3 Ways Marketers Can Use Social Media to Boost Mobile Traffic

With more than 4 billion users and a predicted market value of $25 billion within the next three years, it’s no surprise that mobile usage is slated to surpass desktop usage by 2015 (source:Mashable; Techcrunch).

So how can you better optimize your applications and web-apps to stand out among the mobile clutter?

1. Increase Opportunities to Spread Word-of-Mouth

With social powering more referred traffic to many sites than organic search, failing to permit sharing from your mobile property results in missed opportunities to show up in social feeds and expand your audience. While many of today’s brands and businesses have begun to encourage content syndication to social networks, there is an obvious lag as content publishers recognize a huge increase in mobile audiences, but fail to meet this rapidly expanded userbases’ desire to share.

2. Ditch Forms - Not Data.

          According to PayPal, the average web registrant juggles 8+ usernames and passwords. It’s no secret that a percentage of users grow frustrated and fail to sign-in after forgetting their credentials. When a user attempts to log-in to a mobile property, this rate undoubtedly increases since small screens and keypads turn password retrieval turn into an even bigger chore.

          Allowing registrants to connect with a social identity strengthens your mobile property against log-in abandonment, while also providing you with valuable permission-based customer data that you don’t want to lose - including likes, interests, activities, friends/followers, and contact information leveraged with little work required of your users. Registrants who log-in via social are also able to simply syndicate content to social networks without leaving your mobile site.

3. Encourage Ratings/Reviews and Reactions in Real-Time.

Not surprisingly, 50% of all local searches now occur on Smartphones (source: Mashable). Permitting users to review a product or restaurant while it’s top-of-mind is crucial to increased conversions.

Likewise, 40% of viewers use a tablet or Smartphone while watching TV, meaning true real-time interaction requires careful attention to the mobile user experience (source: Intomobile).

The big challenge mobile marketers face in 2012? Creating opportunities for your mobile audience to talk about you in social feeds without sacrificing valuable customer data, time spent, or product quality.

How will you prepare for the mobile shift?

2012: Year of the Social TV

It’s no secret that Netflix took an ego-beating these past few months, serving as poster-child for bad press as investors and members alike abandoned ship in droves. Today the network giant’s swimming happily again after release of a new statistic stating the remaining 20 million members streamed more than 2 billion hours of content in Q4.  That’s nearly two China’s worth of time spent curled up with a laptop and bag of potato chips

While Netflix executives have had a finger in the streaming pot for quite some time, rumor has it this week’s CES in Las Vegas will once again pit television as an event centerpiece with clear indication that Google’s now funneled significant change into its TV platform.

Covert Apple operations are also underway, including a bid for EPL TV rights, as electronics giants wrestle to develop a television screen that's toilet paper thin (even our newest gadgets can’t escape New Year's pressure to remain sexy ‘n slim).

One need not look further then rampant YouTube and Wii adoption among Betty White’s graduating class to recognize that while our relationship with television and video content has begun to change, it’s arguably healthier than ever before.

These past few years we devoted careful attention to mobile, nurturing the brainchild through the first few stages of development, including a mastery of basic speech. Yet the sheer fact that web-connected TVs still remain a CES highlight after a decade+ to play with the technology demonstrates a true neglect that I believe will be amended in 2012.

Yes, 2012 will be the year of the TV as developers struggle to create television “apps” that utilize all the perks of Kinected technology, allow for user-submitted content, and encourage the engaging viewer experience that’s now required to rip audience member’s attention away from their smartphones.

Evolution at its finest - just as Bell was ultimately upstaged by Farnsworth, mobile will soon be upstaged by a trove of applications and games fit for the big screen - a feat companies like Pandora have already undertaken.

So where does social fit into the new television experience?

Engagement plug-ins like sharing, comments, and product reviews must be developed to fit the new smart medium as we increasingly turn our attention to the TV screen. Aggregators of popular television app-content (like those fighting the mobile problem that prevents “good stuff” from going viral) will also emerge.

It is now widely recognized that allowing users to pump content into social feeds is a major referred traffic factor, and this understanding will remain strong as our televisions morph into the Web on ‘roids this 2012.

The good news? Thanks to Kinect and the like it will be a lot easier to stay fit when our farms require true hoeing. Now might also be a crucial point for wanna-be social networks to capitalize on the lag-time between Facebook & Twitter’s full-on TV conversion.