Public Relations & Social Marketing Insight

Although $100 billion was purchased last year using mobile devices, brands are still facing a number of challenges that inhibit meeting consumers’ needs, according to a Forrester researcher at Mobile Marketer’s Mobile FirstLook: Strategy 2015 conference.

During the “Forrester Research: The Mobile Mind Shift: Closing the Capability Gap” session, the most daunting challenge presented was that many marketers have approached mobile in the same fashion as they would a PC, by shrinking Web experiences onto a smaller screen. Although this tactic is not necessarily wrong, mobile strategies need to be retooled because there is a fundamental difference between the way consumers interact with smartphones and tablets compared to their PCs.

“Mobile is not a PC, okay, they’re not a PC. With that said, 62 percent of companies still treat mobile as a slimmed down version of what they design for a PC,” said Julie Ask, vice president and principal analyst at Forrester Research....

These are the chattiest brands on Snapchat, demonstrating that time-sensitive images can actually be a strength in brand marketing.Mobile apps such as Twitter, Vine, Instagram and Snapchat are turning traditional media marketing upside down, challenging brands in increasingly new ways. Human interactions are key to brand loyalty and building a strong consumer base, and these mobile apps allow for two-way conversations.

Snapchat, which launched in the iTunes App Store in September 2011, is popular with a much younger demographic than some marketing execs are used to, but it takes little or no cost to interact with customers by way of snaps. Compare that to other pricey forms of old-school advertising, and that’s a major plus...