Five Tips for Mobile Training Effectiveness

The Move to Mobile

If you watched online video 6 years ago, the odds are 20 to 1 that you used a laptop or desktop computer. Now it’s better than a 80/20 bet that you watch using a smart phone, with the small screen’s share steadily growing.

Zenith predicts that American adults will watch a startling 100 minutes of video day in 2021. The numbers for young people are much higher.

Why? Because quick and clever videos are the format that engages. Text based web pages just can’t compete! And smart phones are the devices that are always present, the favored platform for the young and information hungry.

How Training is Consumed

That’s doubly true for training content, which digital natives consume while on the go, waiting for meetings, sitting on the bus, or simply when conversation drags. Talk to any bar or restaurant owner or just look around for yourself. Almost everyone is watching video on their cell phones.

How do trainers and teachers rivet viewer attention to the small screen? How do we keep them engaged?

5 Valuable Tips

• Target small screens. Shoot video with smart phones in mind. Close-ups work well. Lingering wide shots don’t.
• Compel participation. Passive users drift. Users who click and swipe are more active and engaged. They stay longer and remember more. Even the most basic form of interactivity, chaptering, extends participation time by 44%. Quizzes and games lift video consumption by a minimum of 70% to as much as 900%!
• Provide snackable experiences. Trainers refer to this as Micro-Learning, a steaming hot topic in the learning world. It’s much more effective to provide 4 three minute videos than 1 twelve minute clip.
• Use rich interactivity. Here’s a :60 sample module extracted from a golf training hub. The linear version on YouTube had average user dwell time of 38 seconds. The interactive version added quizzes and kept users engaged for 710 seconds. That is an 18x increase!
• Provide full-screen vertical video experiences for mobile users. It’s an easy 18% lift across in all performance metrics. It’s best practice to shoot vertical for the 82% of the audience on mobile device and let the sparse desktop crowd watch vertical format, which works fine.

Whether your audience is internal or external, video is an indispensable tool. Follow the five steps above and your results will lift substantially.