How Publishers are Using Content to Retain & Engage Mobile Users
With mobile penetration in the US going from 20.2% in 2010 to 64.0% in early 20161, and total global Web pages served on mobile increasing from 0.7% in 2009 to 33.4% in 2015, it’s not surprising that mobile is THE hot button issue of digital publishing.2
The opening comment at the 2015 “The Future of Digital Publishing” workshop by Clive Dickens, chief digital officer at Seven West Media, was “Mobile is not the second screen, it is THE screen.”3
And, after noticing that 55% of their traffic came from mobile at the beginning of 2016, the Wall Street Journal’s chief innovation officer Edward Roussel, stated, “The theme across the board for 2016 is smartphones and what we do on them.”4 5
Which begs the question—how are publishers successfully using content to generate mobile based user retention and engagement?
Short answer? With a mobile forward approach.
A mobile forward approach not only benefits the user experience but also user engagement and consumption.
One tactic that aligns more with the presentation of content—rather than the format of the actual content—is the use of ‘show full article’ buttons.
Essentially, this button is placed a few paragraphs deep in the article and requires users to click to continue reading the rest of the article. Publishers such as The New York Times, Huffington Post, and Quartz are utilizing this feature and are seeing positive results.
The Times, which in 2015 had over 60% of its traffic attributed to mobile, noted that the ‘show full article’ button has resulted in a “moderate increase” in the time readers spent within their mobile site.6
Similarly, Quartz and The Huffington Post have found that this tactic can also lead to increased revenue through ad engagement—assuming the button is placed within mobile friendly real estate. According to Zach Seward, the VP of Product and Executive Editor of Quartz, “The Button helps because the ad is more likely to be seen, and in that moment, the user can choose to engage with it or carry on reading the story.”7
Surprisingly, a mobile forward approach includes publishing long-form content.
For many years it was assumed that the majority of mobile users preferred short form content. This notion is shattered as an increasing number of studies are now showing long form content is still king—even on mobile.
A recent Pew Research study conducted with James L. Knight Foundation and Parse.ly found that mobile users engage with long form content almost twice as long as short form (125 seconds vs 57 seconds, respectively). This difference held true regardless of how the user arrived at the articles. Likewise, the study also found that long form content slightly increases the likelihood of users reading multiple articles.8
Last, but most important, video is the dominate mobile forward approach.
Online video accounts for 50% of all mobile traffic and is expected to reach 117.2 million regular viewers within the United States this year.9 10 Such heavy mobile usage ultimately accounted for 46% of all online video views in 2015.11
As mobile video consumption continues to grow, publishers are quickly evolving to improve their offerings and grow their library.
Case in point? Tronc.
As part of a plan to reinvent itself as an online news organization, on June 2, 2016 the publisher formerly known as Tribune Publishing rebranded itself as Tronc. According to its Chairman, Michael W. Ferro Jr., “Right now we’re doing a couple hundred videos a day. We think we need to be doing 2000 videos a day.”12
Indeed, a mobile forward approach including—and especially—video is key to building mobile based user retention and engagement.
1. “Smartphone Penetration in the US (share of Population) 2010-2019.” Statista. N.p., 2016. Web. 15 July 2016.
2. Hazahal, Hafizah. “Why Mobile Raises the Stakes of Distributed Content for Media Publishers.” Inma, 29 Feb. 2016.
3. Waterworth, Samantha. “The Curious Case of the Shrinking Screen.” Filtered Media. N.p., 25 Aug. 2015. Web. 15 July 2016.
4. Southern, Lucinda. “The Wall Street Journal Plans Three More Vertical Apps.” Digiday. N.p., 21 Jan. 2016. Web. 15 July 2016.
5. IBID
6. Bilton, Ricardo. “Publishers’ Latest Mobile-engagement Trick: The Truncated Article Page.” Digiday. N.p., 05 Aug. 2015. Web. 15 July 2016
7. IBID
8. Harvey, Ellen. “How Mobile Readers Engage With Long- and Short-Form Content.” Publishing Executive. N.p., 25 May 2016. Web. 15 July 2016.
9. Abramovich, Giselle. “15 Stats Brands Should Know About Online Video.” Digiday. N.p., 02 Apr. 2013. Web. 15 July 2016.
10. “U.S. Mobile Phone Video Viewers 2019.” Statista. N.p., 2016. Web. 15 July 2016.
11. Jarboe, Greg. “Millennials Ensure 46% of Video Is Consumed Via Mobile.” Tubulars Insights. N.p., 21 Mar. 2016. Web. 15 July 2016.
12. Folkenflik, David. “Tribune Publishing Takes A Futuristic Step To Become ‘tronc'” NPR. NPR, 20 June 2016. Web. 15 July 2016.