Five Techwe are
Jul 18, 2014

Adapting Your Content Marketing for Different Devices

Today, the way we consume content is changing at a much faster pace than at any time in history.

While there’s been quite a shift from print to digital, things have not stopped moving ever since.

With the growth of mobile, and now tablet use, this altering of landscape is happening once again and adding a layer of complexity that businesses have never had to deal with before.

Marketers have been discussing this “mobile” future for a while — but this may be the wrong way to look at it.

From a recent Facebook survey on PPC advertising, Facebook revealed that for the first time, mobile-based advertising had become the most popular by marketers and advertisers.

Going further into the mobile device world, content marketing must also make shifts with it. It has made the job of creating a content strategy that much more complex, and “cracking it” requires a structured approach that begins with an understanding of the way in which we interact with our everyday devices.

Multi-Screen Usage

Understanding what content to place where and when is the key aspect of the strategy of content marketing.

In order to create a truly data-informed picture, we need information on things such as:

  • What device is used, and when in the day.
  • Which devices we used to access types of content.
  • How long we spend on each device and what we look at on them.

With this basic understanding, it makes it much easier to map out the right kind of content.

Device Use: Timing

The way we interact with the content we consume actually changes throughout the day. From Google’s study, they break down and explain that our morning habits push us toward mobile content first thing in the morning, at lunchtimes, and on the way home from work.

In the evenings we spend time browsing on tablets and working along with another screen (usually mobile).

The study also makes clear that if you’re an eCommerce brand, the tablet is increasingly becoming your number one device in conversion terms, which also highlights the need for a great responsive web design site and content that is easily consumed on such screens.

Creating Content for the Right Device

The type of content we consume on each device varies widely. Someone using a mobile device is probably not going to read a long 500 word article in comparison to a 100 character informative sentence. You need to understand how people use their various devices. With each device, you need to make sure you grab and hold a readers’ attention. Here’s how this can be broken down from various devices:

Desktop: Keep Us Productive and Informed

Desktop consumption is one of the easiest to cater for, as it is the device we are most used to and the one that has had the most time for brands to gain experience on.

Pretty much all content forms can work with desktop content marketing, but longer form articles can be more beneficial for users on a desktop computer.

Mobile: Keep Us Connected

With mobile devices, we seek quick and easy to read information where and when we want it. In this case, your content should be short, sweet and get to the main point. It’s rare that people will read full and lengthy articles on their mobile devices because they are often checking the Internet on their mobile device as they are on the go. Of course, it’s also critical to have a responsive web design here as it helps cater to the readability and ease of navigating a website on a mobile device.

Tablet: Keep Us Entertained

Tablets are increasingly becoming more popular — a few years ago they didn’t even exist and now it’s apart of our everyday lives. We typically rely on them for evening and weekend entertainment and because of that we also find ourselves doing more research on the device such as online shopping.

We also tend to leave more reviews via tablets than we do with other devices, and so ensuring your review platform experience is responsive is, again, very important.

When creating content for your marketing strategy, don’t forget to tailor your content to the different types of devices your users will be using. Mobile, tablet and desktop devices are each very different from each other. Although we do read content from each device, not all of it will be the same type, length or even style. With this information in mind, you should have a better idea how to create content for various devices.

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