Mobile-first? It’s more like ‘mobile-only’
But, he adds, the real success will come for those who think foremost about mobile in their content planning – rather than how to adapt content for the mobile space…
• The FIPP Innovation World Report 2016/17 launched end of March. Get your copy here. Learn about mobile, ad formats and creativity, content innovation, micro payments, and much more.
• Want more? Join John at FIPP London (10-11 May), where he will lead a series of FIPP Innovation masterclasses, using practical case studies from the new report.
• In addition to FIPP Innovation, FIPP London includes FIPP Mobile, FIPP Tech and Worldwide Media Marketplace. See the preliminary FIPP London agenda here.
Everybody’s talking mobile-first. Just how dominant is mobile right now?
When you think about the definition of mobile-first, “first” implies that there’s something second and it implies that there’s actually an ultimate destination beyond mobile, as opposed to the primacy of the first destination. So what mobile-first actually means is that you’re taking desktop content and forcing it into a mobile experience, which means you’re ignoring the uniqueness of the mobile experience. You’ve actually got to create mobile-only content and then do desktop content, and then do print content. If you don’t do that, then what’s going to happen is that you’re going to upset your mobile users, who are more and more accustomed to getting a unique mobile experience – and they will go to the provider who gives them that.
So it’s a case of mobile-only rather than mobile-first. What does that mean for traditional magazine media businesses?
What it means for traditional magazine media businesses is that they have to think mobile-only at the beginning of the story-planning process. It’s not a case of ‘here’s the story and we’ll do a video, do infographics’ and so on. It’s a case of ‘here’s the story and this is how it must it play out in a mobile environment’.
They must think about what the elements are – whether they go with some tweets and then deliver it in a short, quick, bite-sized way for mobile; or whether they go for a mobile headline that the audience can click on to read the piece in depth, providing the initial experience of a real quick glimpse, which many look for on mobile plus the option of more. You’ve got to plan it that way. The headlines have to be written in a way that fits mobile, the summary has to be written in a way that fits mobile, the content then has to take you elsewhere. It requires a conscientious decision on the part of the publisher and the editors to inject mobile-only at the beginning of the story planning and execution processes.
Many of us are not used to working that way. We’re used to working on content that has depth and detail. How do we adapt?
Well, you have to understand why people are going to mobile. And that means you have to take a step back before you even plan your mobile strategy to figure out who the heck your mobile customers are, when they come to you, what they are looking for, how long they stay, and what their standard behaviour is. Do they come in for a 30-second update, do they come in at 6am and then come back at noon? And, if they come back at noon, what are they looking for? Do they come back again at six in the evening? On top of that, we are seeing a lot of mobile reading in certain countries – South Africa, the US – where the desktop traffic disappears after about 6pm but mobile traffic stays steady until 9pm or 10pm.
And they need to think differently about different platforms too?
Exactly. In addition to planning for mobile-only, publishers must also be considering which platforms their users are on and which platforms make the most sense in the moment. National Geographic, for example, does gangbusters on Instagram, they are taking long stories and thinking differently about them for Instagram, using their best pictures to tell the story. You have to consider the platforms during your mobile-only planning: Does a story lend itself to Instagram or Pinterest, to Facebook or YouTube (Facebook is clearly the winner in the mobile video world). Once you know which platforms to use, every day with every story you re-examine where to go… Your audience’s behaviour and the unique strengths of each platform will tell you where to go and when.
Who is doing mobile particularly well? Who are the real innovators?
Well, I think in terms of publishers, Hearst, and Axel Springer really stand out. Hearst is far and away the global leader in terms of mobile and digital innovation and Axel Springer is right up there too. But there are many others doing interesting things as well. There’s a company we’re working with in India, Vikatan, which is doing great work in mobile and in digital innovation. The Financial Times is also doing great work. The difficulty for legacy publishers is that they have to move quickly, with a lot of baggage, and little history or institutional infrastructure for being digitally savvy – against digital natives who have far less baggage and who are more digitally savvy. So it’s a race to get the attention and the loyalty of readers. Unless legacy publishers change their culture and get their editors to change the editorial culture and the way they create and deliver content, particularly in mobile, then they will be in trouble. The question is, can they change fast enough and thoroughly enough? If their editors are fighting tooth and nail against the integration of editorial teams, against mobile-first, against mobile-only, while their competitors are already digital-only, they could be putting their entire company at risk.
We’ve got to get the editors to deliver content at the time and the place, and in the format that readers want it.
Is mobile having an impact on certain platforms, given its ability to deliver your message and your content direct to the audience – rather than enticing them to the destination?
For sure. Right now, the place to be is Facebook Instant Articles because Facebook is making publishing very, very easy and very attractive. Apple and Google are also playing in this platform-native content space, but Facebook is dominating. There are three potential downsides: revenue, data, and control. Publishers keep 100% of the revenue of ads they sell and 70% of revenue Facebook sells. That’s good for now, but Facebook sets the rules and could change at any time, which could be devastating if publishers become reliant on that revenue. In terms of data, publishers cannot get the same depth that they can on their own sites. Nor do publishers own the data. Reader behaviour data is a critical management tool, and Facebook needs to deliver more to justify publishers putting their valuable content exclusively on Facebook. And control? Facebook in this instance is like a landlord who can change the rent and the conditions at any time. That is not a secure or comforting piece of a business model.
On the other hand, Facebook is 84% or so faster than everybody else. All of the engagement measures are better, too: the sharing, the liking, the reader satisfaction, and the auto-play video experience that Facebook gives readers versus a link that takes readers off to a slow-loading magazine website. You still must have a website because you must have a home for your stories because Google search is still a massive (if declining) source of traffic. But more and more people are putting their content on social media platforms and on chat platforms.
What else will you be talking about at FIPP London?
I’m going to talk about the design of the mobile site and how to build a mobile site. We’ll also consider how you create mobile-only content and the four or five steps to creating successful mobile-only content. It will be a thorough exploration of mobile content – what are some of the mobile ad formats that work and don’t work? How to bring native advertising into mobile. Why banners don’t work on mobile. Why native advertising does. The use of the distributor platforms, the timing, the mapping of your user experience and planning your content creation to reflect those behaviours. And the risk that publishers are facing. If people have a bad experience on mobile, 90% will never come back. To make matters worse, 50% of those unhappy readers will then go and tell their friends – and that doesn’t mean picking up the phone, it means going on a social media platform and telling hundreds of people. So you have trouble growing exponentially instead of one reader at a time. We’ll look at all of those things.
• The FIPP Innovation World Report 2016/17 launched end of March. Get your copy here. Learn about mobile, ad formats and creativity, content innovation, micro payments, and much more.
• Want more? Join John at FIPP London (10-11 May), where he will lead a series of FIPP Innovation masterclasses, using practical case studies from the new report.
• In addition to FIPP Innovation, FIPP London includes FIPP Mobile, FIPP Tech and Worldwide Media Marketplace. See the preliminary FIPP London agenda here.
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