Mobile access to social networks is on the rise, and marketers everywhere are looking for ways to combine these two powerful technologies. Worried you’ve missed out on a key development? Read on for a roundup of relevant stories that made it into our e-mail newsletter, SmartBrief on Social Media.
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6 rules for building a successful mobile app
Smartphone-powered mobile apps can be a great way to create a free promotional vehicle — but only if you know what you’re doing, writes Paul Reddick. The key to mobile success, he adds, is to plan for cross-platform support. “Marketers and product managers need to address the types of customers they want to reach rather than simply a technology platform,” he writes. “When selecting only one platform, the question is, ‘Which 80% of the market do you want to ignore?'” MocoNews.net (3/26)
OpenTable serves up mobile-marketing tips
With 2 million mobile users generating $100 million in sales, restaurant-reservation site OpenTable knows a thing or two about mobile marketing. The key to success, says OpenTable’s Scott Jampol, is to focus ad spending in short, sharp bursts to cut through the noise and generate the kind of buzz that can amplify your marketing efforts. TheNextWeb.com (3/24)
Custom social networks go mobile, location-based
Shoutem and Socialight are two companies that allow users to build their own specialized mobile social networks for friends, for a community or for one-off events. Both services include a kind of location-based tagging feature. The tools could allow companies to steer customers to an extremely targeted — and branded — social environment tailored to the customers’ specific needs, Sarah Perez notes. ReadWriteWeb.com (3/5)
Report: Social networks post boom in mobile traffic
Facebook and Twitter each had increases in mobile traffic between January 2009 and January 2010, according to a report from comScore. Twitter’s mobile traffic increased 347% during that period, while Facebook had a 112% increase. The figures come from mobile-browser access and don’t include posts made via dedicated smartphone applications. Mashable (3/3)
Study: 91% percent of mobile Web users socialize online
Americans who access the Web via their phones are more likely to socialize online than their desktop counterparts, according to a Ruder Finn study. The study found 91% of mobile Web users socialize online, while just 79% of desktop users can say the same. The average American spends 2.7 hours a day on the mobile Web, the study found, with 45% of those users commenting on social-networking sites and 43% contacting with friends through the sites. ReadWriteWeb.com (2/18)
Facebook readies “Zero” version for mobile devices
Facebook is preparing to introduce Facebook Zero, a text-only version of the popular social network that will be aimed at mobile users. More than 100 million users currently access the site from their phones, according to Facebook. The low-bandwidth version of the site “omits data-intensive applications like photos,” the company says. BBC (2/16)
Bubbly service to harness mobile chatter
Bubble Motion is building on its BubbleTalk messenger with a microblogging system for mobile phones. The service, called Bubbly, lets users record and share short messages that can be accessed by anyone and includes text alerts to point fans to the latest posts. TechCrunch (2/9)
Why marketers must go mobile
Consumers are already embracing the mobile Web, according to a report from Morgan Stanley, and Adam Cahill argues that it’s time marketers woke up to that fact. “Brands are still in the ‘dipping our toes in the water’ phase when it comes to mobile,” he writes. “Meanwhile, consumers have cannon-balled into the deep end of the pool and aren’t looking back.” ClickZ (1/14) , Adweek (1/13)
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