The arrival of the internet along with the inventions and innovations have led to a pronounced digitally connected world. The desktop platform used to govern up until mobile came roaring in with an unprecedented momentum that would not only transform the way we do things but disrupt the business ecosystem.
The latest report published August 21st, 2014 by the American Internet Analytics company, comsCore, provided a comprehensive look at the impact of mobile in the United States (U.S) and upon the landscape. The technology beyond its disruptive nature changed how virtually businesses have to adapt and target audiences in this new revolutionary space.
The arrival of mobile has reshaped many different industries like the news industry for example. Not only did news outlets have to migrate from the commercial enterprise into the mobile race, but radically repackage their efforts to attract readership.
So to be successful on this cutting-edge mobile platform you are required a multi-platform approach accurately target consumer behavior and habits.
Other factors that contributed to the vast popularity of mobile phones is prices have gradually come down except high end models for certain brands. Mobile applications have been a driving force in the amount of activity generated and the adoption of these devices, which simplifies the task for many different types of uses (hobby, business, marketing, advertising, etc).
Top performing mobile applications
It comes as no surprise that social media is an influential activity to carry on these mobile phones and one of the core forces behind mobile. According to the comScore U.S Mobile App report these were the categories responsible for a majority of the mobile app engagement:
- Social networking
- Games
- Radio
Now the simplicity along with the nifty features of these activities makes their use far more enticing for users. The two companies fighting tooth and nail for mobile dominance include Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android.
The activity for Apple users differs from those on Android. iPhone owners tend to spend their app time on General News, consuming media, Photos, Social Media Networking and Weather. Whereas Android users will dedicate their time and usage to Search and Email.
The top five mobile apps by unique visitors are Facebook, YouTube, Google Play, Google Search and Pandora Radio. Digital media brands that account for 9 out of the top 10 most used mobile apps are the usual suspects: Facebook, Google, Apple, Yahoo, Amazon and eBay.
Digital advertising in the mobile sphere
Advertising in the digital age has proved beneficial but not so easy to monetize from audiences. In fact, it is still a work in progress to successfully find business model that can fit all of the different platforms.
What ends up happening new advertising technologies that arrive from one year to the next are introduced in social space (Facebook Twitter, Pinterest, etc), as in-image ads, video ads and others. The problem is not measuring or compiling the analytics around audience behavior. The problem is still designing a single system that works across all of these platforms, but there is plenty of work to get done.
Mobile ad revenue is starting to take off amidst this digital boom. Can you guess by name the companies making gains in the mobile advertising? According to the comScore 2014 U.S Digital Future in Focus Facebook Twitter and Pandora.
According to SmartInsights, the “high demand for mobile advertising and how the revenue doubled in 2013“ to 19.3 billion dollars. Depending on the region that you are in businesses will need to accurately target their audience strategically across the different mobile formats (display, search, and messaging).
Social media explosion driving mobile performance
Social networking was not mobile in its beginning stages and everything was accessed through a desktop computer. Nowadays that has vastly changed for most of the social media networking sites. Even Facebook did not envision the mobile strategy when it was first founded. Over time business forces and consumer trends shifted this paradigm.
The comScore Media Metrix Multi-Platform revealed some insightful metrics about how social networks have large number of visitors from more than one platform. Facebook as you probably know is the leader in the categories of multi-platform, desktop only and mobile only.
The microblogging competitor, Twitter, along with Instagram follow closely in distribution of unique visitors for the different points of access to their services. However, most companies in the social media space have plenty of catching up to do with Mark Zuckerberg’s company.
Photo content gets a huge amount of traction and engagement on social media. The recent introduction of video recently has fueled more activity. Social networking is a huge generator of online and mobile traffic. That trend will carry on over into 2015 with more features being built around the distribution of video content.
Takeaways in the long run with mobile
The disruption of mobile is in full effect of how business and communications are done today. Consumer buying habits, trends and online behavior change as fast as the technology evolves. Information sharing, consuming, distributing, buying and selling has never been in demand unlike any other time.
It seems the mobile space has made a permanent footprint for the private and public sector. Businesses have come to accept and use the technology in order to best advertise their efforts in these rich information hubs.
What is difficult to control is the evolution of the technology and how it evolves so rapidly. Everything that is done today in the name of business is about the short term gain rather than looking at the long term impact. Surely there are financial pressures and obligations to fulfill yet more has to be done to fully implement this entire digital platform at a logical comprehensive level.
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