Mobile, mobile, mobile

The Summit followed the announcement earlier this month that Facebook is opening an office in South Africa - its first on the continent.

The day prior to the Summit, Mendelsohn addressed the media at a press conference, where she also drove home the message that Facebook was here to listen and learn. At the Summit, her message was about digital and how it has changed our world. In this regard, Mendelsohn told the Summit delegates: "I cannot emphasis mobile enough."

She admitted that the mobile revolution had taken Facebook by surprise. "We were born as a desktop business, but we had to change to become a mobile-first company. Today, over half the platform's revenue comes from mobile.

Today, the platform is interested in redefining creativity in this crazy world that we are now living in - that is the mobile one.

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A shift to mobile

"The shift to mobile is in full swing. Today, mobile is the first screen of screens. More people have phones than there are people in South Africa and a third of these are smartphones. There is a generation of people in South Africa that are a mobile-first. There is no question that Africa is a mobile-first continent."

In South Africa, Facebook boasts 12 million active monthly users, with 63 million users across the continent. The numbers continue to grow very quickly, with the platform seeing a 20% increase over the past six months.

A visual world

As part of this shift, there has been a shift from the text world to the visual world, including a growing shift to visual video. She believes that by 2019, the bulk of global mobile traffic will be video-based. "In South Africa today, already 50% of data is video." She says she is not surprised at this. What has taken her by surprise is the speed at which this is taking place.

Instagram makes up the other part of this visual world. The platform, Mendelsohn told delegates, is currently growing at a faster rate than Facebook had in the same period of its history.

"And that is what we need to pay attention to. Also, some of the most interesting things on Instagram are from Africa."

A world of discovery

The world is moving from one of search to a world of discovery and the rise of feeds. "Consumers have at their fingertips unlimited information. In today's world, everything competes with everything. Consumers' attention is limited and our brain power has not increased but there is much more noise and clutter out there. Therefore, your message has to be relevant and timely. It has to cut through the noise."

She says that in a sense, feeds are the newspaper of your life. "You chose what matters to you and have placed intelligent filters on your feed to find only what is most valuable to you. Consumers expect relevant information. Discovery is king and Facebook is the most powerful discovery mechanism."

Personalisation

The amount of time we spend with our mobiles is incredible. Most teenagers are only off their mobiles for an average of two hours a day. "We need to think about what it means to be in someone's newsfeed and how to be relevant and meaningful."

The meaning for brands

The above all have implications for how brands communicate or reach consumers. "Brands need to be creative mobile first, and not the other way around. Social and digital can no longer be done last - they need to be brought to the beginning of the process."

Brands need to give consumers creativity that suits the platform and engages and delights. "These stories must be relevant to our lives and engage us. It has to halt the user from scrolling through their feed. It needs to take them on a journey. And you have three seconds to achieve this. We call it the three-second audition and it is the start of the conversation between the brand and the consumer."