Tips for Engaging Social Media’s Increasingly Mobile Audience

Lauren Owens - October 30, 2014

The social audience is increasingly on-the-go. While many marketers think this means smaller screens and bite-sized information, optimizing the social-mobile experience goes way beyond screen size. In this post, we offer tips for creating engaging, channel-specific content with the mobile audience in mind.

Increase Click-Through Rates by Decreasing Page Load Time

Geek-speak in a social media post? Yes, yes, yes. Your mobile audience does not have the bandwidth, or patience, to wait for your pages to load. So, if you want them to click through to one of your pages, make sure that page loads quickly. According to KISSmetrics, current users expect mobile pages to load within 2-3 seconds.

Optimize Your Content for the Channel

Facebook likes square images. Twitter uses that confounding rectangular preview space. If you want your users to easily see the images you’re sharing, cutomize them to each channel’s requirements. Instead of uploading your square images to Twitter (leaving it up to Twitter to determine what to show) crop or resize your images for the individual network, or create channel-specific templates. This way, your users will always get the message as intended.

Avoid Cross-Posting

While it’s always a good idea to cross-promote your channels (like telling your Twitter users that they can totally find you on Instagram), don’t be lazy. If you want your Twitter followers to see an image, upload that image to Twitter – don’t send them a link to the image in Instagram.

Why? Page load time, for one. Plus, users tend to be pretty loyal to their social channels of choice. You can have the party of the century on Instagram, but if a portion of your audience is already partying on Twitter, chances are, they want to stay.

Stay Relevant … But Don’t Crash the Party

One of the benefits of social media marketing is that marketers can reach their users where they are, no matter what they’re doing. To capture the attention of second-screeners and other mobile users, think about what they’re doing while they’re looking at their social streams and plan your content accordingly.

But don’t crash the party.

Any attempt to capitalize on trends that have nothing to do with your audience or your business can appear desperate, and potentially alienate your followers.