How to Use Mobile Marketing Through Social Media
The trend is clear and decisive: Many research sources have discovered that more people now access and use social media on a mobile device than a desktop or laptop computer. What this means for photographers and most businesses, large and small, is that the combination of mobile devices and social media sites will become the most effective and efficient method to engage with customers. You can check this post about how to take a good Linkedin photo.
· Nielsen’s data is the most conservative, stating that 47% of smartphone owners visited social media sites every day during July 2013. More significant is that the unique audience using a PC and a Web browser decreased 10% while the unique audience via apps on a smartphone increased 37% and via a Web browser on a smartphone 26%.
· Nielsen also found that monthly social media unique audiences for Facebook, blogging, Twitter and Pinterest via a computer all decreased, and some by double digits. (The monthly unique audience of LinkedIn on a computer increased 37%.). Learn more about Linked photo tips on our website Photographytalk.com.
· Monthly social media unique audiences on smartphone apps and via Web browsers for the same 5 platforms all increased by at least double digits, and some by tripled digits: Google+, 117%, and Pinterest, 233%.
· According to the 2014 Mobile Behavior Report from ExactTarget.com, social networking was the fourth most-popular activity performed at least once each day on a smartphone, 75%, and a tablet, 64%.
For photographers, comScore provided the most significant data based on an August 2013 study. It showed that mobile users spent the most time with photos, as compared to desktop computers, of 11 different online content categories. People simply love to view photos on their mobile devices and when those photos are the high quality, professional images that you create, they are even more likely to want to view them and share them compared to low-resolution phone photos.
Share of Time Spent with Selected Categories of Online Content, 2013
|
Online Content Category |
Mobile |
Desktop |
|
Photos |
92% |
8% |
|
Maps |
86% |
14% |
|
Games |
78% |
22% |
|
Weather |
69% |
31% |
|
Social Networking |
65% |
35% |
|
Retail |
46% |
54% |
|
Entertainment News |
40% |
60% |
|
Business/Finance |
39% |
61% |
|
News |
38% |
62% |
|
Health Information |
35% |
65% |
|
Portals |
25% |
75% |
comScore, August 2013
It’s important that you, as a professional photographer, take advantage of these huge audiences social networking via mobile, which is why you need a mobile app to reach them. The following data from Nielsen reveals why an app is so important.
Top 5 Social Media Sites By Time Spent Per Month on Smartphone, 2013
|
Via Apps |
Hours/Minutes |
Via Browser |
Hours/Minutes |
|
1: Facebook |
7:43 |
1: Facebook |
0:40 |
|
2: Instagram |
3:40 |
2: Twitter |
0:11 |
|
3: Twitter |
3:07 |
3: Blogger |
0:06 |
|
4: Pinterest |
1:39 |
4: LinkedIn |
0:04 |
|
5: Google+ |
0:11 |
5: Pinterest |
0:03 |
Nielsen, The Digital Consumer Report, February 2014 (July 2013 data)
It is obvious that people have no interest in using social media through a browser on their smartphones and that Facebook, Instagram and Twitter are the primary sites they are accessing with an app. Many of these social media users are your customers, for high school senior portraits, weddings, babies and infants, etc., so these are the sites where you should be concentrating your mobile marketing efforts.
Although many advertisers have found it difficult to use Facebook Mobile, there are some ways to make it work for you.
· Post content that will be valuable to your target audience and ask questions and use calls-to-action to generate maximize feedback.
· Consider using native ads since they integrate with the content on the screen better than the sidebar ads typically seen on Facebook.
Twitter users are very mobile-oriented, so you need a specific mobile marketing strategy to engage with them.
· Tweets should be as brief as possible, so there is space for your audience to add their comments and retweet more of your content.
· Try to limit hashtags to the 1, 2 or 3 that best match with your content and photography business.
The advantages of Instagram, other than its huge universe of users, are how easily it integrates with Facebook and Twitter and that you can only post content from your mobile device, so you can quickly upload your latest images as soon as you shoot them.
· Another primary advantage of Instagram for professional photographers is that high quality photos tend to attract more attention – and, of course, those are the only kind you shoot.
· Make sure the hashtags you use relate to the contents of your photos.
The best tip for maximizing the use of mobile marketing on social media is to partner with the one company that is exclusively dedicated to helping photographers put these technologies to work for them. That company is ubookoo. It specializes in creating mobile apps for photographers, and even customized mobile apps for each of your customers. They can easily share the photos you shot for them with their family members and friends, which generates more orders and referrals.
Visit ubookoo.com today for complete information.
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