NMA has a piece on ‘social networks ignore mobile at their peril.‘ Though most of it is behind a pay-wall, the gist of it is that social media is being accessed more and more via cellphones.
In particular, NMA talks about specially commissioned research for Nielsen and the fact that 65 million Facebook users - so more than 1/5 of the total - now access their social networks from their mobiles.
These users are apparently 50% more active than purely web based users, my guess is that this is so due to the fact that purpose built apps make accessing social media via your phone fairly easy, while surfing the Internet can be an unsatisfactory experience.
Overall, the gist of article, about the growth of the mobile Internet, is of course right and it’s worth summarising a few recent stats that make the same point, namely:
- According to UK regulator OFCOM, for 16-24 year olds, mobile phones are their second most essential media, ahead of PCs+Internet (for other age groups, its reversed)
- A report conducted by Transpera in the US showed that once someone starts graduating onto mobile video with their phone, they are hooked and use it as their main way to go online. According to the results, 62% if mobile video users use their cellphones to browse the Internet more than they do their computers
- iPhone users are richer, younger and better educated than the average. Read - early adopters and people generally ahead of the curve use smartphones
- Mobile phones are becoming our remote controls for life, 2/3 of us even take them to bed with us! More to the point, 17% of people globally (and 26% in the US, 25% in the UK) check their emails via their cellphones
- Though mobile click through rates are pretty appalling (at least in Europe and the US - here in Africa they are actually quite high), once you serve up consumers with ‘location based’ advertising, it can work. According to Navteq, 72% of consumers found location based ads to be “acceptable” (whatever that means), but 19% who recalled seeing them would click through for info on what’s nearby
Back to the NMA piece, according to 3 mobile boss Kevin Murphy, ‘there’s now an “overwhelming awareness” among consumers of the ability to use social networks on mobile.’ What’s needed now is for social networks, and indeed brands, to take further advantage of that fact.
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