On August 17, 2015, Facebook played host to an incredible milestone: 1 billion people signed on and used Facebook. That’s 1 out of every 7 people on our planet harnessing the power of social media to connect with friends and family that may be flung across the far corners of the globe, and it’s both powerful and moving. For businesses, it’s also exciting to realize how interconnected we’ve all become, and the growth of the mobile device market is only leading us further down that path. Mobile marketing is changing the way marketers outreach via social media in some very remarkable ways.
The On-the-Go Sign On
A week-long study of smartphone users between the ages of 18 and 29 found that a staggering 91 percent used their phones to access social networking at least once that week, compared to 55 percent of smartphone users 50 years of age or older. There are 561 million active mobile social media accounts just in East Asia, and more than 1.685 billion worldwide. The only thing people are more obsessed with than social media is their mobile phones, and when the two powers combine things are practically explosive. We are constantly on the move and we want to take our friends, our family, and our access to everything from current events to shopping with us. These days, all of those things are available through social media, and social media is available with just the tap of a finger.
The SMS Status Update
About 75 percent of the world’s mobile phones are SMS-enabled, and that number is expected to grow to 90 percent in less than a decade. The big social media sites know this, and they’re catering to the text generation by incorporating SMS functionality. Facebook users can opt to update their profile’s status just by texting it and Twitter offers both account access via a short or long code as well as the ability start a brand new account by SMS; both platforms either already have or are working on text-based notifications, login verification, and messaging that uses SMS, too.
The Mobile App
The average smartphone user spends about 86 percent of their phone time in mobile apps. That’s a lot of time within the confines of one purveyor’s digital space, and every social media platform wants a piece of that pie. Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, YouTube (yes, the ‘Tube is considered a social media platform), Snapchat, Tumblr – they all have proprietary apps designed to capture the attention of smartphone and tablet users. Once that audience is signed into the app, the possibilities for content marketing, advertising, and other branded collateral is practically endless.
The Social News Cycle
The water-cooler discourse of the past few decades still exists, it has just changed locations. Some 63 percent of Twitter and Facebook users say they now get their news from the social networks, and of course the powers that be have their finger on that pulse, albeit in different ways. Facebook has a separate list of trending topics that appear to the right of users’ personalized newsfeed while Twitter takes a more consumer-driven approach with their list of trending hashtags. Either way, participating in the discussion is as easy as sharing, liking, or retweeting and adding a thought (or a paragraph, depending on the platform), and those getting their updates via their mobile devices are probably more tuned in than ever before. Some companies bank on this culture of sharing and incorporate it into a winning mobile strategy.
For a 21st-century business to succeed, there needs to be a customized mobile marketing plan in place but that plan needs to be seamlessly integrated into the company’s social media strategy, too. The key is understanding the symbiotic relationship the two entities enjoy, and the insights above are the perfect way to start.
What’s Next?
What do you think of what I’ve covered so far? Will you adopt mobile as your tool for marketing? I would love to read your comments below.
Guest article written by: Sophorn Chhay. Sophorn is the marketing guy at Trumpia, the most complete SMS software with mass text messaging, smart targeting and automation.
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