One of the most powerful digital marketing tools today is to leverage on users’ personal time (and space) by using social media platforms and mobility.
By enhancing the said experience with extremely compelling rich media interaction on mobile devices, it creates an even more lethal combination.
Social media platform is inherently interactive and engaging. It is built on sight, sound, and motion, aligning perfectly with the core foundation of rich media. On top of that, at least 80% of active users are assessing social media on mobile devices today.
And with the exceptional user experience rich media content offer, it will boost the effectiveness of your mobile campaign.
Table of Content
What is Social Rich Media to Mobile Marketing?
Social Rich Media
- Is a rich combination of interactive digital media—text, graphics, animation, video, and audio
- Displays dynamic motion and responds to users’ actions
- Rich media on social media platforms
- Enables users to interact with the content without leaving the page on which it appears
- An excellent combination of social media insights and rich media innovation
Traditionally, rich media means Flash or animated content. But with mobile devices, we’ll need rich media that are more advanced. Flash doesn’t work well (or at all) on majority of mobile devices. That calls for the new age Rich Media technology, enter HTML5 that enables rich interactive digital media.
On the other hand, rich media was widely used for brand marketing compared to direct marketing (DR). However, with social media more marketers now see more of its potential, i.e. rich media landing page. You will also notice, how social sites have made their posts/ads to be as native as possible to give a non-disruptive experience to users. So instead of driving users to other websites, taps on the post/ad unit opens to an expanded “page” with rich media, like a landing page.
Think of an ad on your Facebook news feed. When clicked, you will be driven to an interactive “landing page” within Facebook itself. In that page, you will find rich media content like videos, image gallery, image hotspots, mini games, etc.
Why Social Rich Media Is Your Best Bet for Mobile Marketing?
Mobile advertising may present many challenges to marketers.
For instance, you will find that driving your social mobile traffic directly to another website, even if it’s mobile-friendly, doesn’t drive the results you are looking for. It is because social app on mobile device, the stream, post/ad, and post-click experience should all happen within the app itself. Because, you wouldn’t want to disrupt your users with screen change and risk losing their attention.
But with social rich media, it’s a different story.
Rich media plays a significant role in the effectiveness of mobile campaigns. For instance, you can take advantage of rich media content features like store locators when your prospect is close to your retail location. Or easy-to-claim mobile coupons that remind your customers to claim when you are within the vicinity of a store.
On top of that, with rich media, you can engage more deeply with your clients as compared to traditional medium (static banner). It has the power to drive in-store visitation.
Take, for example, a coca-cola ad on Facebook. On one ad, you have a beautifully designed chilled coca-cola with enticing bubbles fizzling with a sun beach backdrop. On the other hand, you have a short video clip of a cool teenager on a hot day who pops open a bottle of coca-cola, and you can hear the sizzling sounds of bubbles. Which ad would entice you to visit the store for a Coke?
How Social Rich Media Can Take Your Mobile Campaign to the Next Level?
Higher interaction rate improves digital ad engagement
Rich media and video have proven to boost engagement and improve the effectiveness of digital campaigns. Reportedly in HI 2014, rich media ads worldwide saw far higher clickthrough rates (CTR) and engagement rates compared to a standard banner.
- CTR for rich media ads was 267% higher than standard banners
- Engagement rate of rich media ads is 8x more than standard banners
- Rich media ad format is so engaging that its in-screen impressions are higher than other formats by 66%
Moreover, engagement through social channel lets you enjoy a greater brand loyalty and earn consumer trust.
- For instance, a study by Convinced&Convert found that 53% of Americans who follow brands in social are more loyal to those brands.
- And according to Hubspot, 80% of marketers in 2014 claimed that their social media marketing efforts increased traffic to their websites.
Richer tracking, more measurable and scalable
On typical social ads that drive traffic to websites, the most you can track and measure are impressions and clickthroughs. But, with rich media landing page, it’s a different story. For instance, instead of merely getting click-through rates on the social ad unit, you can trace various engagements from a landing page after clicking the ad.
With rich media and mobile technology, you can have meaningful tracking such as contextual and behavioral measurements.
You can now learn about your users’ browsing behaviors or secondary action rates (SAR) like:
- How many customers view your video until the end
- How many customers make the call after viewing your landing page/ad unit
- What type of video genres are most preferred
- Which product image on the promotional package gets the most viewings
- What is the access frequency of a ‘more info’ page
You will also learn about users through mobile context like:
- Where is your targeted users’ location
- What is the time usually your landing page/ad unit is accessed
- What is your user proximity to your nearest store
- What type of devices most of your target users use
With higher interaction rates on an incredibly interactive channel, you can have richer tracking and measurements to help you in campaign optimization.
Higher performance level with deeper user experience
Mobile social consumers expect far more real-time and interactivity in comparison to their desktop counterparts.
Rich media enables more than just a landing page with merely a lead capture form or a prettier ad. You can think of rich media landing page or ad as a customer experience, allowing you to layer mobile engagement, compelling media, and interactive functions for your users.
For instance,
- A short promotional video can lead to a more informative one.
- A mini-game that rewards your customers with a mobile coupon that is easy to redeem.
- An interior image of a car you are selling with image hotspots that tell your client its features when the hotspot is clicked.
Also, with interactive landing pages or in-stream rich media banner on your social media page like Facebook that supports native ads/ad format, you can now provide your users with a deep rich media experience without disrupting their interactions.
Conclusion
Highly interactive and engaging mobile social rich media is a mighty tool for marketers to engage key audiences more deeply. With social rich media, you will elevate your mobile marketing to the next level and enjoy higher returns.
