November 15, 2012
Earlier this year Econsultancy surveyed e-commerce and e-business professionals to understand if and how they were using mobile as part of their multichannel experience.
The survey revealed that 74% of companies had developed a mobile optimised website, 29% had developed a tablet-optimised website; and nearly half were seeing more than 10% of their website traffic coming through mobile channels.
In other words, companies that sell things online are starting to realise the value in giving consumers the best possible mobile experience, to help consumers during the product research phase and to be ready for when they want to make their purchase.
As of March this year there were 1.2 billion internet-ready smartphones in circulation – in other words 17% of the world’s population that could potentially be reached by brands with a savvy mobile offering.
So, what does this all mean for social? Is there any value in a multichannel social media strategy? Here are three reasons worth mulling over:
1)Better signposting. By next year more than 56 million people in the US alone are expected to access social media via their mobile. So there’s every reason to make your website’s social signposts as visible and clickable on mobile as possible.
2)Social app referrals. Facebook currently stands as the most downloaded mobile app ever – there’s no question whether people are using social media apps on their mobiles, so it pays to be optimised for any site referrals that come through.
3)Less is more. Clunky mobile sites take longer to load, so why not lighten that load by shifting content across to social platforms, which can be clearly signposted from your light and fast-loading mobile optimised site.
