Just when you think you’ve got the mobile and social world all figured out, things change. It’s what makes the industry so much fun … and so hard to stay on top of.
Here’s what I mean — A recent report from mobile optimization platform Moovweb found that consumers on mobile are 11.5 times more likely to click on an ad than they are a social sharing button.
I think that’s a little bit like comparing apples to oranges, but it highlights an important point that you should know about — mobile display ads, while often disparaged, continue to be an important part of any integrated marketing campaign.
(This is especially true when you consider the fact that the targeting, tracking, and creative elements of mobile display continue to make it a formidable force in the world of marketing.)
Why don’t mobile users use social sharing buttons as often as desktop users?
About 60% of the time consumers spend on social media is via their mobile devices. The challenge is that sharing buttons are tapped about 33% less frequently on a mobile device than they they are on a desktop computer.
Luxury Daily covered the Moovweb report on their site. Here’s what they had to say:
“The research suggests that while social media usage on mobile is significantly high, users tap sharing buttons approximately 33 percent less often that they do on desktop. Therefore, brands seeking to raise awareness of their products or services via social share buttons must offer a strong call-to-action to convince consumers to disperse their posts, such as a sweepstakes entry or incentive.”
Here’s a chart from the Moovweb website that highlights that data.
What’s causing the problem?
This is what Moovweb had to say about the issue:
“Most mobile users access social networks via an app, so they are often not logged in to the corresponding social networks on the mobile web. The heart of the sharing problem is that users must be logged in in order to share. If you’re not logged in, sharing can be kind of a nightmare.
For starters you have to thumb type your username and password. If you’ve been saving your password in-app or in-browser, you might have forgotten it. Resetting a lost password is a huge hassle on mobile.
So it’s not surprising that mobile users are nearly 12 times more likely to click on an advertisement then they are on a social sharing button.”
Action steps for you.
All is not lost. Just because it’s hard to get people to share via their smartphones, there are some things you can do to help.
- Ask Readers to Share: There’s nothing wrong with asking your readers to share a blog post via their smartphone or tablets (hint, hint). You probably won’t want to do it every single time you post, but a gentle nudge every so often should help things.
- Provide an Incentive: It’s relatively easy to develop a social sharing promotion for people who visit your website. Once you’ve fueled the pump and gotten people used to the idea of sharing your site via social media, they’ll probably stick with the habit well into the future.
- Make Social Sharing Buttons Prominent: As you can see in the image above, our social sharing button isn’t as prominent as it should be. We’re going to look into that to see if there’s a way to fix it. There may not be (we use a WordPress Plugin called Flare by Filament, so our hands may be tied a bit). I’ll keep you posted on what we find out.
I hope you’ve found this information helpful. If so, be sure to put it into action. But before you do that, hit the share buttons, will ya?
About the Author: Jamie Turner is the CEO of the 60 Second Marketer and 60 Second Communications, a marketing communications firm that helps businesses use the science of marketing to grow their sales and revenues. He is the co-author of “How to Make Money with Social Media” and “Go Mobile” and is a popular marketing speaker at events, trade shows and corporations around the globe.
