Thumbstopping: The new marketing word.

Remember when everyone used to be tethered to a desktop to conduct their digital business? Those days are long gone.

The New Word You Should Share With Your Marketing Team: Thumbstopping!

Consumers are spending more time watching videos, shopping for new products, communicating with their friends and conducting all their activities via their smartphones. “The world has gone mobile, and it has been the fastest technological shift that we have ever experienced in our lifetime,” Saran Personette, Vice President, Global Business Marketing, Facebook, told the audience at the Skift Global Forum on September 28 in New York.

Consumers have driven the mobile revolution. Now, there are plenty of businesses struggling to catch up. As those businesses develop content and aim to stand out in the shareable world, plenty of them are having trouble clicking — pun intended — with their target audiences.

So what’s the secret? Personette offered a new term that every marketer should scribble in graffiti above their desks: thumbstopping. “You have to develop thumbstopping creative,” Personette said.

Putting the brakes on all those twitching thumbs — that’s exactly what every business is aiming to do. You aren’t looking for them to immediately register for your conference or to instantly book a hotel stay. Sure, a super-fast conversion would be great for your bottom line, but the initial goal on social is to get them to stop, look and think about your offering. As prospective consumers sort through their feeds multiple times each day, it takes a lot to get the scrolling to stop. They see pictures of friends’ babies, some ads based on their particular interests, some political posts, some news stories — it never ends. No matter who you’re hoping to reach, there are loads of competing images, bodies of text and links clamoring for attention, too.

Don’t Just Share Content — Create Compelling Conversation-Starters

So how do you distinguish your message and get those those thumbs to slow down? Your marketing department may have fallen into the trap of regularly sharing articles, promotions and any material that seems relevant to your audience. Frequency fuels engagement, right? Not necessarily. It’s good to offer plenty of content, but it’s more important to make sure that each of your posts is designed to inspire a conversation, to awaken a sense of curiosity and to create some kind of emotional connection. So take your time to create social material that will truly engage an audience rather than simply fulfill the quota of posts you’re hoping to hit each day.