Wednesday, March 25
Why do you need your own app in 2015 and beyond?
Many people ask us why they really need an app... why is a web site not enough? Here goes:
According to the latest data, Americans have a difficult time living without their smartphones or tablets. 57% of mobile phone users and 26% of tablet owners accessed apps every single day of the month. 79% of smartphone users and 52% of tablet users accessed apps at least 26 days per month. And these are not just Americans.
The number of smartphone owners has reached 72% in the UK too. 87% of people aged 16-30 and 54% of 54-65-year olds own a smartphone. More and more of them will use apps to connect, learn, read and entertain.
No matter what is your blog about, your readers will read it on their mobile devices sooner or later. And you surely would like to make the connection with them stronger and longstanding. The solution is the mobile app that will enable you to push your posts directly to the subscribers' home screens. You need a reinvented blog.
Monday, March 23
Reinvent your blog on mobile
After you've reimagined your blog and reconnected with your readers, it's time to reinvent your blog on mobile
Well... Actually... you don't have to reinvent anything — we have already done it for you. All you need to do is just help us convert your blog to your own brand new modern mobile app!
Let me explain you my vision of reinvented blogging
The world is changing. Even if you managed to attract many readers to your blog, it's difficult to keep them engaged and coming back. They can easily forget the web address, they can't be bothered or simply have no time to make a little investigation in Google to re-find your website. And now, with smartphone and tablet revolution, your site gets even smaller... and competes with apps.
Friday, March 20
Remag on Wordcamp London and Swift Summit!
As we're in the beta "invite only" stage of our platform, we have to demo Remag to the industry leaders and the folks who live and breathe Wordpress. That's why our founder and "chief revolutionary officer" Michael Sliwinski is coming to Wordcamp London 2015 to demo Remag and ask for feedback, which is soooo important at this stage of our startup journey.
Our lead developer, Radek Pietruszewski is also coming to London as a speaker at the Swift Summit - as one of the experts on Apple's new programming language called Swift.
Let the force be with Michael and Radek :-)
Have you seen the Remag video? Check out how you can have an app in 3 minutes - it works like magic :-)
A blogger like you shouldn't miss the opportunity to build a stronger and closer relation with the readers. Try out Remag Wordpress plugin and move your blogpost from your site directly to your reader's home screens.
Thursday, March 19
Reconnect with your readers in the mobile era
In our last post we explained how you can reimagine your blog in the mobile era. Today let's focus on your readers... and how you can literally "stay in touch" with them now.
Smartphones and tablets are changing people's daily routines all around the world. After the desktop computer was the dominant online platform and command center of all digital activities, we saw the multi-platform era. In 2014 another key milestone was reached. The authors of comScore's report call it the app majority. Why? Because in the US, the majority of digital media consumption takes place in mobile apps today (comScore study, 2014). That means mobile apps eat up more of the Americans' time than desktop usage or mobile web surfing.
People don't subscribe to your content as they used to:
- RSS? - this standard was too geeky on one hand, and too "open" on the other - Google killed their Reader app and Apple removed support of RSS from Safari browser... making RSS a very rarely used now way of subscribing to your content
- Bookmarks - people stopped using bookmarks / favorites in their browsers a while ago. Social bookmarking sites like "Delicious" also stopped being popular anymore. No, people won't bookmark your blog.
- Email - yes, email marketing is still alive and kicking. However, very few bloggers really focus on email list building... and when they do these emails are not very likely to be read. The trend is obvious: every year we're receiving more and more email messages so this channel is getting crowded... and now Google Mail introduced three new tabs and most of the communication goes to the "Promotions" tab now, so the likelihood of your emails being opened is getting slimmer.
Give people an easy way to subscribe to you
When you have your own mobile app, you just point them to download your iPhone/iPad/Android magazine app and that's it. They're subscribed:
- They will never have to look for your blog again.
- You won't have to ask for their e-mail addresses and send them newsletters.
- They'll receive direct push notifications from you. They'll be coming back.
You can stay "in touch" with your readers better
Yes, thanks to Remag you can be on their home screen. Imagine, once you make your headshot your app icon - the readers will look into your eyes many times a day :)
Reach your followers where they are
Look at the successful media publishers and find at least one who doesn't have a mobile app. Impossible? Of course, because in mobile-first times you can't afford not having an app.
App will give your journal, magazine, business and, obviously - your blog visibility that goes beyond the Internet. It extends your reach straight to your readers' homes, purses, pockets. They needn't log onto their computers and search the Internet to find you. With your own app, you'll have a direct access to their personal mobile device that they carry everywhere with them.
And it is not just the US
The mobile-first era is not just happening in the most developed countries. According to the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker, vendors shipped a total of 1,004.2 million smartphones worldwide which accounted for 55.1% of worldwide mobile phone shipments. Along with the shipments come the changes in people's behaviors and habits...
...also reading habits
A "mobile reading revolution" takes place also in developing African countries where after a year-long study by Unesco it was found that adults and children are increasingly reading multiple books and stories on their phones. The study proved that "people read more when they read on mobile devices and that they enjoy reading more".
Don't lag behind
A blogger like you shouldn't miss the opportunity to build a stronger and closer relation with the readers. Try out Remag Wordpress plugin and move your blogpost from the Internet directly to your reader's home screens.
Wednesday, March 18
It only takes 3 minutes to convert your Wordpress blog to an iPhone, iPad and Android app
And you can try this today. Just follow the 3 steps in our video and check out how your blog can look like as a mobile app on your readers' home screens:
After we recorded this video, we got lots of questions about more details on Remag:
- Why you really need an app?
- How easy is it really to have this app and maintain it?
- Why do we believe it's the future of mobile digital publishing?
We'll be answering these questions in the next posts and in the new Remag video series we're preparing at the moment.
