comScore Highlights Growth Spurt in Mobile Social Media Audience

According to the findings of an insightful new report from comScore, 72.2 million Americans accessed social networking sites or blogs on their mobile device in August 2011.

Not only does that figure represent a whole lot of people, it also reveals an audience size increase of 37 percent over the past year alone. The study similarly showed that more than half read a post from an organization, brand or event while on their mobile device.

“Social media is one of the most popular and fastest growing mobile activities, reaching nearly one third of all U.S. mobile users,” says Mark Donovan, comScore senior vice president for mobile. “This behavior is even more prevalent among smartphone owners with three in five accessing social media each month, highlighting the importance of apps and the enhanced functionality of smartphones to social media usage on mobile devices.”

Nearly 40 million U.S. mobile users, more than half of the mobile social media audience, access these sites almost every day, “demonstrating the importance of this activity to people’s daily routines,” comScore suggests.

Research also indicated that although more people accessed these sites via their mobile browser, the social networking app audience grew five times faster in the past year. While the mobile browsing social networking audience grew 24 percent to 42.3 million users in the past year, the mobile social networking app audience surged 126 percent to 38.5 million.

“Advertisers and marketers should take note – mobile users are not only engaging with their friends through social networking, but a majority are also interacting with brands in these social media environments,” Donovan concluded. “Knowing that fans and followers engage with branded content on mobile devices opens the door to a world of opportunity for location-based services.”