Digital CPG Blog

We talked about the rise of mobile yesterday and today’s research reveals that social networking is more popular than voice or SMS (texting) on those phones. Or at least will be in five years, reports Read Write Web.

“When examined individually, traditional forms of communication still appeared to be at the top of the list. The operators said that 87% would use messaging (SMS/MMS) and 81% would use voice. However, when all the social networking options were combined, they totaled 94%, thus becoming the new majority.”

The study reported that social networking “wouldn’t just be the most heavily used service among applications, it would be the ‘most important form of communication,’ too.”

For brand marketers, it will become increasingly important to integrate mobile campaigns with existing social networks and apps. I think it will be interesting to see if brands go to where the customers are (Facebook, Foursquare) or build their own social network apps to talk with customers. Especially with social networks like Facebook introducing – and potentially dominating – new forms of communication like Facebook Mail (a potential email killer for younger generations), brands will need to quickly adapt how they communicate with the consumer.

With so many channels, can a cohesive result be achieved? Which strategy do you think would be more successful?