Now Is The Time To Be Planning Your Mobile Social Media Marketing Strategy

I am still amazed by the rise of the iPhone over the last 12 months (and by the way, this is not an Apple sponsored post). In a recent article “Is Mobile Social Media Making Women Geeks?“  I wrote about the high takeup of the iPhone by my friends and colleagues.

Today while reading the news headlines  a new report by Nielsen provided factual research to back up my anecdotal “S & F Survey” (street and friends survey) by announcing  that in the last 12 months the Apple iPhone had more doubled its market share  from 13 to 28 percent and it was expected to triple it in the next year according to Nielsen’s online business managing director Matt Bruce.

Also another recent report released this month by Ground Truth™ (who provide precise measures of Mobile Internet usage) provides more figures to show the extent of  usage of social networks by mobile users.

Percent of Time Spent on Mobile Internet Usage by Category

U.S. Mobile Subscribers on week ending April 4, 2010

Category                      Percent

Social Networking       59.83%

Portals                              13.65%

Operator                            9.02%

Messaging                         7.35%

Mobile Downloads         1.27%

All Other                            8.88%

Source: Ground Truth, Inc. Census of mobile subscribers for the week ending April 4, 2010 (3.05 million U.S. mobile subscribers).

Some of the Nielsen’s Reports other findings were:

Mobile Users and the trends

• Australians’ ownership of internet phones now sits at 43 per cent – Nielsen
• Internet searches are the most popular online activity on the phones (73 per cent of users conduct online searches by mobile now, compared with 30 per cent a year ago)
• Nearly half of all Australian mobile phone users now own an internet-capable phone
• Checking news and weather  is 59 per cent, up 18 points
• Email (58 per cent, up 20 points)
• Maps and directions (56 per cent, up 24 points)
• Telstra (Australias largest carrier) has seen mobile data traffic on its Next G™ network double every eight months for the past two years.

Social Networking & Mobiles

• Social networking users (39 per cent, up 25 points)
• Facebook is by far the most common social networking site accessed via mobile (98 per cent)
• Twitter (20 per cent)
• MySpace (17 per cent)

Mobile Manufacturers  and their Market Share

• Nokia still maintains a solid lead on internet phones in Australia with a 35 per cent market share
• Apple with its iPhone has made significant gains in the past year, more than doubling from just 13 per cent to 28 per cent market share.
• The intention to purchase an iPhone also remains high, with Apple set to triple its share this year

Also Facebook in February announced on its blog  that more than 100 million people are actively using Facebook from their mobile devices every month. This usage happens on almost every carrier in the world and comes less than six months after they announced 65 million people on Facebook Mobile. (February 11, 2010 source Facebook).

The two major takeaway’s from these numbers are

1. Businesses must develop mobile websites to accommodate for the huge number of smartphone owners using their devices to access the internet.
2. Marketing strategies for 2010 and 2011 and beyond should include a social media marketing strategy element that includes mobile phones

What are your plans for social media marketing for mobile?