Everyone who works in digital, social, mobile... heck, anyone who works in media and communications, should be reading Mary Meeker's annual Internet Trends report. A slow day at the office allowed me to catch up. Instead of just saving them on Evernote, I figured I'd share the most important takeaways from my perspective. Call it the Cliff Notes for Social Media Strategists version:
- There are 2.4 billion global Internet users - check out the year over year growth numbers coming out of Iran!
- Advertisers should be paying a lot more attention to mobile campaigns and media companies should be innovating how ads engage mobile users. So much untapped opportunity.
- More than 500 million photos are uploaded and shared annually via Facebook, Instagram, Flickr and (growing!!!) Snapchat. Graphics remain extremely important to making your message more sharable across the digital universe. [HINT: That's why AARP just launched our first Instagram contest: InstaGrands!]
- 100 hours of content in uploaded to YouTube every single minute. Invest in upping your vid skills! Speaking of, Snapchat and Vine are currently doubling their uploads every two months. (So are fitness apps and devices! Maybe it's time to order that FitBit...)
- Is your brand leveraging the most popular social networks with a unique strategic focus? (Mine is for all but MySpace. I love Justin Timberlake, but do we really have to go back there?)
- Tablets are growing three times faster than iPhones. How's your website look there? Are all of your calls to action built for responsive design?
- The typical mobile phone user reaches for their device 150 times a day. I wonder if I hit that threshold before lunch.
Mary's report always gives me a slew of "to dos" and "to learns"... here are the ones that jumped out at me this year:
- I need to check out DropCam. Sounds similar to Skype and Google Hangout to me, so why is it's use surging when it has a cost?
- Think through how we use sound for business as voice comes back to phone via SoundCloud and WeChat.
- If behavior is the cause of 40% of deaths, how can tools like Jawbone and FitBit incentivize/gamify healthier behavior and save our country money in health care down the road? (And, maybe I should put down this hush puppy.)
- Will wearable devices like Google Glass outpace even tablets in adaptation?
- Can I make a business case for drones? Or is that just a fun thing to consider using at the office?
- It's really interesting to follow the digital trends in China. What's trending there that will be big in the United States two years from now?
- There will be 2.4 jobs in computer science for every person that graduates with a computer science degree. How can we get more American students to focus on STEM, especially girls? I love what CodeAcademy and Black Girls Code are doing... how can I help amplify or support in my community?
- Good brainstorm idea: How could we re-imagine how we do business? If we hack our own business and get more innovative, we're less at risk of others doing it for us.
Dig into it and share your takeaways!
No comments:
Post a Comment