According to figures from comScore, visits to social networking sites Twitter and Facebook via mobile internet browsers showed triple-digit growth during January.

The study found that 30.8% of smartphone users accessed social networking sites via their mobile browser in January 2010, up 8.3% from 22.5% one year ago. Access to social network Facebook, in particular, grew 112% in the past year attracting 25.1 mobile users in January, compared to Twitter which experienced a 347% increase on the corresponding period of 2009.

Overall figures for January 2010 revealed that 11.1% of all mobile phone users accessed a social networking site via their mobile’s internet browser. This shows an increase of 4.6% over the past 12 months.

Such figures are proof that social media sites are increasingly being used by individuals worldwide regardless of their location, and this is where mobile marketing still holds great promise for marketers. Not only are users accessing social sites and community networks via their phones, they’re also feeling more comfortable making purchases from their handsets, as revealed by a recent Compete Smartphone Intelligence Survey.

Yesterday, 77Agency in collaboration with Buongiorno Marketing Services, held their 3rd social media event in the month of October dedicated to marketing professionals in Europe. The event was held last night at the private member club, the Soho House London, where we then had the opportunity to network informally with our exclusive guests including the NHS, Virgin games, Cowshed, Comcast International Media group, IPC Media, Elemis, Paramount, Mobile Squared and Bauer Media, over some drinks and light refreshments.

This time the guestspeaker of the night was the online business network Viadeo, with its 8 million user base and 700,000 participating companies. In representation, Viadeo’s Europe COO, Peter Crosby, discussed about the use of business social networks for marketing as well as the practical and measurable methods to get the best out of social media for your business. But before he went into the details of things, Crosby ran a Live twitter feed and poll via mobile to assess the current attitudes and usage of social media by the seminar guests!

In addition, Adhish Kulkarni, MD Buongiorno Marketing Services UK, also took the floor and spoke about the 65million users who are accessing Facebook from their mobile across the globe. One curious fact, these users are typically 50% more active than non-mobile Facebook users. He mentioned how mobile is redefining the concept of targeting, in other words, it’s becoming the ultimate anytime/anywhere communication channel.

To close, our MD Marco Corsaro, talked about developing a coherent social media strategy for brands, making use of the viral effect of Facebook to drive brand awareness, sales and build a brand community. He commented that 30% of our active time is spent online, yet online advertising typically accounts for only 7% of advertising spend. Moreover, in Europe, users spend an average of 25.7 minutes a day using Facebook, visiting 2.6 times a day and 50% of users login everyday.

He then outlined some of the advantages the Facebook advertising platform offers marketers and these are:

* Highly targeted advertising  based on standard demographics but also on hobbies and interests such as music, books, tv shows or even birth dates!
* Engagements ads introduce viral into the mix
* Video ads, ‘become a fan’ ads, events, polling and even search is now possible, all of which are helping brands to interact with consumers and build solid brand communities

Also, Facebook have a number of tracking tools which are constantly being developed to improve targeting and help the advertiser make the right decisions when it comes to defining a social media campaign through Facebook.

For more information on 77Agency Seminars & Events, stay tuned on www.77agency.com/seminars/

Many thanks to Adhish Kulkarni, Peter Crosby and Marco Corsaro for sharing their insights!

Guillaume Foutry: How long has your startup (Optimor) been in operation?

Dr. Stelios Koundouros: The company was founded in 2005. We spent two years analyzing large mobile data sets and building our core predictive technology and analytical infrastructure. We then teamed up with The Accelerator Group (TAG) in 2007, producing our website and software in 2008. We launched the website in late 2008 and have seen the traffic increasing since, Bill Monitor having reached 25,000 users in May 2009, all driven by positive press coverage and word of mouth.

GF: How would you describe your tool, Bill Monitor?

Dr. Stelios Koundouros: Bill Monitor is a personal adviser on deals on the mobile phone market that analyzes customers’ individual usage patterns found in their itemised bills to provide them with the most personalised recommendations regarding their needs.

GF: Can you explain how it works?

Dr. Stelios Koundouros: The person willing to use Bill Monitor gives us access to his/her online billing account with their mobile operator. Bill Monitor then reads their historic usage and generates forecasts of their potential future behaviour based on the historic consumption of the user. It then runs each forecast through thousands of tariffs looking at the cost of every single call to identify the most suitable deal on the mobile phone market for this user. Alternatively, the user makes a self-assessment of his/her consumption.

GF: What is the main difference between Bill Monitor and a classic price comparison website?

Dr. Stelios Koundouros: Well, there are several differences:

• We analyze the actual bill of the user – offering personalised advice based on the user’s actual usage patterns
• We have spent several years developing an algorithm that provides very accurate prediction based on the user’s pattern of consumption
• We examine every level of consumption (national calls, international calls, text, roaming, picture message, contract type) and we recommend users mobile contracts with all add-ons which are relevant to their consumption and will effectively reduce their bills.

Thus, we provide a personal recommendation based on a global assessment of the consumption of the user.

GF: What does the Ofcom accreditation mean for Bill Monitor?

Dr. Stelios Koundouros: Ofcom, the national regulator for telecommunications, examines price comparison calculators in the mobile and telecommunications industry (They define themselves as “an independent organisation which regulates the UK’s broadcasting, telecommunications and wireless communications sectors.” They “also set and enforce rules on fair competition between companies in these industries”). Bill Monitor is the only mobile comparison calculator which has earned accreditation by Ofcom, this accredits the following four elements:

1. The impartiality of the Bill Monitor service
2. The accuracy of Bill Monitor
3. The transparency of Bill Monitor (how Bill Monitor provides the results)
4. The comprehensiveness of the tariffs compared by Bill Monitor

The certificate has been a recognition of our work and shows users they can trust Bill Monitor and its results.

GF: How have the mobile carriers greeted you? Have you felt any form of hostility or resistance?

Dr. Stelios Koundouros: We communicate with them and they perceive the value of the tool for their business and we will probably find a way to collaborate together. They can use Bill Monitor to improve their CRM system, or make their billing services more efficient, so we offer something that is complementary to what they do.

GF: Where are you going next? What do you plan to do, both for the tool and your company?

Dr. Stelios Koundouros: Our priority at the moment is to enhance the service as we plan to add multiple merchants such as the Carphone Warehouse and to include pay as you go deals. Above all as we have been in operations for a couple of months now we have accumulated enough feedback from our users to improve the website and to make it even more useful to them.

In the midterm we think of branching into other services where we could bring our expertise, like electricity deals.

Regarding our company, we are considering a series A funding round and we are in talks with some of the major players in this area.

We can say social media has been the biggest buzz topic this year, mainly due to its practicality and the fact that users find it convenient being on-the-move while at the same time communicating with friends, relatives and work colleagues through these networks. On the one hand, we’ve got the world globalizing, on the other, social media is lowering the barrier.

An impressive amount of content is created using mobile devices such as cellphones, camcorders, etc. Just to give you an insane figure, every minute 13 hours of video content are uploaded on YouTube, which currently attracts a total 240 million unique users. It’s quite different creating and ‘consuming’ content from your personal PC, that’s just sitting on a table, than doing it while on the move through a more capable device.

Today, people are using mobile devices not only for sms, mms, checking messages, but also to upload photos and communicate through social network applications. Advanced mobile devices are being launched in the market continuously carrying the latest technologies and unlimited features that make it convenient all the more.

Killer applications such as YouTube and MySpace enjoy and benefit from content created by mobile devices which is causing mobile social network users to become more and more active.

A recent study from ABI Research shows us social networking and consumer generated media have moved beyond the PC, which means that ‘over time, a growing number of consumers will share photos and use social network messaging and email which will translate to longer and more frequent usage of social networks on mobile’, explains ABI research director Michael Wolf.

The tendency is that more and more consumers are adopting social networking through their mobiles. Its main advantage is that of targeting specific niches in the most efficient manner.  So, Facebook and MySpace, be prepared- you have enormous amounts of advertising inventory so make the best out of it!

According to a Nielsen research, as of 3Q 2008, the average American spends 27 hours a month surfing the Web, 3 hours a month watching mobile videos and 142 a month of pure TV.

Would you say this might have anything to do with all those who have been sacked thanks to the economic turmoil? Such statement is supported by the fact that television has now reached its highest ever since the 1950’s when Nielsen first performed studies as such.

Some key facts from the Nielsen report include:

• Americans are spending more time than ever with their televisions, computers and mobile phones, with television remaining the dominant screen, watched more than 142 hrs a month – 5 hours more than last year.
• Americans spend more than 6 hours per month watching timeshifted TV, which is more than double the amount of time they watch video online.
• Men are more likely than women to watch video on mobile phones, while women are more likely then men to watch video on the Internet.
• During the third quarter, there was no shortage of online video content with events including the Olympics, Major League baseball games, the political conventions and debates, and the financial crisis. Online video use grew steadily through the quarter.

I stumbled upon a nice post by James Sherwood on The Register dubbed ‘Brits more hooked on mobile tech than Yanks are’- loved the sound of it, and wanted to bring some data to front.

It’s only fair I call out the final verdict. Brits win, Yanks loose. But let’s just take a look at some of the facts and figures:

Brits vs. Yanks

• 94% Brit youngsters own mobile phones vs. 80% Yank youngsters
• 4% of Brit adults resist to owning a mobile phone vs. 10% Americans think the same
• 17% Brits own more than one device vs. 11% Yanks say the same
• Both kids and adults in the US and the UK prefer texting as a communication format
• 46% of UK adults claim they prefer texting over calling or emailing vs. 28% of Americans who say the same

One last interesting fact- 24% of US and 17% of UK adults coincide in that emailing is the only common online activity they have performed using mobile phones.

I get the feeling this data is not entirely accurate, however, its somewhat of a general scope. Things like population, coverage, phone plans, can all influence these numbers. However, you can at least tell mobile phone and internet technology still have a long way to go, and for one reason or another some people have not yet made the transgression. And the final outcome: TV is still reigning in the households.