As we continue to progress in 2016, let’s look at how to be more focused on growing our online platforms and increasing engagement with our online audiences. While there are no shortage of ways to do this, it seems that creating an online strategy is quite elusive for many organizations. One of the most important aspects of building an online presence for your organization is to develop a digital strategy, “before” you join any networks or start communicating online. This strategy includes:

Gathering the content from different departments within your organization
Organizing the team that will help gather, distribute the content and interact with your online audience
Determining which platforms you will utilize to get this content out to masses and connect with people online

But there’s two more important aspects to consider, let me explain.

When we hear about digital strategies, we always hear people say “Think Mobile First”. This perspective is quite understandable and I find it to be very true, but not the whole truth. Thinking mobile first will help us in 2016 because according to Comscore.com, there are more mobile only users than desktop only users. Google has also said that as of March 2015 there are more searches on mobile than on desktop, therefore when you want to connect with the growing digital mission field of over 3 billion internet users, since 2 billion of them are mobile, you should think mobile first. The caveat in all of this is a simple question, what is driving this explosive mobile growth?

There are many factors that are leading the growth in mobile, those include over 6 billion mobile devices, over 4 million mobile apps and the growth of SMS/Texting. But above all of those factors lies one major reason and that is social media. Social Media has exploded due to mobile and mobile has exploded due to social media. Social Media has undeniably transformed the way we use the internet and it has surpassed email as our main form of communication. Additionally, we have seen social media quickly become the top usage on mobile devices based on which top apps are downloaded when someone receives a new mobile device.

This article is not one to rehash the reasons why you should add social media to your digital strategy, I believe that’s understood by the majority of organizations. This article is also not to convince organizations to understand the importance of mobile, that’s understood by organizations as they look at their employees and audience and see how many of them have mobile devices. This focus of this article is to help you understand how important mobile and social are, together, as foundations for digital strategies to take your message to the masses. When you think about a digital strategy, consider that the majority of people will read your content and connect with your organization online from a mobile device as well as they will connect with, share and discuss this content and your organization via social media. Mobile and Social go hand in hand and it would benefit our organizations to make strategies that highlight this trend.

Jason Caston is the author of The iChurch Method (ichurchmethod.com) and an Internet church strategist. In addition to speaking and teaching around the world, he enjoys spending time with his family while using an Apple product to browse Google software. Connect with on Twitter at @JasonCaston