Explosion in mobile audiences and what it means for law firms

The Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism released a report this morning on the future of mobile news.

Though the report may be targeted for the news industry, the findings are highly relevant for law firms which market and conduct business development via the sharing of insight and commentary.

Look at the growth in the use of mobile technology.

• Half of all U.S. adults now have a mobile connection to the web through either a smartphone or tablet, significantly more than a year ago.
• Nearly a quarter of U.S. adults, 22%, now own a tablet device-double the number from a year earlier.
• Nearly a quarter of those who don’t have a tablet, 23%, plan to get one in the next six months.
• Even more U.S. adults (44%) have smartphones, according to the survey, up from 35% in May 2011.
• 50% of U.S. adults have either a tablet or smartphone.

For law firms, your target audience is even more apt to have a tablet or smartphone. For corporate clients, the percentage using mobile is going to be high. For consumer audiences, the percentage may be a little lower.

But for both types of practices, the percentage of the most important audience, influencers and amplifiers (mainstream media, high profile bloggers, association leaders), using mobile is going to be very high.

News, more of it and longer pieces (exactly what law firms are sharing online) is what people are using mobile devices for.

• 64% of tablet owners and 62% of smartphone owners say they use the devices for news at least weekly, tying news statistically with other popular activities such email and playing games on tablets and behind only email on smartphones. (Means fully a third of all U.S. adults now get news on a mobile device at least once a week.)
• Many also are reading longer news stories. 73% of adults who consume news on their tablet read in-depth articles at least sometimes, including 19% who do so daily. Fully 61% of smartphone news consumers at least sometimes read longer stories, 11% regularly.
• Mobile devices are adding how much news they consume. More than four in ten mobile news consumers say they are getting more news now and nearly a third say they are adding new sources.

Smartphone and tablet users provide law firms and more engaged readership and a readership which is more likley to share your content across social media.

• People who get news on both a smartphone and a tablet are more likely to read deeply (fully 82% sometimes or regularly read in-depth articles on their tablet compared with 62% of those who get news on just the tablet), to send or receive news through email or social networks and to read past issues of magazines
• People who get news on their devices multiple times per day, on either the smartphone or tablet, tend to turn to more sources, get news from new sources, read in-depth news articles, watch news videos, and send and receive news through email or social networks.

What does this mean for law firms?

• Don’t build apps. Most people use a browser for news on their tablet. 60% of tablet news users mainly use the browser to get news on their tablet, up from 40% in 2011. Just 23% get news mostly through apps — and those apps are likely to be aggregated news apps such as Flipboard, Zite, RSS readers, and social media apps, not an individual company’s app.
• Get your lawyers using social media. Much of the news and info people receive on mobile comes from others sharing the content. More important than you or your lawwyers pushing your own content onto social media, is having others share your content with people who trust them. You can get others to share your content only after you have acquired social media equity by sharing other’s content via social media and building relationships with others using social media.
• Get the people in your firm familar with what moves news and information across mobile devices (RSS, Twitter) and the apps used to consume and share what you are reading (RSS Readers, Zite, Flipboard, Facebook, Google+).
• Get your firm’s personnel using mobile for the consumption of news and information – one, on the devices your audience is using and two, rather than via email, via the new mobile apps.
• Your content needs to be mobile enabled. PDF’s and content that is not formatted so as to not always render properly on mobile and the various apps is going to turn off your audience. Blogs and news sites run on WordPress will do that for you.

Bottom line, law firms need to start thinking mobile for marketing and business development. There are many advantages to doing so.