Mobile usage is exponentially growing on a daily basis. So the challenge because of this rapid charge, this for anyone who has a stake in the online marketing game, needs to understand the reasons, the how’s and the why’s, that people use their mobile devices.
Mobile technology is the ultimate online blind leading the blind, although there are only a few who approach it that way. Human behavior isn’t motivated by usability or the appeal of the technology beyond first glance. Successful technology delivers tangible value.
The reason being that the creators and developers of mobile design, rarely consider their audience’s reactions, certain behavioral fundamentals, from schema to goals.
Mobile Trending Ahead
Those who feel compelled and institutes all the rules, the regulators along with their practices, this without really understanding or considering media psychology, will find themselves attempting to control yesterday’s technology.
Then they’ll attempt to combine that with today’s rules. They’re constantly looking in the rear view mirror, which isn’t a good idea, this when attempting to make forward thinking progress.
This also isn’t possible when attempting to get ahead of the curve. What it results in are processes which becomes stuck, like a fly in ointment, investing millions in technology, yet completely missing the point, wasting resources while stifling innovation.
To Look Forward
The impact that technology has isn’t about the tools, but it’s more about the behaviors that these tools are able to facilitate. What mobile creates are opportunities, but it’s still the human goals and motivations which drives the solutions.
Successful development still comes from identifying the fundamentals, and not how the current technology is specifically used. When looking at the impact mobile has on the young, what’s needed is adapting in their world and not ours.
Things change at warp speed, so quick than the developers, educators, parents, and marketers are unable to keep up. It’s the young who sets the trends, so one must be aware and attempt to comply.
When it comes to mobile, what the developers needs is to step outside their own hubris, while looking forward with a fresh perspective, this to be effective in the app-a-minute world that we live in.
Online And Offline Becomes One
Mobile technology and transmedia content continues to close the gap, while blurring the boundaries between online and offline.
Technology becomes a bridge as our shifting perceptions of mobile becomes an extension of ourselves, and not a separate appliance.
Content Information Is About Curating Filtering Sorting
This without taking away their choices or control. The price when it comes to gaining trust is being transparent, this in the same way how everyone has become overly suspicious of marketers, advertisers, and politicians.
What everyone becomes increasingly aware of is the ability to gather data and then to manipulate it, demanding transparency when it comes to recommend systems or search algorithms.
Mobile Remains Personal
This in spite of all the increasing global awareness, what mobile does is it makes things personal. What mobile devices does is it supports our basic human needs to connect, while feeling competent and having control over our environment.
What each succeeding generation will learn to have is an increased expectation of agency. The quantified self will become the new norm, all this with increased emphasis on personalization, along with an increasing drive towards the manifestation of control.
It doesn’t seem to matter how many other devices or screens that are available, what mobile devices are able to do is set new standards. What this does is impacts everything from entertainment and work, to civic engagement.
What Global Visibility Creates Is Clear
This thanks to social media, what we see is a lot more happening around the world in real time, and it’s not cloaked or distorted by mainstream media.
We see those who are suffering, we see the wizards behind the iron curtain. The reaction is distrust to political polarization along with what results from this increased visibility and reveal, and not to fall victim to the “birds of a feather” protocol.
What we hear is the disenchantment from the voices within, and for the first time, is expecting to being heard. The combination of individual along with collective agency and global awareness, does is increases various kinds of social pressure.
What this includes is a mounting push for social entrepreneurship and social responsibility from corporations. So what the astute companies are now doing is recognizing their role as citizens.
Their role is no longer a “brick and mortar” establishment where they employ people and sell stuff. What smart marketers are doing is pushing goods by emphasizing social consciousness.
Creating A Peer-to-Peer Culture
Which dismantles hierarchies while raising the bar for authenticity and clarity. This trend places more pressure on the organizations, institutions, the governments, and all the individuals to behave more honestly while showing their human face.
What this has are significant implications, this when it comes to the organizational structures of business leadership. Those who constantly complain because millennials are wanting to collaborate while voicing their opinions, better get used to it.
To Connect With Others
What we all have is a human need to connect with others, while still having the sense that we still have control over our own lives, and our environment.
What people are wanting more of are experiences, and are not device or brand loyal. So technology which recedes while placing the focus more on human goals, are bound to be more successful.
The most successful smartphone manufacturers don’t sell technology. What they sell are experiences, affiliations, and identity. What the old business models still have is the all-for-one mindset, which no longer works. Institutions have not figured this out yet.