Google (GOOG) just released a study on consumer interactions with multiple screens. Mobile Marketer writer Lauren Johnson analyzed the study, and reported 66 percent of social media access begins on a smartphone. We live in a Facebook and Twitter world now, and when you amalgamate them with your handheld devices, you've got a powerful weapon in order to stay ahead of the barrage of information that comes your way each day.
My belief is that for buying and selling securities, Twitter is more beneficial to long-term investors as opposed to short-term speculators. Short-term traders are at a disadvantage because by the time you execute an order based on a Tweet, some algorithmic robot has already beaten you to the punch. For investors with a longer time horizon, Twitter is just a great way to aggregate and store information. Based on some recent statistics, others feel the same way, too.
Wednesday's eMarketer report states that Twitter will beat Facebook in U.S. mobile advertising revenues this year. Here is a chart from that article:
If you look at the chart carefully, you can see that Facebook is projected to surpass Twitter in advertising next year and beyond. Facebook has been late to monetize their mobile strategy, but are gaining ground fast. It should be noted that eMarketer is a Facebook bull, and only recently decreased their total sales estimates for the company for 2012. However, there is little doubt that marketing and advertising as we know it is changing in the portable digital universe. I think there is room for both social media companies.
According to the report:
The increasing focus on mobile by both Twitter and Facebook, as well as other major digital advertising publishers, will contribute to growth in the overall US mobile advertising market, which eMarketer estimates will reach $2.61 billion this year. By 2016, the US mobile advertising market is expected to near $12 billion.This 5.5x growth in mobile advertising in four years is something that both Facebook and Twitter want to capitalize on. With GPS chips in handheld devices, a concept called geofencing comes into play. Wikipedia gives us this description:
A geofence is a virtual perimeter for a real-world geographic area. A geofence could be dynamically generated — as in a radius around a store or point location. When the location-aware device of a location-based service (LBS) user enters or exits a geofence, the device receives a generated notification.In other words, companies that utilize this technique can offer coupons and discounts to shoppers in their general vicinity that would be more prone to buy their goods and services. This is very valuable to advertisers. Rimma Kats of Mobile Marketer recently wrote an article on the subject. Here are some quotes from her interviewees:
- Dave Martin, senior vice president of media at Ignited: “Knowing that someone is within 500 feet of a client’s point of transaction might make them worth 10 times more than someone sitting behind their desk at work or at home watching TV. Mobile is no longer optional.”.
- Chia Chen, senior vice president and mobile practice lead at Digitas: “Over the last 6 months, mobile has become an urgent and strategic priority for many of our clients.".
- Harald Kruse, east mobile lead and senior strategy manager at Razorfish: “Another challenge is bringing advertisers further along the mobile learning curve to communicate their message in the mobile medium. Current research is showing that consumers will respond to advertisements on mobile, but also that they want ads to be more relevant to the time, place and context of when they see it.".
Enough said.