“You used to call me on my cell phone…” – Just Like Drake Said

     This week’s theme in Strategic Communication and Emerging Media was all about mobile technologies.  The driving question was, “How can strategic communication professionals use mobile technologies/communications in an efficient and ethical manner?”  In order to answer this we need to look at just how much impact these mobile technologies have in our day-to-day lives.  To do so I've borrowed a graphic representation of a series of studies conducted by the Pew Research Center, published in 2017, showing the evolution of technology adoption and usage.

     For this blog I’d like to focus on the data relating to owning a smartphone.  Our reading, specifically a professional blog entry from our professor Dr. Padgett, covered the statistics for 2012.  In 2012, 44% of U.S. adults owned a smartphone.  Looking at the most recent data from the Pew Research Center we can see that the 2016 numbers have spiked to 77% of U.S. adults owning a smartphone.  Additional data shows that the greatest increase occurred in lower-income and age 50+ brackets.  The lower-income bracket was defined as households earning less than $30,000 per year.  The age 50+ bracket was defined as Americans aged 50-64.  So today, at 77%, over three-quarters of all U.S. adults own a smartphone.  Like the rapper Drake said, “You used to call me on my cell phone…” but today we are doing so very much more than just calling with our smartphones.  So what exactly are we doing with these devices?  Another infograph from the Pew Research Center, a 2015 finding, depicts some of the various activities we, as Americans, use our phones for:

     From this illustration it is clear that location-based services are the most widely used function for most Americans.  I can identify with this finding because I tend to use my phone for location based-services, listening to music, taking and sharing photos, social media updates, web searches, news alerts, text messaging, and checking email.  So what smartphone uses appeal to the various age-groups?  Pew research Center conducted a survey in July 2015 and I’d like to share that information with you:

      As a communication professional I find all of this information rich with important strategic data.  If we are looking into integrating mobile technologies into our communication strategies then this data helps us better understand our target audiences.  In researching how to efficiently use mobile technologies in communication strategy I came across a research article from Matti Leppaniemi, he possesses a PhD in Marketing and is a faculty member of Economics and Business Administration with the University of Oulu in Finland.  The piece was entitled, “Mobile Marketing: From Marketing Strategy to Mobile Marketing Campaign Implementation”.  For this blog I’d like to concentrate on the clear outline he provided for mobile campaigns.  It goes like this, first conduct a situational analysis.  In doing this we determine our objectives, we frame our end goals.  That is to say, what do we want to see as an outcome.  Are we looking for raising awareness, building a brand, responding to crisis, engagement, or calling our target audience to take action?  After establishing a clear objective we define our target audience.  We zero in on specifically who we want to reach and what their needs are.  Different audiences have different responses to and different uses of the mobile technologies that we’ve been discussing.  Once we have both the objective and the target audience determined we move on to strategy.  Leppaniemi states that, “strategies are the broad statements about how the objectives will be achieved” (2004).  Then we select our tactics, these are the specific details of the strategy.  The tactics will drive the message and shape the content.  These tactics also determine the best communication tools or methods we’ll use to implement our strategy and our overall campaign. 

     During the 2015 National Summit on Strategic Communications Jamie Pham from LinkedIn shared insight on content marketing during a Q&A session.  When asked what her definition was for content marketing she shared, “Content marketing is building a relationship with a key constituency by consistently delivering helpful, inspirational, or entertaining content…It’s about building a relationship, which means you can’t just take one message, push it out one time and think you’ve done your job” (2016).  One message, one tactic does not an effective mobile communication strategy make.  It’s like Amy Calhoun said, in her article “Keeping Up with Mobile: A Game-Changing Strategy”, “effective mobile management is about being strategic, not being everywhere” (2013).  Her comments illustrate the importance of clear mobile communication campaigns, “blanketing a campaign with videos, social media, a mobile app and more will only be successful if you manage it properly and target it to the right groups.  Where are the people you are trying to reach, and what are the appropriate media for your message?”  With the rise in smartphone ownership, the varied uses of these technologies, and the differing target audiences we, as communicators are charged with bringing in to focus, through situational analysis, the objectives, target audiences, strategy and tactics to provide a clearer view of what an effective communication plan looks like.  Calhoun adds, “Many believe that mobile technology is a game changer for communication professionals, forcing us to rethink how we develop and implement campaigns, and altering the face and pace of our industry as a whole.  In reality, the rules of the game haven’t changed.  With any campaign, the key is still – and always will be – strategy.  Mobile is simply adding a new dimension, enhancing the tools available to communicators so that we can respond more effectively and quickly whenever, and wherever they are.”

     An additional requirement for this week’s blog was to upload an original multimedia item to our content.  While working on this assignment and digging through my mobile upload gallery on my smartphone no less, I was keenly aware of three things: 1) I’ve been blessed with amazing travel experiences all around the world; 2) the Louvre in Paris is magnificent and by far one of my favorite museums in all of the world; 3) Leonardo da Vinci’s “Mona Lisa” can help me illustrate this blog's theme of a communication professionals’ guide to mobile strategy.  So I’ll share a couple of pics from our 2015 New Year’s family trip to the City of Light:

      The beauty that is “Mona Lisa” can be seen over the sea of people (all with smartphones at the ready) from all over the world who have come to meet her face to face (on canvas through glass).  Notice how difficult it is to really see her in this photo, I’m at the back of the crowd.

         In this next photo, I’ve zoomed in and even cropped out the crowd to direct focus solely on her.

     As communication professionals this is exactly how we must prepare ourselves when creating an effective mobile communication plan.  Just like how we focus and edit our photos for clarity and content, likewise we must do similarly by using an outline such as Leppaniemi proposed.  We must analyze the situation and determine our objectives, define our target audience, develop a strategy and streamline our tactics to ensure our mobile communication plans are met with success.  Only then can the desired result come into crystal clarity for our communication plan’s message sender and message recipient(s).

Strategically Yours,

Autumn

WORKS CITED:

Anderson, M. (Jan. 2016). “More Americans Using Smartphones For Getting Directions, Streaming

TV.”  Retrieved on 24 January 2017 from http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/01/29/us-smartphone-use.

Calhoun, A. (Oct. 2013). “Keeping Up with Mobile: A Game Changing Stratgey.”  Retrieved on 24

January 2017 from http://apps.prsa.org/intelligence/TheStrategist/Articles/view/10396/1084/Keeping_Up_with_Mobile_A_Game_Changing_Strategy#.WI11hvArIps.

Leppaniemi, M. (Oct. 2004).  “Mobile Marketing: From Marketing Strategy to Mobile Marketing

Campaign Implementation.”  Retrieved on 23 January 2017 from http://www/jultika.oulu.fi/files/isbn9789514288159.pdf.

Padgett, S. (unknown).  “Journalism and Communication's Future? It's Exciting!”  Retrieved on 23

January 2017 from http://jschool.troy.edu/~padgett/?p=181.

Pham, J. (Apr. 2016) “Content Marketing: Be Helpful, Human and Inspirational.” Retrieved on 24

January from http://strategicsummit.com/content-marketing-be-helpful-human-and-inspirational.

Smith, A. (Jan. 2017). “Record Shares of Americans Now Own Smartphones, Have Home 

            Broadband.” Retrieved on 24 January 2017 from http://www.pewresearch.org/fact- 

            tank/2017/01/12/evolution-of-technology.