Notes From A Mobilized Marketer - Facebook Drives Mobile Video Growth

Robots and virtual reality advances aside, my SXSW experience was heavy on results and opportunities around mobile video.

On the live streaming side, we now know that last year’s SXSW darling Meerkat was forced to change its business model with the appearance of Facebook Live and the adoption of Periscope.

It was Facebook’s moves and associated metrics that especially caught my attention over the last few days:

As shared by a company executive, 100 million hours of video are viewed every day on Facebook. Mobile is a large driver.

Ninety percent of the views on Facebook for the Straight Outta Compton trailer were on mobile.

The trailer for Furious 7 had 100 million views on Facebook, with an undisclosed but high number on mobile devices.

Approximately 2.2 million people watched the Facebook Live stream of Peyton Manning’s retirement announcement. This came despite the fact that the event was shown on a variety of television and online outlets.

Facebook has long viewed mobile as its biggest growth opportunity. Clearly video is key to the company’s aspirations.

Elsewhere:

Of the gazillion people at SXSW, no one brought a better in-flight Wi-Fi solution. Damn.

In a panel on beacons, Clorox's Sarah Ortman said that a brand’s mobile outreach in store should solve a problem or delight a consumer.  Or both.

Despite the hype, I didn’t see many robots at SXSW unless you count those who stayed out until 4 a.m. and were forced to attend early morning panels.

The majority of McDonald’s U.S. business is via the drive thru, making mobile solutions more important. The company had a large presence in Austin.

In the UK this year, mobile ad spending will surpass TV spending as well as desktop spending, according to eMarketer

Half of all debit card holders don't believe it's safe to use their card for online purchases, Kantar reported. I wonder what these people would say about using a smartphone to make a purchase. Likely, no, thanks.

In 2015, Apple sold 441 iPhones per minute.

Notes From A Mobilized Marketer - MLB is Big League With Mobile App

It isn’t called the major leagues for nothing. Major League Baseball had 8.4 billion minutes streamed to its mobile app in 2015, per comScore. A total of 53% of the total minutes consumed were in the At Bat app with users watching or listening to games. The activity was more than than in all other U.S. official sports leagues apps combined.

Nearly one in four shoppers say that they have changed their minds while in a checkout line after looking up details on a smartphone: Google.

Meerkat is dropping the livestream. It’s a cautionary tale for those looking at "solutions"at SXSW that may be shiny and not stand test of time,

Headline: Retail Executives Say Mobile Investments to Increase This Year. Me: you don't say.

Two weeks after calling for an Apple boycott call, Donald Trump was using an iPhone to send half of his tweets: Marketing Land.

A man with a gun while taking selfies fatally shot himself in Concrete, Washington, police say. Interestingly, the Russian government has issued a guide to discourage people from taking dangerous selfies.

Consumers’ use of health apps and wearables has doubled in the past two years, according to Accenture.

After all this time, Apple has now opened a Twitter account to answer tech questions and to deal with problems.

I read a story that predicted: "When you tuck your iPhone 9 into your back pocket, it may well flex to conform to the contours of your butt" I can only say yay.

One in 10 U.S. Internet users (31.1 million people) will be mobile-only this year, eMarketer reported.

Mobile payments make up only 3% Of U.S. transactions, per GfK. Weren’t we told that cash would be gone by some Tuesday in 2015?

Notes From A Mobilized Marketer - Selfies Take A Backseat For 18-24 Year Olds

Is the 18-24 year old group a “me” generation? Maybe not. 74% are most likely to use their mobile devices to take photos of animals, primarily pets, per eMarketer. Selfies trail at 67%.

You are well underway on your planning of holiday mobile campaigns, right?

Early Apple Watch wearers: do you feel differently about Apple given your experience the last few months? I do. In my mind, the brand is less bullet-proof. In other words, I will think twice about buying another product sight unseen.

Only 2% of U.S. consumers use digital wallets, per Gallup. Some thought cash would be gone. Please.

250 million in India are experiencing the Internet for the first time on mobile, in contrast to 80 million on desktop, according to Tyroo Technologies.

Meerkat introduced a GoPro livestreaming feature.

A memorable tweet from Jimmy Kimmel – “I’ve never been in prison but I did sit through a 60 second pre-roll ad on YouTube.”

The runner-up tweet of the week is from former Myspace CEO Michael Jones: “A phone that I don't use to make calls now paired with a watch I don't use to tell time.”

The spend on app-install ads is forecast to climb 80% in 2015, eMarketer says.

69 million Americans go online more often from smartphones than any other device, Forrester reports.

My six elliptical workouts last week didn't save me – Apple Watch called me a slacker. I guess that we all need to Be Like Bo.

Businesses investing in the Internet of Things are reporting a 16% increase in revenue as a result, according to The Complete Reimaginative Force by Tata Consultancy Services.

Jonathon Niese of the Mets watched the birth of his child on a mobile phone after leaving a start. Technology got him closer, but there was lots of debate about whether he should have been there in person.

Notes From A Mobilized Marketer - It Isn't The Young That Value The Smartphone The Most

To those who still claim that there is still a technology divide among generations, I offer this: the older you are, the more that you value the smartphone, according to a new Pew Research Center survey.

82% of the 65+ crowd say that their device gives them “freedom”.  The same percentage consider mobile a connector rather than a distraction. That's primarily because the devices are intuitive.

Conversely, 36% of 18-29 year olds say the smartphone is a leash and 37% call it a distraction.

Six ducklings that fell down a storm drain were lured out by a firefighter using the duck call ringtone on his iPhone.

Meerkat has introduced its app for Android, temporarily giving it a difference-maker over Twitter’s Periscope.

Meanwhile, the use of these apps is being limited by sports leagues and associations. The latest? The PGA Tour revoked a reporter’s credentials for using Periscope.

There are more mobile-only Internet users than desktop PC-only users in the U.S., per CTIA.

My new on-demand mobile foundations course is now available via Market Motive. There is actionable discussion to drive ROI.

20% more Americans use PINs/passwords to protect data on smartphones and tablets in 2015 vs. 2012, CTIA says. What stops the others?

Secret, a $100 million social app, closed but the co-founders made off with $6 million and a Ferrari. Evidently, they spent no money on a PR strategy.

Nearly half of Fortune 500 websites aren't mobile-friendly by Google's standards, according to Merkle.

Last quarter, Apple sold an average of 8 iPhones per second, 24 hours a day, for 90 straight days.

Starbucks says that its mobile transactions top 8 million weekly.

An Apple Watch fitness app from a deodorant company doesn't pass my sniff test.

39 of the top 50 news sites get most of their web traffic from mobile: Pew.

Notes From A Mobilized Marketer - Now We Need To View Minutiae Via Live Video Apps?

I’ve long asked why we need to know via Facebook minutiae like a school bus caused a delay in someone's commute. Now we're supposed to watch live video of it on Meerkat or Periscope?

In a related note, 85% of mobile sharing happens on Facebook, per ShareThis.

I’m a couple of weeks away from saying that I was so unconnected before Apple Watch. Well, not exactly.

According to Nielsen, 146 million watched video on the Internet, and 164 million people used an app/web on a smartphone in the fourth quarter of 2014.

An unwanted promoted tweet says "goodbye to clutter". What irony.

Mobile devices generate 25% of all digital travel transactions in the U.S., Criteo says.

Drexel University has installed an iPad rental vending machine for students, library card holders.

Slightly over a third of smartphone buyers in the past three months were first-timers, Kantar reports.

The activity that more smartphone users do than any other? Apps? No. Web? No. Picture taking? No. Text message? You got it, per Pew.

61% of ESPN’s visitors are mobile only. There will be tons on the ramifications of this for marketers in my upcoming book, The Art of Mobile Persuasion. 

The New York Times will publish “one-sentence stories” on Apple Watch.

To those who readily lead with mobile first, advertisers spent $1.13 billion on TV ads during March Madness.

Only 27% of marketers have bought mobile ads programmatically: IAB.

An eMarketer report estimates that global mobile ad spending will rise to $100 billion by 2016, a 400% increase from 2013.

For every $1 spent on the mobile web, $3 is spent via apps.

I appreciate the Facebook-suggested post from seniorpeoplemeet.com. She needs a boyfriend. I need better targeting.

Notes From A Mobilized Marketer - By Using Meerkat, Politicians Show They Can Live and Learn

Maybe politicians can live and learn. As you may know, Republicans have been slow to use mobile to engage constituents and to raise funds, not to mention post tweets (22 approvals were reportedly needed before a Mitt Romney campaign tweet could go live in 2012). 

So it’s notable that early GOP presidential hopefuls, including Jeb Bush, are using the new video app Meerkat. Meanwhile, Ted Cruz is using SMS to mobilize voters and raise funds.

Apple Store employees are reportedly being trained to give fashion advice for the Apple Watch launch. I guess that we’ll hear things like, “Wear lots of blue with a big logo on your shirt.”

WhatsApp messages sent every day now exceeds the number of standard texts.

Home Depot’s mobile app helps customers find 35,000 SKUs when visiting a store. Lowe’s has a similar program.

In the U.S., TNS projects 28% will use mobile to buy online in 2015, up from 22% in 2014.

Advertisers will spend $3 billion in the U.S. this year trying to get you to install mobile apps, per eMarketer.

Only half of app makers spend any money on security: IBM.

New York Giants coach Tom Coughlin has an iPhone but only knows how to text. "I don't trust the lady in GPS. Don't trust her."

75% of traffic for Pinterest comes from mobile: eMarketer.

In 2002, no one sent videos/photos via text message in America. In 2013, more than 10 billion were exchanged monthly: CTIA.

App Yik Yak has built geofences around 100,000 high schools in the United States to clamp down on cyber-bullying.

85% of the world's transactions are still made with cash: MasterCard.

A network of Bluetooth beacons will soon guide the blind through the London Underground: Wired.

HTC will give you a new One M9 smartphone if your M9 cracks or falls into the can.

Mobile video is 6.5X more effective than mobile display, per new research from the Mobile Marketing Association.

Unlike SXSW, the Mobile Marketing Forum Was About Business Results

I proposed a game at the start of this week’s Mobile Marketing Association’s Forum in New York where we would take a drink each time that we heard the word Meerkat.

My tweet stream the previous several days had been nothing short of overrun by Meerkats, which are live video streams sent from phones to all of one’s Twitter followers at once.

I figured that by noon on St. Patrick’s Day, Day 1 of the MMA event, we would all be as inebriated as some of those partying on Fifth Avenue.

I was wrong. There was nary a mention. And I believe that I now know why.

The introduction of something like Meerkat is made for the SXSW crowd, which includes those who crave shiny objects, first looks at innovation, and business models that could lead to great change.

That is actually in sharp contrast to what many came to hear at the MMA show – evidence of business results and proof that some of the products and services launched way before SXSW were moving boxes of tissues and bottles of ketchup while engaging mobile users in meaningful ways.

The most significant conversation in New York was around the latest SMoX (Smart Mobile Cross Marketing Effectiveness) research that was conducted by the MMA and some of its largest and most influential members. Aiming to scientifically assess the interaction of mobile channels and platforms in relation to the broader marketing mix (TV, radio, magazines, Internet, etc.), the exercise was intended to help marketers understand the impact of consumers’ shifting media habits, as well as how to optimize their marketing mix by rebalancing investments.

Here’s what we discovered:

In Coca Cola's Gold Peak Tea campaign, mobile drove 25% of top of mind awareness and 6% of sales despite only 5% of budget.

Mobile in Walmart's Back to School initiative produced a 14% change in shopping intent despite only 7% of the marketing spend.

In a travel card campaign, MasterCard saw mobile display and mobile video work twice as hard in terms of the number of people it converted on image per dollar spent.

The overall takeaway from the new U.S.-focused SMoX research was that the optimal spend for mobile is in the double digits - far more than is being allocated.

Adam Broitman, VP of Global Digital Marketing, MasterCard, called SMoX “a real breakthrough in the mobile marketing industry and the first thorough and comprehensive industry study that proves the true value of mobile.”

Said Tom Daly, Coca-Cola’s mobile lead, “It gives all the teams, particularly in the United States, something to think about.”

Here’s some of what else caught my eyes and ears in New York:

The hype would lead some to believe that paper and coin currency will be gone by the weekend given the advancements in Apple Pay and other mobile wallet products. But, according to MasterCard’s Michael Donnelly, 85% of the world's transactions are still made in cash.

We knew that long-form content has an uphill battle on mobile. And that was before we heard this -- the focused attention span for a consumer is eight seconds, down from 12 in 2000, according to Gfk. For perspective, GfK told us, a goldfish has a nine-second attention span.

Brandon Rhoten, vice president of digital and social media with Wendy’s, gave marketers like me who are a bit long in the tooth a pass on knowing everything about everything.

“There is no reason we should know how to use Tumblr,” he said. “It’s not where we grew up. So the biggest piece of advice I give is, ‘Be humble and back up and say ‘I don’t know what I’m doing.’ Go to your partners and talk to them. How can you fit the context of that platform at the same time you stand out?”

Rhoten’s take on Meerkat? Even if a “solution” is perceived by some as cool, if it hasn’t scaled or shown that it can move cheeseburgers, it doesn’t make it into a marketing plan dead set on generating business success.

(article first appeared on Mobile Marketer - http://www.mobilemarketer.com/cms/opinion/columns/20025.html)