With 20 percent of its online traffic coming from mobile, local TV news station WDBJ7 in Roanoke, VA, realized it needs to have a mobile strategy.

WDBJ7, which is owned by Schurz Communications, is using LinkTracker, a self-service social mobile media tool that creates smart mobile-enabled URLs called LiveLinks. Social media users who click on links to WDBJ7 articles are now automatically directed to content tailored to the device they are using, whether it is a mobile phone, tablet or desktop computer.

?I suspected that a significant percent of our articles shared on Facebook were being consumed on mobile devices, and that we were pushing full Web pages to mobile screens,? said Sandy Martin, mobile director at Schurz Communications, Mishawaka, IN.

?I needed a tool that would allow me to send desktop readers to Web pages and mobile readers to mobile pages while also tracking the frequency of each occurrence,? she said.

Schurz owns several local TV and radio stations as well as newspapers.

Mobile social users
Schurz? news Web sites are setup to feed content to mobile apps and mobile sites through RSS feeds. However, there is no automatic detection of mobile devices on the sites beyond the root domain to redirect users to mobile versions of articles.

Schurz ran a test of LinkTracker with WDBJ7 and found that 20 percent of those reading articles from links posted on Facebook were clicking through from mobile devices.

?After a few tests, we realized how valuable these links could be for marketing device-specific applications,? Ms. Martin said. ?Now, we can create a single short link for our news sites by sending people to the app marketplace that is specific to the device which was used to click the link.?

LinkTracker addresses the fact that a growing number of consumers are using smartphones to click on social media links and open email.

However, if the links were copied from the main Web site, there previously was no way to take mobile users to a mobile experience.

LinkTracker enables marketers to create tailored post-click experiences for mobile visitors by substituting a standard shortened URL with a LiveLink and designating multiple links that sit behind the single short URL.

Marketers can customize the experience delivered to users based not only on device but also carrier, past click history, time of day and geography.

A better experience
LinkTracker was developed by Wireless Developer Agency.

?Marketers who post on social media want to provide users with a graceful experience, regardless of what device they are using," said Brennan Hayden, vice president of WDA, East Lansing, MI.

"Doing this successfully in social media provides the opportunity to stand out from the crowd because it is the most personal form of media," he said.

"The problem is, there is no way to know in advance what device a user is clicking with, how the post reached their attention, or how well-equipped their browser, device and hosting system is at providing a device-appropriate experience. LinkTracker solves this whole problem in one easy-to-use, self-service interface.?

While the results have been positive so far, Schurz faces some obstacles to rolling out LinkTracker more broadly, including changing work practices so digital content managers are indentifying two links per post.

?While it adds work for very busy people, it also delivers a better experience to our readers, so I believe it is worth the effort,? Ms. Martin said.

?My goal is to decrease the percent of full Web pages that are viewed on mobile devices by sending people to device relevant pages,? she said.

Final Take
Chantal Tode is associate editor on Mobile Marketer, New York