Thinking of developing a mobile app for your not-for-profit organisation? Here's a look at how mobile devices are being used in Australia to help you work out how to make the most of yours.
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In 2014, we’re seeing mobile technology jump forward in leaps and bounds and if we take a step back from our day-to-day Facebook updates and photos of food on Instagram, we can see that what we’re doing with our mobile devices and the technology in our hands is close to the stories that were once reserved for science fiction shows. That can be exciting, but it can also be very challenging - especially for not-for-profit organisations trying to keep up with technology.
Mobile technology adoption in Australia is growing rapidly. There are 31.09 million mobile services in Australia. To put it in perspective, there are more mobile services than the population of Australia. There’s also been in increase in people with smartphones in Australia to 11.19 million, but the stats also suggest that people are using other mobile devices or services as well such as tablets or mobile broadband connections.
Of course, what makes a smartphone smart really comes down to the apps which are installed on it and the hundreds of thousands of apps that are available to us to enhance our mobile phones are bringing with them significant disruptions in a number of areas.
- Communications: Social media is by far one of the biggest changes we’ve seen in recent years and it’s easy to see how it’s been accelerated through the use of mobile technology. Our communications through our phones isn’t just voice and text, but we send pictures, photos and video with relative ease.
- Entertainment: Not only are people downloading games, watching videos and listening to music on their phones, people are also using their phones as a secondary device to enhance their entertainment experience. Have you ever seen an actor in a movie on TV and wondered where you’ve seen them from? Grab your phone or tablet and look it up. People are also engaging with shows through social media and we’re seeing more and more shows displaying tweets alongside the broadcast content.
- Productivity: We’re using mobile to get work done on the go. We’re also seeing a lot more productivity apps like note taking and task management apps being used. Not just that though, there are apps to track calories and exercise, apps that turn your phone into a baby monitor and plenty of others that help mobile devices meet very specific needs. Oh, and there’s a clock. How many times have you pulled your phone out just to check the time? That’s a pretty fancy pocket watch you have there.
- Consumption: People are using their phones to make purchases through dedicated mobile apps, but also using their phones to access information about products they may want to purchase. You can see people on their phones in shops looking up items, reviews and competitor pricing to try and get the best deal they can.
In fact, when it comes to information access, there was a huge 33% increase in people using their phones to access the internet between June 2012 and June 2013. Not only that, how we share information about ourselves and about the things we care about has significantly changed now that we have ways to capture our surroundings and broadcast it to our friends and families from the smarphone in our pocket.
When it comes to the types of apps people are downloading, games and social networking are at the top of the list. What’s interesting is that Banking and finance, productivity and lifestyle apps are all sort of coming a close second together and shopping education and transport coming in third – which says a lot about how people are using their phones and what sort of apps they’re interested in.
For not-for-profit organisations looking to engage a mobile audience, this should spark ideas about how you can help your community do one or more of these three things.
1) Help people have fun
Entertainment is growing rapidly on mobile. Higher speed internet connections at lower costs mean that more people are watching, listening and playing more content than ever. Tapping into this in a fun way can help spread your message and also have an impact on how your audience perceives you. Melbourne Metro's viral "Dumb Ways to Die" campaign wasn't just a hit on YouTube. It was also accompanied by other assests, including a mobile game that reinforced the message about staying safe around railways.
2) Help people share things
Mobile technology and social go hand in hand. Generally speaking, we’re social beings and want to feel connected to others. How we feel we connect may be different. It could be the number of likes or shares we get on our Facebook updates or comments on our photos of food on Instagram, and for others it’s about rallying together to make a difference. A number of local governments around Australia are using mobile apps to "crowdsource" information about work that needs to be done in their area. Using their smartphones to take photos and share notes, community members can report issues such as potholes or graffiti and see what other people have reported as well. It’s a way of engaging the community to share in supporting itself.
3) Help people do things
People use their phones to get stuff done. Whether it’s cooking or shopping or setting three alarms to wake up on Monday morning – mobile phones are a utility. "Brainy App" developed in part by Not-for-Profit, Alzheimers Australia, was making headlines not that long ago as a tool to help people exercise their brain. Not only did it give people something practical to do that helped them in the short term, it was also an excellent way to raise awareness about dementia.
So, there you have it. If you want to engage an increasingly mobile audience and want to use an app to do so, keep these three elements in mind. If you can achieve one or more of these or add elements of each into whatever you’re producing, your app will be closer to hitting the mark of a successful app.
This article is based on a presentation by Connecting Up for TelcoFoundation's Apps4Change series of webinars, titled "Engaging mobile audiences through mobile apps"
Image: "8 years“ by Brett Jordan used under Creative Commons BY 2.0
Copyright © 2014 Connecting Up Inc. This work is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 License.