Nearly one-third (30.8%) of smartphone consumers accessed social networking sites via mobile browser as of January 2010, up 8.3 percentage points from 22.5% a year earlier, according to comScore.
Meanwhile, access to Facebook and Twitter via mobile browser registered triple-digit growth in the past year.
Social Networking Penetration via Browser
Over one in ten (11.1%) of mobile phone consumers accessed a social networking site via mobile browser as of January 2010, up 4.6 points from a year earlier.
Much of the growth was driven by smartphone consumers, who were over four times as likely as feature-phone owners to access social networking sites via mobile browser (30.8% vs. 6.8%) as of January 2010.
Mobile Browser Access of Facebook and Twitter
On average, 25.1 million mobile users accessed Facebook monthly via mobile browser as of January, up 112% from a year earlier.
MySpace attracted an average of 11.4 million mobile-browser users monthly as of January, approximately one-half that of Facebook's level. Tellingly, Facebook's mobile browser audience surpassed that of MySpace in February 2009—three months earlier than Facebook's PC-based audience exceeded that of MySpace.
Twitter, which has undergone tremendous growth in both mobile and PC-based visits, attracted an average of 4.7 million mobile monthly users as of January 2010, up 347% from a year earlier.
These figures do not include access of the social networking services by the nearly 6 million mobile phone owners who do so exclusively through mobile applications.
Looking for real-world examples of businesses achieving their social media marketing goals? Our 47-page case-study collection, Facebook Success Stories, shows you how to increase brand awareness, target specific markets, promote new products, and create communities that engage users. Also check out The State of Social Media Marketing, a 240-page original research report from MarketingProfs.
Mobile Social Networking: More Women, Older Adults
In a demographic view of social networking activity on mobile devices, the Nielsen company found that women use their phones to "tweet" and "friend" 10% more than men do, according to a separate study:
Although social networking is commonly thought of as an activity for younger people, adults age 35-54 are more likely than other age groups to be active mobile social networking consumers, according to Nielsen:
