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MediaPost News

Center For Media Research

Social Networking Sites Attracting Mobile Browsers

According to the latest comScore report, 30.8% of smartphone users accessed social networking sites via their mobile browser in January 2010, up 8.3 points from 22.5% one year ago. Access to Facebook via mobile browser grew 112% in the past year, while Twitter experienced a 347% jump.

Mark Donovan, comScore senior vice president of mobile, said "Social networking remains one of the... fastest-growing behaviors on both the PC-based Internet and the mobile Web... "

In January 2010, 11.1% of all mobile phone users accessed a social networking site via mobile browser, an increase of 4.6 percentage points from the previous year. Much of this growth has been driven by smartphone owners, 30.8% of whom accessed social networking sites on their mobile browsers, up more than 8%age points on the year. By comparison, just 6.8% of feature phone users accessed social networking sites on their mobile phones.

In January 2010, 25.1 million mobile users accessed Facebook via their mobile browser, up 112% from the previous year. MySpace attracted approximately half that of Facebook in January. Facebook's mobile browser audience surpassed MySpace in February 2009.

Twitter, which has experienced tremendous growth in both mobile and PC-based visitation, attracted 4.7 million mobile users in January, up 347% versus year ago. These figures do not include access of the social networking services by the nearly 6 million mobile phone owners who do so exclusively through mobile applications.

For additional information from ComScore, please visit here.

MediaPost News

Marketing Daily

To help marketers, agencies and publishers understand how social media is influencing consumer brand perception and purchasing decisions, Knowledge Networks has teamed with MediaPost Communications Inc., the publisher of Marketing Daily and the parent of the Center for Media Research, to launch the "Faces of Social Media," a new, long-term tracking study providing a consumer-centric view of social media's effect on 30 key product categories.

The new syndicated report will track the marketing impact of social media in the general population and on users in five explicit social media segments ranging from "Evangelists" to "Passive Users." Parallels will be drawn from category-specific comparisons with non-users of social media to address the true incremental effect of social media.

"We are helping CMOs and brand managers decide to what degree they should play in social media and how best to target specific audiences," says Simon Kooyman, CEO of Knowledge Networks. "We are painting a more sophisticated picture of social media's influence, showing where and how category consideration and [social media] level of influence intersect."

"While there is a sea of data about social media, little of it speaks to the needs of marketers, who are trying to make specific plans for their categories and brands," adds Chuck Martin, director of MediaPost's Center for Media Research.

The report, which will publish biannual trends, will begin with a report benchmarking what proportion of product category consumers are the highest-potential targets across each of the social media user clusters, how their use of social media is impacting brand perceptions and decisions, how it relates to demographic composition, which social media platforms dominate, and how specific social media features influence the process, how use of social media impacts use of other media, perceived trust of social media information about specific product categories, the influence of "friends" versus "non-friends" on the attitudes of social media users, etc.

To ground the social media/category comparisons, the companies said overall media consumption for each social media segment will accompany the data, as well as a "Social Media Influence Score."

Knowledge Networks is one of the top 15 survey-based consumer research companies in the U.S., and is highly regarded for the quality of its research methods and the representation of its consumer panels.

For more information visit www.mediapost.com

MediaPost News

Online Media Daily

Those who follow hockey know the deadline for NHL teams to trade players came and went Wednesday. Typically, the day drives the most traffic and unique visitors to the NHL site. But this year, a real-time Twitter feed on the NHL's site produced the most impressive interaction with fans to date.

Michael DiLorenzo, the NHL's director of social media marketing and strategy, calls the number of people -- 1,500 -- who visited the Twitter channel Wednesday on the NHL site "small potatoes," but "significant." Each person on average viewed 8 pages and spent 25 minutes on the site. "That's the type of engagement you get on Facebook," he says.

TweetMixx Channel creates a distribution method for tweets. In December, the NHL became the first in a handful of companies to launch a white-label platform from Mixx that aggregates tweets from Twitter on Web sites and blogs.

While three Twitter feeds provide information, the one with the greatest influence comes from the Insiders' Tab, where tweets stream from influential North American hockey writers. In Canada and the United States, the NHL-related stream on Twitter appeared in the top 10 trending topics. Those tweets feed through the TweetMixx Channel and onto the league's site.

TweetMixx is not the only tool that provides additional content to publishers. AdGent 007 also integrates into Web sites, relying on an API widget that allows brands to integrate online advertising with real-time tweets and Twitter feeds.

Similar to TweetMixx, publishers can use tweetedia to control, manage and filter Twitter streams on sites. The free AdGent tool offers management of featured Twittter feeds. Publishers can use the free tool to support traditional banner advertisements with or without sponsorship. As an ad network, publishers can upload a widget on blogs and other sites.

AdGent 007 splits the revenue with participating bloggers, although the percentage is being worked out. The ads appear in a 300 x 350 dpi box at the bottom of the unit, but hosts don't have a say in the ads that appear in the box. The ads and social media aim to drive the traffic.

The NHL's social media strategy has attracted more hockey fans to the site. When Casie needed quick access via iPhone while at a baby shower to track the U.S. and Canadian game last Sunday, she relied on the NHL Web site for up-to-the-minute reports and scores.

The NHL hopes that kind of loyalty rings through to advertisers. The league hopes to support their TweetMixx Web page with sponsors looking to skin the page. DiLorenzo knew that social media continues to drive traffic to the NHL Web site, but now he has the numbers to back up the claim. "Our playoffs are coming up and we'll see something similar," he says. "Every night you have a couple of mashup games, but they are highly scrutinized and broken down by fans, similar to NFL games."

Statistics published by Facebook on the Gold Medal Hockey game on Sunday reflected the energy and excitement. The U.S. scored in the last 20 seconds after losing 2 to 1. That tie sent the game to overtime, where Canada scored to win.

The Facebook published data points to member status updates that align peaks in the game to reflect that winning point from Canada. Between 2:29 and 2:54 p.m. Pacific time, more than 3.5 million status updates were posted, which is twice the pace of the rest of the day. "When it comes to following NHL players and teams, our fans use social media as a second screen for sharing and amplifying what's happening on the ice," DiLorenzo says.

For more information visit www.mediapost.com