’s iAds: small banner ads that, when tapped by a user, open a web page with additional product information.
The continuing growth and evolution of social media and mobile design is affecting more than how consumers obtain news and information about companies and brands; it is also affecting how companies provide that information. Wading into the depths of social and mobile media requires new strategies and approaches to promotion and brand management. It isn’t as simple as moving a print deliverable into a mobile space, or increasing the font size on a web site so it’s easer to read on a phone screen.
Effective social media and mobile design require adapting your creative team or adding a few new roles as well as closely integrating creative with other departments, such as marketing, public relations, customer service, information technology (IT), and legal. Responding to consumers through social media takes more than writing good copy, for example, so teaming copywriters with customer service representatives can help ensure communication is not only well written but also personal. And training or partnering with legal ensures the personal communication also correctly represents the brand.
Designing a mobile app requires IT specialists to develop for a variety of platforms, each of which can affect visual design choices. Partnering IT and creative ensures the resulting app not only functions well but also takes advantage of each platform’s unique visual design challenges and opportunities. Designing an interactive media element in Flash, for example, means users of the iPhone and iPad, among other mobile Apple devices, won’t be able to view it. Knowing the resulting platform helps visual designers provide the best solution for the end product.
What your resulting team will look like is up to you (there’s no one-size-fits-all formula), and to help you decide what creative talent to look or train for, and where to look, the following chapters will explore social media and mobile-app design in more depth, providing examples and case studies from other companies, both corporate and agency.
This is an excerpt from a much larger work. To read the full paper, download the PDF here.
The way consumers gather information is continuing to shift. Print media is slowly dwindling, with twenty-five of the largest newspapers experiencing record declines.[i] According to Jeff Bezos—founder, president, chief executive officer, and chairman of the board of Amazon.com—book sales for the Kindle have tripled since the first half of 2009 and now outpace hardcover book sales.[ii]
TiVo allows viewers to skip ads, and 90% of them do.[iii] In the past year, the number of Americans who reported watching a short video on their phone grew by 52%.[iv] Smart-phone sales are at an all-time high, and new products, like the iPad, are giving consumers a variety of ways to stay plugged in while being mobile. And many places—now including Starbucks[v]—offer free Wi-Fi, making staying connected online even easier.
But how are those consumers staying connected to your business? Many are talking about your brand on blogs. Currently, there are more than 130 million blogs,[vi] and 34% of bloggers post opinions about products or brands.[vii] And those opinions influence the opinions of their peers, 90% of whom trust peer recommendations[viii] while only 14% trust advertisements.
With this constant, on-the-go approach to online activities, consumers are becoming more distracted and less tied to their desktop computers. They may browse a site or blog on their phone while waiting at a bus stop, and whether that site or blog belongs to your business depends on the coding of your site and the type of smart phone the consumer owns.
Mobile applications, more commonly known as apps, give consumers yet another way to connect with your business. Instead of leafing through the pages of the New York Times over a cup of coffee, people are now reading the Times on their phone or iPad through an app while commuting to work on the bus or subway. If they forgot to place their bill payments in the mail one morning, they can access their accounts through apps or smart-phone browsers to pay their bills, completing in minutes what used to take a week or more, depending on the speed of mail delivery. Even gaming apps, some of the most popular among consumers, are being used to drive users to point-of-sale activities. Many apps also allow for additional advertising within the app itself, like Apple’s iAds: small banner ads that, when tapped by a user, open a web page with additional product information.
The continuing growth and evolution of social media and mobile design is affecting more than how consumers obtain news and information about companies and brands; it is also affecting how companies provide that information. Wading into the depths of social and mobile media requires new strategies and approaches to promotion and brand management. It isn’t as simple as moving a print deliverable into a mobile space, or increasing the font size on a web site so it’s easer to read on a phone screen.
Effective social media and mobile design require adapting your creative team or adding a few new roles as well as closely integrating creative with other departments, such as marketing, public relations, customer service, information technology (IT), and legal. Responding to consumers through social media takes more than writing good copy, for example, so teaming copywriters with customer service representatives can help ensure communication is not only well written but also personal. And training or partnering with legal ensures the personal communication also correctly represents the brand.
Designing a mobile app requires IT specialists to develop for a variety of platforms, each of which can affect visual design choices. Partnering IT and creative ensures the resulting app not only functions well but also takes advantage of each platform’s unique visual design challenges and opportunities. Designing an interactive media element in Flash, for example, means users of the iPhone and iPad, among other mobile Apple devices, won’t be able to view it. Knowing the resulting platform helps visual designers provide the best solution for the end product.
What your resulting team will look like is up to you (there’s no one-size-fits-all formula), and to help you decide what creative talent to look or train for, and where to look, the following chapters will explore social media and mobile-app design in more depth, providing examples and case studies from other companies, both corporate and agency.
This is an excerpt from a much larger work. To read the full paper, download the PDF here.
[i] Yahoo Finance, “U.S. Newspaper Circulation Falls 8.7 Percent,” April 26, 2010, http://finance.yahoo.com/news/US-newspaper-circulation-apf-436809869.html?x=0.
[ii] CNET News, “Amazon: Kindle Titles Outpacing Hardcovers,” July 19, 2010, http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-20010975-93.html.
[iii] Larry Weber, Marketing to the Social Web (Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, 2007).
[iv] The Nielsen Company, “Americans Watching More TV Than Ever; Web and Mobile Video Up, Too,” May 20, 2009, http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/online_mobile/americans-watching-more-tv-than-ever.
[v] Starbucks Coffee Company, “Starbucks Turns on Free Wi-Fi for Customers July 1st,” June 29, 2010, http://news.starbucks.com/article_display.cfm?article_id=411.
[vi] Technorati, “2009 State of the Blogosphere,” 2009, http://technorati.com/blogging/feature/state-of-the-blogosphere-2009.
[vii] Erik Qualman, “Social Media Revolution 2 (Refresh),” May 5, 2010, http://socialnomics.net/2010/05/05/social-media-revolution-2-refresh.
[viii] The Nielsen Company, “Global Advertising: Consumers Trust Real Friends and Virtual Strangers the Most,” July 7, 2009, http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/consumer/global-advertising-consumers-trust-real-friends-and-virtual-strangers-the-most
[ii] CNET News, “Amazon: Kindle Titles Outpacing Hardcovers,” July 19, 2010, http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-20010975-93.html.
[iii] Larry Weber, Marketing to the Social Web (Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, 2007).
[iv] The Nielsen Company, “Americans Watching More TV Than Ever; Web and Mobile Video Up, Too,” May 20, 2009, http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/online_mobile/americans-watching-more-tv-than-ever.
[v] Starbucks Coffee Company, “Starbucks Turns on Free Wi-Fi for Customers July 1st,” June 29, 2010, http://news.starbucks.com/article_display.cfm?article_id=411.
[vi] Technorati, “2009 State of the Blogosphere,” 2009, http://technorati.com/blogging/feature/state-of-the-blogosphere-2009.
[vii] Erik Qualman, “Social Media Revolution 2 (Refresh),” May 5, 2010, http://socialnomics.net/2010/05/05/social-media-revolution-2-refresh.
[viii] The Nielsen Company, “Global Advertising: Consumers Trust Real Friends and Virtual Strangers the Most,” July 7, 2009, http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/consumer/global-advertising-consumers-trust-real-friends-and-virtual-strangers-the-most
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Originally published by Cella Consulting
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