Right About Now with Ryan Alford - Ad Gab: Design with Mobile in Mind

Episode Date: January 20, 2021

What does it mean to focus on mobile first in a mobile world? You may think you're already optimizing your mobile content and strategies. Today's Ad Gab wants to challenge you to create everything with mobile in mind, first.In this episode, Ryan and Josh give you everything you need to successfully produce and create mobile content.If you enjoyed this episode, leave us a review on Apple Podcasts. We love to hear from you! | Do you want to hear more from our host? - Give him a follow @ryanalford on Instagram. | The Radcast is a product of @radical_results | #theradcast #radicalmarketingresults If you enjoyed this episode and want to learn more, join Ryan’s newsletter https://ryanalford.com/newsletter/ to get Ferrari level advice daily for FREE.  Learn how to build a 7 figure business from your personal brand by signing up for a FREE introduction to personal branding https://ryanalford.com/personalbranding.  Learn more by visiting our website at www.ryanisright.comSubscribe to our YouTube channel  www.youtube.com/@RightAboutNowwithRyanAlford. 

It has to start somewhere. It has to start sometime. What better place than here? What better time than now? You're listening to The Radcast. If it's radical, we cover it. Here's your host, Ryan Alford. Here's your host, Ryan Alford. we've done them a few now you know like it means you can't keep up and then the numbers don't matter it's the content that matters living in the moment of ad gap living in the moment today it's an important topic i have been on a soapbox about this so i practice what i preach people i practice what i preach and josh can attest to this i've been on this with even ourselves our development teams like everyone thinking mobile. We are in the, as I used Josh's phrase earlier, golden age of mobile, if you call it, because we finally have gotten to this ubiquitous place where everyone's carrying a smartphone,

or almost everyone. You have high-speed internet all the time between Wi-Fi and 4G networks, 5G networks, depending on where you're at. We're lagging here in Greenville, South Carolina a bit on the 5G, but it's coming soon enough. And we have to be thinking about mobile first. And so I think it's extremely important. I think, yes, we were joking pre-episode. It felt like a 2012 blog post but the reality is enough brands people and content creators and i'm not talking about the 19 year olds because they're well ahead of everyone but everyone else out there we're not thinking enough in that mobile mindset no definitely not everyone a lot of people are still just lacking it's still like the tv commercial or the tv sites just thinking you know

that that horizontal landscape you know and not thinking uh vertically with the phone with the way people are holding it and it really covers more than that um so let's talk first specifically josh about how people should be designing or thinking about mobile first content. Yeah. So, I mean, content is kind of a lot of times what comes first and especially when thinking in social media or content for your website. I know a lot of people are designing on desktops. They're on their laptop, they're on their second monitor and they've got it blown up and they're like oh yeah i can read this it's like no you probably should be making your if you're on your desktop your your graphic design should probably be this small on your

laptop like you know hold your phone up to your screen like literally pick it up and say can i still read this without having to zoom in um can i read this at a glance too I see a lot of people aren't doing that I come across Instagram feeds from like businesses all the time where it's like I I'm not gonna take the time to zoom in and if it's a story I can't you can't zoom in yeah I'm not gonna screenshot it open my photos and get that and the other one is either with it not being large enough right enough or the image that you've chosen being in the background that blurs out the copy or half of it.

I'm really into reading this copy. You've got my attention for the five seconds. I'm reading that line, and I can't read it because it's over an image or something, and I didn't optimize for that experience. Yeah, and I see on websites, too, it'll be this huge, beautiful photo. If you're on your laptop, you're on your laptop, you're on your desktop and then you open on

your phone, they try to use the same image and it's like tiny. And it's like, I don't even know what that is. Exactly. What are other ways people should be thinking about mobile first content? Um, I'd say vertical video. I don't, I'm seeing a lot of people still shooting horizontal video and then it's only taking up like a fraction of your screen. It doesn't look right.

It looks weird now. Cause there's, because companies have already joined in are doing vertical video and like that, that just means people are going to expect that now. Yeah. The whole like expecting people to turn their phone on their side thing is over.

Like if, unless you're on YouTube, that's the only, like the only place or maybe Netflix if you're traveling. Yep. Um, well, you know,

you're going to watch something for 20, 30 minutes or 15, whatever that is. Yeah. But those instant experiences, those moments kind of come and go, or you're kind of watching it you're expecting that experience and you know i think with tiktok and everything else people are getting used to that

but i think the key here is that that that content that you're producing at a higher level it needs there's nothing that drives me crazy and i've we've done this ourselves we're guilty of it but we're getting better we're getting better but you've produced this beautiful video and then you've tried to crop it in for vertical yeah and it's so obvious that you did that it's like oh one minute you're up on somebody's nostril the next minute it's like they're seven miles away yeah it's so obvious that you've tried you've shared it as vertical but it wasn't filmed appropriately for that yeah i mean like maybe like if you need to mark it on your on your like viewfinder or something like maybe shoot it to where it fits for both and then crop it for both later or just reshoot it like no one's gonna

like go back and watch side by side and try to find the difference and all the there's so many platforms you've got tiktok, Reels, IGTV, all these opportunities for that vertical experience. And even the other channels, LinkedIn, others, it still will work. It's almost like think vertical first, think mobile first, then work your way into horizontal as needed. Because unless it's on a television screen and it's a connected tv ad

or maybe obviously your tv commercial but again eyes are on mobile yeah they're in the mobile phone all day in a vertical perspective yeah and i think on the side note like you can you don't have to shoot a 4k video vertical you can shoot it on your iphone because i mean we've seen a lot of like tv ads that are shot on iphone like literally the shot on iphone campaigns there is a campaign for that and then uh and then like google is showing vertical stuff on tv commercials yeah yeah you'll see it with stuff on the sides now they just show it it's normal it's here it's been normal um and i think it's important to remember like reels and igtv will show up in your feed so like it's still

even more places where vertical works that's right so landing pages websites etc uh taught let's talk a little bit about that yeah you want to make it make sense on mobile it sounds easy but people don't do it you want your loading speed tech check your loading speed on mobile. It sounds easy, but people don't do it. You want your loading speed tech. Check your loading speed on mobile. Don't like you can check it on desktop, too, but like it'll look great on desktop and then mobile takes 10 years. And that's the shortest time span you have is when you know develop with mobile and idea look at mobile first when you do a landing page or a full website start with mobile uh you know you'd be surprised at the number of development groups out there other people that still all start desktop and it looks beautiful because hey everyone working that corporate or agency environment is on their laptop or on their big iMac screen and it looks beautiful yes and so you have to really condition yourself to start with that mobile experience in mind then work your way out and that's a big piece of advice for you business

owners and people who are approving websites that maybe a different company is making for you like don't approve anything until you've seen the mobile version yes like check that out almost like i would check that out first we've standardized it now literally where we are sharing desktop and mobile at the exact same time when we share concepts we're sending them together so that clients see it yeah they may not even know to ask for it but we want them to see it because it's important because it it's not only where most of you know 80 of the traffic is coming through mobile on many of the industries some of the industries are unique uh but you've gotta build it for the traffic that you're getting definitely and also part of that you want to think of your navigation make your buttons chunky you should

not have to zoom in to hit a button. Like you should be able to like touch it immediately, get it easily. And also keep in mind your pop-ups because nowadays you're, you kind of have to have that pop-up of like people think, Oh, like get 10% off your first order. It's like, it's just one pop-up. If no, it's, you're getting that, you're getting the, do you want to accept cookies one. And then all of a sudden you're at two. Sometimes people have a messenger one pop up. And if I'm on my phone, I don't want to have to click through four X's to get to what I'm trying to find. So definitely keep that in mind.

Put it in a banner if you can. Put it easily accessible, but not like you want to be just kind of aware. I know it's really effective, but I think you need to be aware of how much is like inhibiting the like the journey yeah and you think about it from your website josh just said it but think about images text buttons content and videos how they play when you click on them within it because there's nothing sometimes they'll have it all right yeah and then you click on a video and it's tiny or it's like cut off or something like the video player doesn't optimize for mobile yeah so you've got to think about the entire experience yeah you really want to ask yourself like is this providing information or is it making a better experience if it's if it's just

working if it's just to look pretty and it's like taking away from the other aspects of it, you should probably cut it. I know it hurts. I know you worked really hard on that video, that little beautiful graphic, but if it's taking away from the experience, it's better to let it go. Cool. That's your 10-minute ad gab on the golden age of mobile and how to take advantage of it. Josh, always a pleasure.

Yeah, happy to be here. All right, guys. We'll see you next time. You know where to find us, theradcast.com. I'm at Ryan Alford and you've got at Josh Chill on Instagram.

We'll see you next time. Peace. Yo, guys. What's up? Ryan Alford here. Thanks so much for listening. Really appreciate it. But do us a favor.

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