Mobile Social Media
I was just reading an article about the growth of Mobile Social Networking, and it got me thinking about how we might be missing the obvious. Yes, according to Comcsore, between April 2009 and April 2010, the number of people who accessed a mobile application grew 28% from 54.4 million to 69.6 million, the number of people that accessed a social media application more than tripled over the same time period. While other categories of apps also experienced triple digit growth year over year (News apps, sports apps and banking and weather apps are among those categories) social media apps far outpaced the other categories.
What we may be missing here is that, although the apps to access social media are great and provide a lot of utility to stay in touch and keep others informed about you, are we missing the biggest social media app for the mobile phone entirely? Isn’t Text a social media app itself? It’s a way to engage, state an opinion, keep in touch with others, and others to keep in touch with us.
Yes, if you tripled the 69 million number (number of people that accessed social media apps), it doesn’t even come close to the number of people that send Text messages each and every day. In the US alone, 2.5 billion text messages are sent each day and 203 million people have Text messaging packages on their phones. The ubiquity of the phone and it’s attachment to our person as a lifestyle is something that is here to stay.
My only point is that, yes, Tweeting from a mobile phone or checking Facebook while on the road from your phone is great, but let’s not forget about the app that got us here in the first place, Text. It is a legitimate social media app, and mobile because of its ubiquity is a legitimate social channel. Short of an actual face to face or phone conversation with someone, Text is the next best method to engage in dialogue. Don’t lose sight of those two points when looking at social media tools or developing your social media strategy.
