Mobile users can get inundated with all types of push notifications from their favorite gaming apps like Candy Crush to news apps like The New York Times.
According to blogger Andrew Chen, 60 percent of users opt out of push notifications when asked if they want to receive them. But, mobile users can agree it’s hard to ignore their presence. It’s like a mobile “tap on the shoulder” to give you some type of news, according to techcrunch.com
According to blogger Andrew Chen, 60 percent of users opt out of push notifications when asked if they want to receive them. But, mobile users can agree it’s hard to ignore their presence. It’s like a mobile “tap on the shoulder” to give you some type of news, according to techcrunch.com
“...it’s hard to over-hype the power of mobile push notifications. For the first time in human history, you can tap almost two billion people on the shoulder.” —Entrepreneur Ariel Sideman.
Here’s what I think makes for great push notification usage by media outlets.
- Design: As I said in my last post, I prefer when push notification are sent from news organizations, and I can access the story in seconds with a slide of my thumb. I think the news organization should you their logo, which should be recognizable. This seems to be the industry standard. In his blog, Chen argues that push notifications from news sites with red logos are more likely to get “pushed” because red is the color of breaking news for mobile users.
- Ask: I think if the user has been so kind to download your news app, you need to ask if they would like to receive push notifications from you. If you’re like me, push notifications are the reason why I download some apps. However, it has become courtesy for both news, entertainment and gaming apps to ask the user is they want to receive push notifications. It’s almost as if the app is asking if they can invade your phone more with their presence, which users can choose to grant.
- Timing: This is the most important aspect of push notifications. Timing, espeically in news is everything. For what types of “breaking news” do you send push notifications? How many do you send per week? When are people most likely to click or “push through” a notification? Personally, I prefer receiving push notifications for world news because I tend to seek out more local news on a daily basis. According to techcrunch.com, about five to seven push notifications per week is a good amount, and I agree. However, if there are rapid changes in a story, I would like to be able to look at my phone and know what is changing and when. That might be the news junkie in me.
- Relationship: Push notifications are another outlet for users to form a relationship with a news organization’s content. They should act as friendly reminders or notices. For me, the news notifications I get on my phone remind me to consider what’s going on in world news because I can get bogged down in the day to day local news that directly affects my life.
If done correctly, push notifications are helpful. News organizations should use them. However, I think they need to monitor user experience with them in order to ensure that they do not become disabled on a user’s mobile device.