When marketers ask themselves the question how do consumers use social media the number one rule to keep in mind is that consumers use it mostly on mobile devices.
Something to make you go…hmm! According to reaseach from a recent Pew study mobile technology is the needle that weaves social technology through our lives. So a link to your site followed from a Tweet, or Facebook like is most likely to be viewed on a smart phone. There’s such a big push these days for 
businesses to get on the social media band wagon that many are forgetting to mobilize their websites. Which according to Google’s 2011 research into smart phone use is increasingly how consumers are accessing social media.
When considering social media and mobile usage keep in mind how the Internet has changed. Kathryn Zickuhr, Research Analyst at Pew Research points out the following.
- The Internet in the year 2000
- Slow, stationary connections and built around desktop computers:
- 46% of adults used the internet
- 5% of adults had home broadband connections
- 53% owned a cell phone
- 0% connected to internet wirelessly
- 0% used social network sites.
The information flowed mainly one way, and was consumed mostly from stationary devices such as desktop computers.
Fast forward to 2012 and the Internet has fundamentally changed because mobile devices have impacted the relationships between information, time, and space:
- 85% of U.S adults use the internet, and three quarters of them are online on any given day
- 2/3 of adults have broadband at home
- 25% have tablet computers
- 2/3 are wireless internet users
- 66% of adults use social network sites
Information is now, portable, participatory, and personal.
Before making a big push into every social media channel on God’s green earth first make sure that what you are posting, if followed back to your site can be viewed on the devices most likely to access them.
