PR must get mobile fast
Is your public relations strategy mobile-friendly? The power of mobile growth and its reach are too big for PR to ignore. In a moment, I’ll share 10 ways to “get” mobile but first here’s why you should care.
Writer Deb Wenger highlighted a powerful fact from a Reynolds Journalism Institute report about news consumption among mobile phone users:
“…two-thirds (67%) of mobile media owners ages 18-34 used their devices to access local, national and international news provided by news organizations for an average of five hours per week.”
That’s an hour a day, Monday to Friday, reading news on their smartphones in addition to other media consumption. Even 58% of users older than 55 consumed news on their phones more than four hours a week. That’s a lot of news eyeballs.
Wenger said news organizations are trying hard to figure out how to charge for mobile news. For PR, we’re less concerned about monetizing and more about reaching out directly to new audiences.
Just a couple more mobile phone facts from a Digital Buzz infographic to get you motivated:
- more than 4 billion mobile phones in use globally
- more than 3 billion are smartphones and growing
- 70% of the world’s population now have a mobile phone and in the US, it’s 9 in 10
- by 2014 mobile internet will overtake desktop internet
- Americans spend an average of 2.7 hours a day on their mobile device
- 61% use their mobile phones for games and 36% for news.
You can get another 23 mobile marketing stats from HubSpot.
10 ways PR can get mobile-friendly
The most important thing we should remember in addition to mobile’s rapid growth and global reach is that 91% of its use is “social.” 33% access Facebook; 50% use Twitter mobile; 200 million watch YouTube daily on mobile devices; Pinterest and other new visual social platforms are perfect for mobile and growing very fast.
Here are ten ways public relations can enhance or create new opportunities to reach mobile users:
- make mobile part of your social PR strategy
- build your mobile communications with “social” in mind
- ensure your website, newsroom, internal and investor communications are each mobile-friendly
- write short, concise, active, scannable content in your blog, on your website, in your social media channels; Twitter is ideal
- use links to trim bloated content
- enhance communication with visuals and short video
- make your content shareable via mobile
- remember the social TV reality – 86% use mobile phones while watching TV
- add mobile channels to your crisis PR planning
- plan for other mobile usage including tablets, Xbox and future devices.
When it comes to communications success in the future, the PR prize will definitely go to the mobile if we can dial fast enough.
How about you? Are you PR-mobile? Seeing results from targeting mobile users? Would love to hear your mobile success stories in the comments below.
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Visuals: Digital Buzz
Author: Jeff Domansky
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