With so many of us using smart phones, news organizations can build a community through mobile apps.

By utilizing a variety of techniques and the public’s growing push to obtain news content through mobile devices can make a news organization’s mobile app(s) successful.

“The findings of the study show that people all over the world are becoming increasingly intertwined with their mobile apps and are demanding more from them,” Chet Kapoor, Apigee CEO, said in a press release. “Apps are becoming transformative to everything we do.”

Here are some tips on building and maintaining a community through your mobile app(s):

• Utilize Push Notifications. Using push notifications in the right way can draw people to the app and your content. Push notifications should be used sparingly and with purpose and meaning. Before sending out push notifications it is important to ask yourself what value are my users going to get from this notification? If you send too many, you become an annoyance and ultimately may lose people using your app.
•  Target Your Audience. We’re in the strange period where people of all ages, genders, and race are converging into the smart phone market. Some people still do not have a smart phone and thus will not have access to your mobile apps. With that said, who are you trying to target? Figuring out your audience will help you build content and maximize success.
  
• Being different adds value. Being different and thinking outside the box can really help build and establish a brand. There are a lot of apps that offer similar things. How do you become the primary app for a specific niche? Being different. Don’t offer content because your competitors are offering that content. Create content because your audience seeks this content. Knowing your audience will add value to your app.
• Create and Support Your Community. Once you create your app, don’t abandon it and expect to seek results. Advertising and word of mouth is important to get people to your app, but what is going to keep them going back for more? Create necessary channels for users to engage with your app. This could be sharing photos, videos, allowing comments and utilizing data visualization tools (polls, charts, graphs, timelines).
• Never aggregate content from your website. This is a big no-no. Mobile should be priority. That’s because mobile is going to be the dominant screen as early as next year. Web and mobile and are not the same and should be treated differently. Users also have different expectations when reading content on the web than on mobile. Mobile users are looking for quick bites of content, while web users are looking for more thorough information.

How does your local news organizations build a community through their mobile app?

Photo by: okalkavan