Mobile Use

The following was written by Erin Brooks, who presented on mobile use during the Social Media Boot Camp. This post originally appeared on Erin’s blog here.

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Last week, I participated in an event for one of my classes here at Penn State.  The event was a social media boot camp for student organizations.  Members of the class presented on various social media outlets to help increase organization awareness. My particular topic was mobile use within student organizations, particularly on whether or not organizations have a mobile-friendly website.

To my surprise, 57% of organizations that attended do not have a mobile friendly website. 

Now that we are in the 21st Century, the importance of a mobile-friendly website is even greater. Cell phones are a crucial tool in everyday life that we depend on nearly every day.

• 70% of mobile users say they use mobile technologies to follow or monitor news and information
• 51% frequently or always share or recommend news from their mobile device

A mobile-friendly website should be designed specifically for smaller screens and allow for easy navigation.  If the above information has not convinced you, Tribal Café gave 82 Reasons To Be Mobile – Statistics Facts and Figures.

How do you make your website mobile? 1 in every 6 websites run on WordPress, making it the most popular blogging site in the world. Conveniently, WordPress has many themes that help mobile-friendliness by changing the layout to fit a cell phone screen. If your organization is planning to develop a mobile-friendly website, I recommend going with WordPress or downloading WPtouch, a WordPress Plugin.

As mobile use increases, the need for a mobile-friendly website becomes more prominent. Take the necessary steps to increase traffic by making a mobile-friendly website for your organization or company.

Check out the slides I presented on to learn more about mobile use for your organization. Additionally, I contributed to the event live tweeting through the hashtag #PSUsocialpros where I provided information on the sessions and answered questions.  Check out the Storify for the important points and highlights from the event!