Mobile Social Networking Is Taking Off

Recently I wrote about my new iPhone and how that Yelp was well positioned to take advantage of the mobile component of social networks. eMarketer forecasts that mobile social networking will grow from 82 million users in 2007 to over 800 million worldwide by 2012.

Some of the early mobile social numbers are pretty impressive. MySpace recorded over 7 million unique visitors to MySpace Mobile in the US in the six months since launch. “It wasn’t until we rolled out m.myspace.com that we got a sense of how powerful demand was for MySpace on cell phones,” Brandon Lucas, senior director of mobile business development for MySpace, told eMarketer.

Facebook claimed 4 million unique registrations. Mobile-only social networking players such as airG, Mocospace, myGamma and itsmy.com all reported several million users soon after launch.

“Along with the rapidly growing audience, marketers are drawn to mobile social networking because it creates a unique context in which to promote their goods and services,” said Debra Aho Williamson, eMarketer senior analyst and co-author of the report. “It goes beyond simply linking people with digital content by adding the immediacy of sharing with friends—a very powerful marketing proposition.”

“Even if only a tiny percentage of the 3 billion worldwide mobile phone users take up mobile social networking,” said Ms. Williamson, “the potential advertising inventory reaches mind-boggling levels.”

The mobile internet has been a long time in coming, but with the roll-out of the new iPhone this summer I see more and more people using their phone to browse and connect online. If you are marketing via the social networks, you should be thinking about how to incorporate mobile into your marketing plans.