Do mobile social networks lack marketing opportunities?

By Giselle Abramovich

October 7, 2008

Social service

MySpace and Facebook are the two leading mobile social networks, according to ABI Research. Does this present an opportunity for marketers?

Consumers do not want to recreate entirely new and separate social networks for mobile. They would rather tap into their existing social network and have it go with them via the mobile phone.

“As in the online social networking space, there is clearly a large gap between the big two (MySpace and Facebook) social networks and the others,” said Michael Wolf, research director at ABI Research, Oyster Bay, NY.

“Advertisers who want to target consumers in a social community context will likely want to focus on the big brands in the social network space, rather than utilize specialty social networks that don’t have wide adoption," he said.

“They also will realize this space is in its infancy."

The majority of consumers who use mobile social networks today are leveraging the big names, not utilizing mobile-only social networks.

That may change, specifically with some services such as Loopt that have a very specific mobile value proposition. But overall most consumers want to take their online social network with them.

Almost half (46 percent) of those who use social networks have also visited a social network through a mobile phone.

Of these, nearly 70 percent visited MySpace and another 67 percent visited Facebook.

No other social networking site reached 15 percent mobile adoption.

The main demographic for mobile social networking is consumers ages 20-30. These consumers use online social networks too.

"They tend to be more connected than online social network users, and there are also a certain amount of early-adopters that may be older than this age group that is also connecting,” Mr. Wolf said.

So what are these consumers doing when they access their mobile social network?

The biggest features consumers use when accessing a social network on their phone is checking for comments and messages from their friends.

Both of these features register above 50 percent for mobile social network users.

Posting status updates is also a popular feature. In fact more than 45 percent of mobile social users let their friends know what they are up to via their phone.

With this in mind it is safe to say that social networks are increasingly becoming a means of communication across both online and mobile. 

“To a degree, it allows them to centralize messaging, communication and even digital media consumption through a centralized property on various screens.” Mr. Wolf said. 

“We believe this centralization of a consumer’s digital lifestyle through social networks will only increase adoption of mobile social networking in coming years,” he said.

This presents quite an opportunity for mobile marketers.

“I think very few mobile social networks today are doing much in the way of monetization around advertising,” Mr. Wolf said.

“Part of the problem is many of the social network clients today (such as Facebook for Blackberry) don’t have built in advertising space on the screen, and in general social networks are having trouble figuring out how to incorporate advertising,” he said.

Neil Strother, an analyst at Forrester Research said that marketing to consumers via Facebook Mobile or MySpace Mobile is a cumbersome process for advertisers.

“The fact that Facebook and MySpace are the social sites most visited by mobile users means that advertisers need to be able to access their target audience via the mobile versions of these social networking sites,” Mr. Strother said.

“As far as I know there isn’t mobile advertising space being sold on Facebook Mobile or on MySpace Mobile,” he said. “But that does not mean there isn’t an opportunity for brands via this channel.”

Brands can actually create Facebook and MySpace accounts and get users to add them as friends.

This will help brands create a list of consumers who are interested in getting information from the brand.

The brand can then stay connected to these consumers online and while they are on the go.

“This sounds easy but from a mobile marketing perspective this is too fragmented of an approach,” Mr. Strother said. “There isn’t enough consistency. But I am sure that will soon change.”
Today things are largely built upon giving consumers access to some of the top features such as status updates, photo sharing and uploads, as well as messaging.

“I think those will remain core, but we may see more mobile-centric capabilities that feed information into the online social network such as location-aware/GPS-based information and updates,” Mr. Wolf said. “We will also see potential stratification with some premium capabilities that take on a pay model (location awareness is one).”

Comments on "Do mobile social networks lack marketing opportunities?"

1. Jim Gregoire says:

   October 7, 2008 at 9:08pm

   Great piece on a hot market but I certainly disagree with the notion that web SN users aren't creating profiles on mobile-only sites. We're seeing it in spades on Moco.

2. Jason Cianchette says:

   October 7, 2008 at 9:25am

   Advertisers can buy display inventory on MySpace through Quattro Wireless.
   
   I would also recommend that advertisers create integrated campaigns that leverage the viral aspects of these networks.