Creating Mobile-Friendly Content for Social Media by Jayne Corso

Hi my name is Jayne Corso and I am the Community Manager for AEA.

79 percent of smartphone owners check their device within 15 minutes of waking, according to Smart Insights. Many of you are probably guilty of this trend, which will continue to evolve in 2018. This means that social media content needs to be tailored for viewing on a mobile device. Here are some tips for making your content mobile-friendly.

Hot Tip: Keep Your Content Relevant

No matter the platform, you want to keep your posts short and straight forward. Avoid fluff language and deep description. You want your action, such as “register today” or “read more” to be clear. You can add details on the site where you are directing your audience.

Hot Tip: Use Videos

According to Smart Insights, it is estimate that 70 percent of people are on-the-go and looking for immediate content compared to 10% in lean- back mode. For this type of mobile user, short videos are great for gaining your content more exposure. Videos do not have to be professional and can be shot using your mobile device. Try posting tips for data visualization, lessons learned from your programs, or insights discovered at recent conference.

Hot Tip: Use Compelling Photos

When scrolling through a phone, lots of content can be skipped over. Try pairing a colorful, interesting, or distinctive photo with your content. Photos go a long way in capturing attention.

I hope these strategies help you increase your reach within the evaluation community.

Do you have questions, concerns, kudos, or content to extend this aea365 contribution? Please add them in the comments section for this post on theaea365 webpage so that we may enrich our community of practice. Would you like to submit an aea365 Tip? Please send a note of interest to aea365@eval.org . aea365 is sponsored by the American Evaluation Association and provides a Tip-a-Day by and for evaluators.

7 thoughts on “Creating Mobile-Friendly Content for Social Media by Jayne Corso”

  1. Loved the tips you provided, as I believe this will help me with future projects of mine. The opening statement about how 79 percent of smartphone owners check their phone within 15 minutes of waking up, was truly interesting. I believe the numbers are accurate. I would say I check my phone within 5 minutes or less after waking up.

  2. Hi Jayne,
    I found the statistical information you presented to be very interesting. In my own academic endeavors, I have been writing about the effects of smartphone usage. For this reason, knowing the percentage of individuals who check their device within minutes of waking up is of importance to me. As a young entrepreneur and social media user, your advice about short relevant posts with engaging images and videos was also very helpful to me. Personally, as a consumer I engage with a photo before the caption that follows. This is especially true of the Instagram social networking platform. Thank you for your tips!
    Andrea Lopez

  3. Kaitlyn McElveen

    I personally am guilty of checking my phone minutes after wake up out of bed. I find your tips fairly helpful! Many times people don’t want to read a lengthy post and are attracted to bold colors, videos, and other graphics. This post made me more aware of how my own habits are in regard to social media.

  4. I am guilty of waking up and the first thing I do is go on my phone. It actually has became a habit for me. These tips are very useful and I will try it. The description part I already do, I am not big on making large paragraphs for a caption. The compelling photo tip is something I will definitely do. Thanks.

  5. Jayne, these are great tips when trying to push content. I am an avid user of Twitter. Most of the content I “repost” or “like” are usually pictures or videos. Likes you said, most of us are on the go. I can usually have a clip play while I’m busy with other work. Also, content with pictures are more memorable… For me anyway. When sharing with other people, content with video or pictures usually get shared first. Also, I hope everyone remembers, though it great to be visually appealing, make sure the photo matches the content. A close of pretty flower in a garden are not ideal for something like “at-risk youth”. I have seen this before. Thank you for the tips.

  6. Hi Jayne,
    I found the statistical information you presented to be very interesting. In my own academic endeavors, I have been writing about the effects of smartphone usage. For this reason, knowing the percentage of individuals who check their device within minutes of waking up is of importance to me. As a young entrepreneur and social media user, your advice about short relevant posts with engaging images and videos was also very helpful to me. Personally, as a consumer I engage with a photo before the caption that follows. This is especially true of the Instagram social networking platform. Thank you for your tips!

  7. Jayne,
    I found your opening statistic about smartphone checking very interesting as I have recently been researching smartphone usage habits and the effectiveness of social media advertising. Thank you for your tip about including videos and captivating photos with captioned content and informing the readers about the importance of a clear call to action. In the future, I plan on applying your tips to my own social media posts.

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