Eric Schmidt is right: 2014 = the year of mobile. What should marketers do?

Eric Schmidt’s predictions aren’t always spot on and even he admits he sometimes misses the boat, but given his overwhelming success in

telecoms I wasn’t about to dismiss his claim in an interview with Bloomberg TV about 2014 trends:

“The trend has been that mobile was winning,” he said. “It’s now won.”

Some of the top content marketers out there think “mobile” is too general a category to  include in their 2014 marketing trends,  but I agree with Eric – 2014 is set to be the year of mobile.

Why do I think this is the case?

Because of its nature, content crafted to be “social” is meant to be shared, and mobile is a natural way of doing that. But it’s time to think beyond mobile as an on-the-move means of accessing content and to begin thinking of mobile as a unique channel of delivery where content must be mobile user specific and where design must be adaptable according to device.

Touch srcreen interaction, connectivity and competition from push notifications from other apps are all things we need to consider when creating content for mobile. It’s no longer enough to add a few share buttons to existing content and hope a site works well across all devices. It’s time to start considering mobile at the start of content creation, and to remember that mobile users have different behaviours than desktop users.

Take this one I got from a Buffer post (stats courtesy of Marketo) yesterday: 75% of smartphone owners say they are highly likely to delete emails they can’t read on their phones.

Hardly a surprise, but did you think of that last time you compiled an email campaign?

Why does everyone else think this is the case?

If Eric Schmidt and I haven’t convinced you, take a look at these two interesting tidbits dedicated to mobile:

The Inflection Point

We’re nearing it and may have actually passed it. By this I’m referring to the point where mobile devices began to outsell PC’s. In 2013, many experts advised that 2014 would be the year we hit the inflection point. Christmas sales numbers aren’t in yet, but we may have actually hit it already. So in a world where mobile device sales may actually now be higher than PC sales, I would think “mobile” is truly an important theme for 2014.

Jelly

Twitter founder Biz Stone has launched Jelly, a social Q&A network specifically for mobile that enables users to post questions (illustrated with photos if desired) and quickly get answers back. It’s a cool idea and also one of the many specific apps that are being developed entirely with mobile users in mind. Surely answers will include links to content which will also have to be optimised for mobile users.

Exciting times ahead

If I had more time, I’d give you more examples! I’ve enjoyed reading all the top content marketing predictions for 2014 and hope my post has got you a bit excited for what I think will be THE year for mobile. If you have examples of how you think mobile will evolve this year please do comment on my post.

Jennifer Reid is Director at The CommsCo, a London-based PR and content marketing agency. You can find her on Twitter and Google+ and LinkedIn.