MASTERCLASSES

Tuesday, 15 June 2010

Developing your mobile strategy: Advice from three experts

In the rest of this masterclass we’ve concentrated on what you can do on mobile platforms yourself.
But if you are working as part of a team – either at a publisher or on a journalism course where you have access to people with a range of skills, you can go further, and develop a mobile strategy.
What should that strategy be? This excellent post from Regina McCombs at Poynter poses

10 Questions to Help You Craft a Mobile Strategy (Before It's Too Late)

Here’s a summary of what I reckon are the key points among Regina’s 10
Who is your audience?
Mobile is local -- much more so than the desktop web. Spend time researching your local market. What handsets do people own? Who are the largest carriers? What is the smart phone penetration in your area?
What does your audience want?
Mobile users like local information, video, breaking news and weather.
What will you provide?
Take inventory of what you have and how it's organised. Do your RSS feeds work well? Are they well-organised? Do you geocode your feeds so that you can deliver content based on a user's location? If not, what would it take for you to do that?
How will you make money?
There are so many options: advertising, charging for an app, charging a subscription to use a free app, selling by the issue, and sponsoring sites and apps.
Consider how your mobile site will fit into any current or future registration and paid content strategy.
Who needs to be involved?
News, sales and technology. One person should be responsible for mobile strategy.
What technologies will you use?
Are you going to create native apps? For which platforms?
A logical process would be to get a good mobile site up and running, then begin developing apps for particular handsets.
How will you promote it?
Use your newspaper or station to promote your mobile site or app, and make sure the information is easy to find on your website.
Get the advice of two more experts at the MMJ site

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