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45% of Mobile Users to Access SocNets by 2013: eMarketer

Social networking is one of the primary ways mobile users communicate with each other, and is one of the most significant drivers of internet usage on mobile devices, according to a new report from eMarketer.

Mobile and social are two still-emerging channels, and each is helping to drive the adoption of the other. By 2013, 45% of mobile internet users - 607.5 million users - will be accessing social networks from their mobile devices, reports eMarketer. But because each channel is still emerging, estimating the market for mobile social advertising and marketing is premature.

The top 3 destinations for mobile social network users are Facebook, MySpace and Twitter.

eMarketer expects mobile advertising to generate $416 million in U.S. ad spending this year, writes Adweek, and the Mobile Marketing Association expects mobile ad spending to grow 27% to $2.1 billion in 2010.

But mobile marketing will not truly hit its stride until it overcomes four challenges:

• Mobile opportunities are still small. Currently, fewer than one in five Americans has a smartphone, meaning that the most advanced marketing opportunities, like applications, reach only a small percentage of the population.
• Marketers are still hunting the “killer app.” Current mobile formats still treat mobile devices like the web - that is, as small computer screens - rather than opportunities to create highly personalized campaigns that reach users as they go through their day.
• Marketers that do spend money creating innovative apps often don’t back up those applications with ad campaigns. VW, for example, created a GTI application for the iPhone, which has been downloaded over 2 million times in just three weeks. But the automaker did not buy mobile ads for the launch, instead putting its marketing dollars into the development of the app.
• The mobile web still lacks standardized methods and an easy way to run campaigns that reach scale. There are also no standardized methods of measurement, and it is a challenge to track mobile campaigns across web campaigns in third-party media planning tools.