Welcome to a new monthly series where you'll hear from Clowder COO Brad LaTour. He'll speak to news within the membership and technology space, industry trends, and company insight. Enjoy!
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While there have been plenty of corporate losers because of COVID-19, mobile and those products and services around mobile continue their meteoric rise. Recently, all the major technology companies announced their quarterly earnings and the results were staggering.
Why is this important to you as an Association Executive, digital transformation leader or Director of Membership? Because there is no better case study to watch than what is happening in mobile to indicate what your organization must be focused on next to modernize your communications strategy.
COVID-19 has massively accelerated everything we’ve been talking about for the past 3 years. The 10x increase of activity on our platform from existing customers and their members proves it. If you’ve been around long enough, what we are experiencing with association apps or community apps is at the identical crossroads of the late 1990’s for websites. Back then, every association asked themselves, “Do we really need a website?”
When I see earnings like those posted this week, it is no longer a matter of “if” but “when” you invest in your association app. To emphasize my point, let’s look at some of the astonishing results:
- Apple posted $26 billion in phones sales - $4 billion above expectations
- There are almost 2 million apps in the App Store
- Facebook now has 3 billion Monthly Active Users (or ⅓ of the world’s population)
- Facebook has 180 million small businesses using it to connect with clients
- Facebook has 9 million active advertisers
- Over 94% of Facebook revenue comes from advertising
- The fastest growing age segment on Facebook is 65+
I’ve been in the mobile business for 6 years now and I’m still amazed at the speed at which everything is transitioning to mobile. In a matter of years, mobile has become the default communication medium, far faster than the transition of traditional to web. If your association wants to remain relevant to the next generation of members, mobile will be a necessity.
It will be fun to watch the next few years and how mobile will continue its dominant rise.
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Brad LaTour
