OUR FIRST ISSUE

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5 WAYS TO PUBLISH

CONTENT ON MOBILE

AND GROW YOUR

BRAND

Everyone knows mobile is taking over. All you have to do is stick

your head out the window, snap an Instagram, and you’ll see it: Little

computers that we can hold in our hands are everywhere.

According to an Econsultancy and Adobe trend report, marketers see mobile optimization as the number one

opportunity in 2015; yet they struggle with executing on an effective mobile content strategy. And while there

are plenty of great studies out there that portend mobile’s takeover of the web, there’s not much information

about the best (and worst) approaches to publishing content that is mobile-friendly. Obviously, mobile is a

whole new ball game. So how do we play?

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To get you started, here is a list of five easy ways to deliver effective content experiences on mobile platforms.

Using real life examples, from McDonalds’ use of responsive design to Oreo’s awesome real-time and video

campaigns, there is plenty of useful advice to be gleaned from how the pros publish content on mobile.

#1: Make your content readable on mobile

This one sounds like a no-brainer, but too many businesses are simply failing to make their content accessible

on the small screen. One eye-opening study suggested 98 percent of small and medium business websites were

not ready for mobile. You know the feeling: You’re browsing the web on your smartphone, only to come to the

brick wall of an impossible-to-read website — or worse, you encounter a big alert that tries to force you to

download an app.

The obvious solution here is to make your site fit for tablet and smartphone reading. One of the most popular

tactics for doing this is with a responsively designed website. Responsive web design simply means building

your site (whether it’s a blog or an e-commerce platform) with flexibility for all devices in mind. So when a

user with a smartphone comes to your site, the objects on the screen will automatically adjust to fit the screen.

You build once, and it fits nicely on all devices, from PCs to tablets and smartphones.

Example from the pros: When McDonalds Canada put out its Your Questions campaign, it knew a huge

portion of readers would be accessing the interactive microsite from handheld devices. So the company made

the whole thing responsive to automatically adjust the screen no matter what device customers choose to view

the content on.

Takeaway: The result of a responsive web design means you just build once and can provide visitors with an

easily usable content experience.

#2: Make your site feel like a mobile site

Despite responsive design’s huge benefit to marketers, an incredible mobile reading experience is so much more

than simply making your content fit on a smaller screen. Doing that sometimes feels like putting a radio show

on the television — the content is all there, but you are missing out on something.

Mobile is an entirely new medium and it comes with a unique way for people to interact with content. It’s all

about touch, swipe, and that feeling of a full-screen, laid-back experience — simulating the “couch surfing”

vibe. This is why some content publishers opt for creating a social magazine-style experience, in the spirit

of Flipboard, to deliver content to mobile users in the most dynamic way possible.

The benefit of this approach is huge. Aside from providing a more familiar and enjoyable reading experience,

your readers tend to view more pages, and spend far more time with your content compared with other websites

that were built with click and scroll in mind.

An added benefit to this approach is that marketers are given a natural way to show full-screen ads and/or call-

to-action widgets. So, for instance, in between your full-screen articles, you can sneak in a white paper

download CTA or a newsletter sign-up request without interrupting the experience.

Example from the pros: “The Toronto Star,” one of North America’s largest newspapers, built a great mobile-

first, immersive experience for its tablet audience. It created a totally swipeable, full-screen magazine web app,

which makes it incredibly easy for visitors to swipe to the next story, much like they would turn a printed page

to keep reading.

Takeaway: Boost page views and time spent on your blog or content site with a built-for-touch, laid-back

reading experience.

#3: Create custom, mobile-only assets

As you start to notice more of your readers are on mobile, another strong tactic is to build something just for

them. In contrast to optimizing an existing web property, customized mobile assets are all about putting together

a stand-alone content experience the user can only access through a smartphone or a tablet device.

Many brands are using this tactic to curate diverse content assets from around the web into a single, compelling

mobile product. It’s a surefire way to give readers a valuable reading experience, while at the same time

unifying all your efforts (e.g., all your social feeds, video, and blog content can be rolled up into one awesome

experience), and potentially driving them to discover more content they otherwise might have missed.

Example from the pros:

“The Economist’s” Electionism: When the U.S. presidential elections were just starting to heat up in 2011,

“The Economist” wanted to do something special for its growing tablet readership. The publisher

built Electionism, a mobile-only app that leveraged its editorial content on the U.S. election, social feeds, and a

curated news section from across the web.

Softchoice: Softchoice is a leading B2B technology provider, as well as a group of laser-sharp content

marketers. The company recently put out a tablet and smartphone app that packaged all its various content

assets into a single, unified reading experience.

Takeaway: Assemble a custom mobile-online experience to drive more content discovery and build better

relationships with mobile readers.

#4: Go for web, not native (most of the time)

Three years after the iPad’s release, publishers are slowly starting to realize Apple’s App Store is not always the

best place to publish content. Apps have a modern, cool factor, and many content creators rushed out of the gate

to go build one. Unfortunately, apps also cost a lot of money and time to produce, and at the end of the day,

they don’t always provide what readers want, as evidenced by a few tragic results.

When an app is only available through the App Store, it requires several steps for users to access it. Do you

really need to put up that much friction between your story and a user’s enjoyment of it? The answer is pretty

obvious. And the numbers speak for themselves: Twice as many mobile news readers prefer browsers over

apps.

This is why a rock star caliber mobile content marketer often goes with a web app, or optimized website,

instead of investing time and money on building a closed-off native app. With the advanced web technologies

available, the user experience can be made to be indistinguishable from that of a slick native app. In addition, a

leading benefit of building for the web is that all your SEO efforts and existing social traffic continues to

contribute to your mobile visits.

Just one caveat: In some cases, you might want to create something a little beefier than a simple reading app.

Content marketing can come in many forms, and it’s not always just text and videos. In those cases, using the

more robust technology platform of native apps, as well as relying on the great exposure of an app store, might

be a highly visible way to launch your branded app.

Example from the pros: “Financial Times” was the first major publisher to shirk Apple’s App Store (and 30

percent revenue cut) and go right to creating a web app, which it built using the mobile-

friendly HTML5 markup language. We at EMRE Publishing will be rolling-out our own Embellisher

Multimedia Creator Studio in the near future. This will allow you to create your own stunning ePub3 books and

install them directly into your Embellisher web app system.

Native apps: Volkswagen wanted to do something big to launch one of its newest cars: It wanted to build

a native app for iOS. Now that’s classy! And it probably couldn’t have executed its content idea at the required

level of quality if the brand had chosen to go with a web app rather than one that was designed specifically to

optimize the mobile experience.

Takeaway: Most mobile content marketing is better served from the web — but if you are building a big tool or

game, you may want to “go native.”

#5: Get on the hot mobile social networks

From Vine to Instagram, a number of social media sites are emerging that focus primarily on the mobile

channel. And they are gaining members by the millions — members who are just waiting to be entertained by

great brand content. Search out where your audience might be hanging out on mobile, find their favorite apps,

and start entertaining, educating, and bringing your brand there.

Not only do these apps give you a great way to show the fun side of your brand, but they also can provide an

easy way to curate or share content that keeps brand conversations flowing during those times when you are

working to create more substantial content pieces.

Examples from the pros: By now, you might have heard of Oreo’s display of genius “real-time” marketing at

the Super Bowl by hammering out a single, perfectly timed Twitter pic during the blackout. But this isn’t the

only time the cookie maker has stood out as an exemplary mobile content marketer. As you’ll see below, Oreo

has an incredible knack for entertaining and building its brand on mobile social networks. For example, Oreo

has a great Vine feed packed with tons of helpful and funny videos, including the one below, which shows how

to make an Oreo kebab.

“The Wolverine” movie made history and the first ever movie trailer on Vine, a little video social network that

you might have heard of.

GE’s also got an exceptional Instagram feed that showcases beauty shots of big, heavy machines. As its

follower count shows, people love it.

Takeaway: Popular mobile apps can be your ticket to publishing content that entertains and connects the

audience to your brand.

For more shining examples of branded content that works across multiple platforms, read CMI’s Ultimate

eBook: 100 Content Marketing Examples.

How to Get 200+ New Subscribers From 1 LinkedIn Article

A Checklist for Measuring Your Content Marketing Success

How to Run a Content Marketing Campaign on a Budget: 5 Free Tools

Content Marketing Strategy 101: Make it a Game

“If you want ePub3 content that your clients

will interact with, just request a free quote

from EMRE Publishing.”

STAY WITH US

We hope you enjoyed the first issue of The Embellisher. Our clients are

businesses, families and authors who understand the importance of mobile

publishing. Suggestions for article topics are always welcome.

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