Wireless Social Networking Empowers Mobile Marketing; 30,000 Responses in 90 min.
Social
Networks, which currently attract nearly 5%
of all web visits, are making a big leap to the cell phone. Frederick
Ghahramani, co-founder and director of AirG, which has been powering
social networking on mobile phones since 2000, said the wireless social
networking is becoming a mass market phenomenon and will soon rival the
popularity of social networking on the Internet.
Fred believes that wireless social networks could attract wider user base as nearly 60% of members of AirG-operated mobile networking communities do not have computers. AirG operates a mobile community of well over 10 million unique users, interconnected to more than 85 mobile operators globally, including Sprint Nextel, Cingular, Boost Mobile and Virgin Mobile. Over 80% of AirG’s users are in the 18-30 demographic.
Demonstrating the power of mobile communities to reach consumers directly, to a recently conducted survey in AirG community, over 30,000 users responded in just 90 minutes and provided insights into their spending habits and behaviors: :
- spend an average of 59 a day in the community
- 75% prefer chatting on phone to watching TV
- 59% don’t own a PC
- 33% spend more than $80 a month on mobile phone bill
- 42% spend $100 plus a month for clothes and entertainment
The response rate to advertising in AirG’s mobile community is on average more than ten times as effective as online. Fred claims over 5% click-through rates for targeted promotions on AirG, driven by access to valuable personal data like age, location, likes, and dislikes.
Unlike the internet-based social networking sites which depend on advertising for most of their revenue, advertising would complement, not replace, subscription fees for mobile social networks, Ghahramani said.
Total advertiser spending on mobile messaging and display advertising will grow from $1.4 billion in 2006 to $2.9 billion in 2011, according to a new report, "US Mobile Marketing Forecast, 2006 to 2011" from JupiterResearch.
The market for mobile communities and user generated content will be worth $13.1 billion by 2011, with photo and chat based services being the top revenue generators, according to a new report from Informa Telecoms and Media and the Mobile Entertainment Forum (MEF).
