It’s not surprising that people are increasingly logging online with their smartphones for everything from checking their email to accessing social media. And it’s important for small to medium sized businesses not to ignore the data.
Although traditional advertisers are using social data to better target their ads to users of mobile devices, smaller businesses should make sure that a strong social media network with fresh updates, useful and educational information, and humor to connect to customers is a basic part of their marketing plan. You may not have the budget for fancy ads to reach consumers on those mobile devices, but if you implement an active social plan, you’ll still reach some of those millions of mobile users.
With that said, here are some recent statistics and news regarding social media and mobile use:
Facebook recently revealed that 78 % of its users in the United States are on mobile devices. That’s a huge 101 million out of 128 million users per day on mobile. 
From the stats at this SnapHop article, 31% of mobile internet users mostly go online using their phones (Pew 2012), and 75% of emails are opened, 60% of Facebook posts and 90% tweets are all conducted from a mobile device.
And then we have moms, who are the power users of mobile/social media interaction. Below is an infographic by Statista that shows how moms are utilizing mobile devices for shopping to organize busy family schedules. Click on the image below to see the full-sized graphic.
Adobe came up with its own survey, showing that the No. 1 use of mobile phones was to log onto social media sites. The survey showed that users log on when they wake up in the morning, during the lunch breaks, and during prime time TV viewing hours at night.
And it’s a world-wide phenomenon. In India, according to InformationWeek, of the 62 million people who use social media in that country, 77 percent log on using their mobile devices.
Advertisers are using this boom in social media-mobile users by utilizing publicly available information to target their ads. As a Los Angeles Times article reveals, a new mobile advertising platform launched by UberMedia in Pasadena scans Twitter, Pinterest and other social media sites, and combined with GPS location tracking, displays ads according to a users habits and interests. Those who don’t want to be monitored by GPS for targeted advertising, would be advised to turn off their location tracking on their apps. Also, don’t check-in using apps like Four Square and Facebook.
So what does this mean for small to medium-sized businesses who want to reach those millions of social media users on their smartphones, but don’t have a huge budget?
The answer is to make sure you have a strong and active social media network, so that users will continue to see your messages on their mobile devices. In the end, people still tend to trust what’s in their social feeds more than a traditional ad.
