Facebook’s Michelle Klein: ‘We Are Experiencing the Next Mass-Media Revolution’

Mobile is key for sports-content creators looking to reach fans

The data speaks loudly: the Internet is experienced broadly in the U.S. today on mobile devices. For sports properties and distributors, that makes mobile the way to connect their content with fans and customers.

Michelle Klein, head of North America business marketing, Facebook, was a keynoter at Social Media Week

The numbers are telling: 11% of Americans say they check their smartphone every few minutes, and 41% say they check it a few times an hour, according to a 2015 Gallup Poll.

For major social platforms, such as Facebook — a brand that has lived through the Internet’s migration from desktop computers to mobile devices — that has meant a dramatic shift in developing its experiences to meet those demands.

“With the rise of mobile, we are now expecting, if not demanding that connection be more immediate, more expressive, and more immersive,” said Michelle Klein, head of North America business marketing, Facebook, in her keynote presentation at Social Media Week in New York City. “There are millions of ways we can connect with people through mobile. It’s creating this plethora of touchpoints that we had never imagined before.”

She threw out a few staggering statistics of her own during her presentation, including that 78% of adults say they have their phone with them all but two hours of the day (for younger generations, it’s likely 24/7) and that Facebook draws 8 billion video views per day.

The growth of visual-based content on Facebook and social platforms like Instagram has hammered home the fact that humans are hardwired to process imagery more than text. This is fantastic news for video-content creators because video has become the best way to engage social users, for large brands and average Joes.

“People come to Facebook not because they like Facebook but because they want to see the narrative of their friends’ lives unfold and they want to play a part in that,” said Klein. “You can be part of an experience that you normally wouldn’t have had the chance to be a part of 10 years ago. What’s turbocharging all of this is mobile. We are experiencing the next mass-media revolution.”

Other interesting tidbits from Klein’s talk:

• She referenced a statistic that says 25% of people have said they would consider having their phone implanted into their head. Laugh, groan, or roll your eyes all you want, she said, “With the haptic feedback you already see [in smartwatches], I don’t think that’s a million miles away, quite frankly.”
• The average user checks 27 apps per month.
• Messenger apps are the future of communication: six of the 10 most globally downloaded apps are messenger apps.
• Facebook’s introduction of autoplay in its native-video player has done wonders for video viewing, but it’s important to consider that, when users scroll through Facebook, they will likely experience the first three seconds or so of your video on mute. As if it weren’t hard enough to engage someone in the mobile and social space.