Social networking goes mobile

For more and more people, social networking is becoming the communication method of choice. It's addictive, media-rich, focuses on messaging and it has potential for content distribution.

People associate social media with blogs, vlogs, podcasts, wikis, and social networking sites, which are supposedly "social".  But, ironically, social networking is very unsociable. It requires people to spend a lot of time behind their computers.

With the arrival of mobile social networking, the good news is that consumers can now access this wealth of information and social activity anywhere and at any time using their mobile phones.

Mobile social networking is expected to be huge. Leading web brands, like Google, Yahoo and AOL, are pouncing on mobile start-ups and are forming massive partnership with wireless carriers across the globe.

According to RCR Wireless News, every wireless carrier already has agreements with a myriad of service providers to offer high-value silos of value like mobile media, instant messaging (IM), video and audio.

Juniper Research's mobile social networking forecast predicts that "end-user generated revenues will be in excess of US$5.7-billion in 2012.

With an estimated 240 million wireless subscribers in the US, mobile is already a US$350-billion sector. According to Nielsen Mobile:

• 32 million use their phones to go online
• 70% send or receive text messages
• 41% percent use their wireless devices to send photos

According to an Ipsos Insight study, international social networkers are much more likely to own technology, consume more digital entertainment and own more mobile devices.

"We can look to the international social networker," who has access to more feature-rich handsets, "for a preview of where the US market will go - and it's going to be all about mobile social networking," says MD of Ipsos Insight's Technology and Communications practice Brian Cruikshank.

The old media broadcast model is dying

The idea of a media-consuming public that sits passively in front of a TV set is fast being replaced by a vibrant, active community of shared upstream content providers.

More than ever before, consumers understand that content is communication.

They have wholeheartedly embraced the model that they are both producers and consumers of a media fabric that is as effective at keeping them in touch with close friends as it is in connecting them to potentially millions of other "friends" populating thousands of social networking sites.

"Social media is more than just about the personal computer. It's about providing the opportunities for people (your target audience) to have fun, connect and collaborate, exchange knowledge and experiences, publish user-generated content, and most importantly, build a community independent of one particular platform. That's the key from a user's perspective," says emarketing consultant Gino Cosme.

Mobile brand advertising prepares to take-off

Despite Google, Yahoo and AOL's headlong rush into the mobile market, many interactive marketers have been slow to follow.

A year ago, only 13% of interactive marketers made use of text messaging and only 11% advertised via WAP sites, says eMarketer's Mobile Brand Advertising report.

However, mobile brand advertising is starting to scale up. In 2007, the US$277-million mobile brand marketing spend is expected to constitute just 10% of the total mobile ad spend, which is projected to reach nearly US$2.8-billion.

eMarketer also predicts that:

• Global mobile brand advertising will surge from a mere US$124-million in 2006 to US$3.6-billion in 2011. It will make up 22% of total mobile ad spend in 2011.
• Total mobile ad spend will increase from nearly US$2.8-billion in 2007 to almost US$5-billion in 2008. In 2009 this figure will increase to US$7.5-billion.
• Mobile direct marketing will grow from US$1.5-billion in 2006 to US$16-billion in 2011.

eMarketer says the factors driving the growth include:

• Mobile text messaging becoming a mass-market service worldwide
• Mobile music climbing the rungs of the mass-market ladder
• Mobile-centric tribes of users in both advanced and developing economies where the mobile screen is the first place marketers can reach them

However, mobile marketing campaigns need to be relevant and hiccup-free so that they don't turn off consumers sensitive to ad exposure, according to John du Pre Gauntt, senior analyst at eMarketer.

Nearly two-thirds of respondents to a Maritz Research survey of Gen Y consumers said they were unlikely or definitely unlikely to subscribe to text retail offers sent to their handsets.

Moreover, a full 84% of mobile users in an Ingenio survey said text messages sent by companies would be unacceptable.

Global brands accelerate their mobile marketing efforts

According to Airwide Solutions' mobile-marketing survey of 50 global brands, the number of brands considering implementing both SMS and MMS mobile marketing in the next 12-months has doubled to 28% since last year. This reflects the increasing sophistication of mobile marketing campaigns.

Some of the key findings of the study are:

• 71% project that they'll spend up to 10% of their budget on mobile marketing within two years.
• Brands' experience with mobile marketing is increasingly positive, as they are getting higher campaign response rates
• 58% of brands said up to 10% of recipients of mobile marketing campaigns requested more information as a result of receiving a mobile marketing message, compared to 32% in 2006)
• 73% of brands said up to 10% of recipients of campaigns undertook a financial action as a result of the campaign, compared with 28% of brands in 2006.
• All brands agreed that its most recent mobile marketing campaign was successful in increasing customer brand familiarity

Airwide Solutions says mobile phone users will benefit from a range of incentives as part of the growth in mobile marketing:

• 60% of brands intend sending special offers via mobile phones
• 36% intend sending discount vouchers
• Other incentives will include digital loyalty cards, free gifts and preferential terms.
• Since social media is accessed through a web browser with internet access, companies would probably give social media, in the context of Africa, a miss.

Cosme says, "By extending the social web to the mobile realm, where almost anyone from any location can update their social network profiles, connect with their network of contacts, post blog content, and upload pictures at any time." So, penetration improves. 

"Furthermore, because mobile social media advertising can be targeted to users and near-exact location, the return on investment (ROI) starts to make a lot more sense too. It's a no wonder that Google unleashed its AdSense for Mobile, Facebook developed an iPhone application, and MySpace went beta with its mobile platform."

Cosme says while cellphone operators will profit the most from mobile social media usage, it will also offer the following opportunities:

• Targeted mobile social media advertising could yield excellent returns for advertisers and publishers alike
• Offline mobile social media integration would result in brands being afforded the opportunity to engage with a wider audience and involve the audience into their campaigns
• Networking opportunities will allow people to affiliate and connect with like-minded people and activities using the mobile Web

Ensight's former marketing director Glen Tomlinson, who is now with Cambrient, says marketers will find the gold in social media:

• By engaging with consumers and asking for their opinions
• If the advertiser's message is authentic and the brand is welcomed
• If they immerse themselves in the community and use their observations to drive campaigns and communication

"The bottom line is that social networking can represent a positive strategic shift for the cellular telecommunications industry and how it recognises the changing communication desires of consumers," says RCR Wireless News.

"We must embrace social networking properly by taking the extra steps necessary to deeply integrate it into the mobile customer experience. This approach preserves the importance of the mobile link on the value chain and creates a win-win scenario for carriers, consumers and SNS providers."

But, layering these high-value mobile services on top of third-party social networking sites is not easy.

"It requires a back-end platform that can facilitate the seamless transactional integration, which benefits not only consumers - who essentially become storefronts for one another, (much like they do on the web, but in this case with mobile content - but also the carriers and SNS providers who together will generate and share in the additional revenue streams created by this integrated approach," states RCR Wireless News.

Vodacom launches mobile advertising

Vodacom is in development phase of the Grid, a new social media platform, which is a mashup of Facebook, Myspace and Mxit.

The GRID is location aware and can track your position in real time connecting people, places and stories.

Through the Grid, social networkers are not limited to one spot. Instead, you can show your friends where you are and share what you are doing. You can post text, images, video and sound in the context of a map. This means you are limited only by your imagination.

Using the built-in radar function, it's easy to find the content you're looking for. You can rate it, comment on it, forward it to your friends and subscribe for constant updates.

Many people think MySpace and Facebook are the only two players in the social media space. Although, they are the biggest, there are hundreds of sites that can rightfully wear a social media badge.

Facebook:

is a social networking website that allows people to communicate with their friends and exchange information.

As of October 2007, the website had the largest number of registered users among college-focused sites with over 42-million active members worldwide and expects to pass 60-million users by the end of the year.

Between September 2006 and September 2007, it improved its ranking from the 60th to 7th most visited website.

In October 2007, Microsoft announced that it paid US$246-million for a 1.6% stake in Facebook,which values the site to around US$15-billion.

MySpace:

Is currently the world's sixth most popular English-language website and the sixth most popular

In September 2007, it had more than 200 million accounts.

According to Hitwise, MySpace attracts 230,000 new registrations per day.

60% of its users are 25 and older. 

MXIT:

Is a popular South African mobile instant messaging platform with a recorded 5.4-million active users, who are mostly children.

This number increases by an astounding 12,000 new users a day.

Subscribers log on more than six million times a day and send more than 100-million text messages a month.

Offers a free chat application, enabling users to have text chats with each other via their mobile phones. This undercuts the costs of SMS services.

The only costs are data charges from the cellular networks, equating to less than two cents a message.

Companies don't necessarily need a dot.mobi site

Marketers need to follow the key demographic groups, who are moving heavily into mobile and cutting down on their desktop web time.

One relatively painless point of entry for marketers is to make sure each client develops a mobile-compatible version of its traditional website.

‘Dot.mobi' is a new top-level domain that specifically supports mobile devices. The premise for end-users is that sites carrying this domain are specifically designed and formatted for use on a mobile device and as such take the headache out of surfing on the go.

However, online communications manager for Siemens South Africa Gino Cosme questions whether this is really necessary.

From a user and marketing perspective, he says it would make more sense for companies to stick with one URL instead of having two separate URLs, one for PC and one for mobile devices.

"Web developers should instead make use of technology that identifies whether a user is accessing a site from a mobile device or a PC, and then automatically translate the site in the appropriate format."

In theory, a ‘dot.mobi' site doesn't offer web site owners anything that can't already be done with a standard, company-generic domain name.

Cosme says a current dot.com URL, for example, can be accessed by mobile devices as long as the technology behind it recognises the device and delivers a style specifically formatted to work with smaller screens and limited bandwidth speeds.

He suggests the following:

Test whether a company's current site is mobile-friendly.

Enter the URL on a cellphone's web browser (if the phone has one) or alternatively visit a mobile emulator on the net. You might be shocked to see how badly the company's site views on a mobile device. If this is the case, it's a good time to start talking to the web developer to fix the problem.

Register the company's dot.mobi domain, but only to protect the brand.

Ensure the current site is equipped with smart content serving technology to eliminate the need for dot.mobi.

 Any worthy site should plan to - if not already - redirect mobile users to their mobile designed website style sheet.

"Consumers lead the way in the social trends. Too many businesses feel they have the power and are able to channel consumer behaviour according to their guidelines," says head of Johannesburg-based social media marketing firm Younique, Tyler Reed.

"Maybe it is time to do some introspection into your business, put yourself in the shoes of your customers and establish whether there is value in converging your service offering with mobile.

If you know your clientele is mobile oriented, you should be spending more time finding out what opportunities mobile marketing presents," says Reed.

*This article first appeared on the newsletter of the University of Pretoria's Gordon Institute of Business Science - http://www.gibsreview.co.za/