Social Networks and Mobile Users

Following up on yesterday’s post about What Sites Do Social Media Users Frequent? which said that heavy users of social networking sites are significantly more likely than average to visit leisure-oriented retail site categories, such as music, jewelry/luxury goods/accessories and consumer electronics than the average Internet user.

Well a new new report from Ipsos Insight has similar results in that Americans who visit social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace are more than three times as likely to download music or video files on their mobile phones than those who have never entered such sites.

The report, Profile: Social Networker (PDF) shows that social networkers in the U.S. are more than twice as likely to send a text message, play a video game, pay a bill or download a ring tone or game on their mobile devices than their non-networking counterparts. Also more than half the U.S. social networkers polled have used mobile devices to e-mail, search web sites or transmit digital photos compared to only 29 percent of the non-networkers who send poctures via their phone.

In an adweek interview Donna Wallace, vp of media, entertainment and technology at Ipsos Insight was quoted as saying:

“Some of this is pretty intuitive,” said in San Francisco. “People have been talking about this for some time. … The whole conversation now is around advertising on [social networks], how effective [it is], who are you targeting. [And] if you want to reach somebody who is engaged in mobile activities … that seems like a prime target. “

Also, as broadband expands and manufacturers extend the capabilities of devices, the wireless behavior will likely become more commonplace, particularly in the U.S., Wallace said. “It seems the more feature-rich the device, the more likely they’re going to engage in the behavior,” she added. “Look at the iPhone coming out. Touch-screen technology. It’s an entirely different device compared to your basic cell phone.”

While many marketers look at social networking sites as one big community, they are instead a reflection of society with different sub-groups within the community as a whole. Successful social media marketing campaigns understand this subtle difference, those that don’t are doomed to fail.