The combination of mobile and social technologies is proving to be an effective way for companies to reach potential customers.
Forty-five percent of 37,000 U.S. online adults surveyed access social networking sites weekly or more from a smartphone, while 64 percent do so from a desktop or a laptop and 25 percent do so from a tablet, according to a new study from Forrester Research.
The study shows that online consumers who access social networking sites from a smartphone are more likely to read, comment, like or share content posted by a company than their PC counterparts. For example, 49 percent of tablet users and 46 percent of smartphone social users like something a company posted weekly or more, compared with 37 percent of PC social networking users.
Time spent on social applications via smartphones is also significant for consumers who engage with brands on their mobile device, the Forrester report says. On average, these consumers spend nearly 25 minutes per day on Facebook, 12 minutes per day on YouTube and 10 minutes per day on Instagram.
Further, mobile users are more positive about their interactions with brands on social sites, the study notes.
“Marketers in more-traditional businesses or who are pursuing other marketing goals should pay close attention to the unique attributes of their mobile social users and optimize their social strategies to engage them,” Thomas Husson, vice president and principal analyst at Forrester and co-author of the report, wrote in a blog. “Why? Because people who access social networking sites from their smartphones are more active and more likely to interact with brands, and they value these interactions more on social sites than PC users do.”
This story first appeared at Information Management.
