79% of social media users worldwide access their social accounts via mobile devices. In this rapidly growing digital age, your members expect a seamless user experience as they move from social networks to your website or blog and vice versa. In fact, the overarching goal of any social media strategy is to get users to your website or blog where conversion happens (purchases, membership sign-up, product enrollment, etc.).
So, what does it mean if your website and blog are not mobile-friendly? Well, it means your members will likely run into friction and frustration during their online experience with your credit union—particularly when they’re moving from mobile-friendly social networks to a non-mobile-friendly website or blog on their mobile devices. Friction and frustration means that they’ll likely give up and move on or go find what they need from somewhere else.
Don’t worry, there is a solution—upgrade your website and blog to a responsive design (meaning your website adapts to work well on any device)! If this is not a priority for your credit union yet, it should be and it’s way overdue. You’re probably missing out on business because of the friction and frustration your website causes today’s growing number of mobile users. In fact, mobile usage surpassed desktop usage in early 2014 and continues to rise (source: comScore).
That’s not all. You may have heard that Google recently launched a major update to their search algorithm—something that folks in the digital world fondly call “mobilegeddon.” Essentially, Google has shifted how they rank websites in their search results on mobile devices. Websites that work well on mobile devices are ranked notably higher. And since Google reports 48% of mobile users start on search engines when researching something (like a good loan rate or nearest credit union perhaps), that’s nothing to sneeze at. If you do not have a responsive website, you may have already seen a significant decrease in search engine traffic as your mobile-friendly competitors jump above you in mobile search results. If you’re not sure if your website is mobile-friendly, Google will be happy to tell you: https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/mobile-friendly/.
The bottom line? Mobile is a huge part of your social media strategy (and your overall marketing strategy, for that matter) whether you intend it to be or not, because that’s what your members and potential members prefer. The expectation is to have a seamless experience across any device – what Google is supporting with their recent search updates. You can no longer ignore the facts – it’s time to get mobile-friendly, like yesterday.
Article published in the July-August 2015 issue of The Federal Credit Union magazine from NAFCU.
