The mobile revolution is something that no marketer or company can afford to ignore – it’s not going away. Your business needs to stay on top of the mobile revolution or runs the risk of being squeezed out by your competitors. Here are 4 mobile trends you should know about so you can shift your Internet marketing strategy to tackle the mobile revolution that’s upon us.
1. Smartphone and tablet usage is skyrocketing. Today, it’s pretty much impossible to go anywhere and not see people with some type of smartphone glued to their ear or hands. In fact, Apple just sold more iPhones and iPads this quarter than ever before, which shows the demand for smartphones and tablet keeps going up. Smartphones and tablets make mobile search extremely easy and pretty much hassle-free. Basically, they’re the underlying cause for the mobile revolution. So as long as the demand for smartphones and tablets keep rising, so will mobile search. And with the amount of mobile phone users with smartphones closing in on 50%, it doesn’t look like mobile search will be going anywhere but up.
2. More on-the-go searches. With the help of smartphones and tablets, more people are accessing info on the go. Mobile search lets people find info on the web virtually anytime, anywhere. With the amount of people using their mobile devices for Internet searches expected to double this year from 2008, your business needs to be prepared. The best kind of preparation? Have a mobile optimized websites. In order to capture the mobile consumer market, your site needs to redirect to a version compatible for mobile devices. Having a website that doesn’t translate well to a mobile device can be detrimental to your marketing efforts as mobile search continues to flourish.
3. The boom in mobile advertising. More businesses are focusing their advertising budgets toward mobile marketing to tap into the mobile audience. People searching on their mobile phones have different motives than those searching on desktops – mobile searches are usually more concise and often more eccentric, so mobile ads should be different too. Chances are, your competition is already looking into (or fully engaged in) mobile advertising. With ad revenues from mobile expected to explode in coming years, adjust your advertising strategy to address mobile search to capitalize on it.
4. The merge of mobile and social media. So we’ve already established that mobile usage is amplifying, but so is consumers’ time on social media platforms. It makes sense that mobile and social are merging together considering the two are so compatible with the help of smartphones and tablets. Most people on their smartphones use them to access popular social platforms like Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, and more. Be aware that the mobile consumer market and social media consumer market heavily overlap, and then adjust your mobile marketing and social media marketing strategies accordingly.
