Mobile social networking grows 44% in EU5

Twitter, LinkedIn see the highest adoption rate in top five European markets

Most social networking companies have invested a lot of time and money into improving the mobile experience of their Web platforms and it seems to be paying off.

The five leading European markets known as the EU5 (U.K., France, Germany, Italy and Spain) have seen the use of social media on mobile devices grow 44% in the past year, according to a comScore study released on Monday.

The digital measuring group found that there are were 55.1 million mobile users in the EU5 that accessed their social networking sites or blogs this September -- this equates to nearly one in four mobile users logging into their social sites. And the proportion of mobile social networkers logging in daily is about to broach 47%.

While the growth of people accessing their social communities via mobile device grew drastically since last year (44%), the number of mobile users already mobile logging on, but now becoming daily users, grew more substantially (67%.)

Most mobile users are still accessing social networking sites through their mobile browser (31.3 million), but the number of people using mobile apps doubled in the previous year to 24.2 million.

This is a strong reinforcement that social networking sites are not only drawing exceptional dependance from its users, but that users are responding favorably to the mobile applications and browsers created for them.

“Over the past year we have seen social networking use grow rapidly among mobile users across Europe, driven largely by the growth in smartphone adoption, making it easier than ever for users to stay connected and engage in social activities while on-the-go,” Jeremy Copp, comScore Europe vice president for mobile said in a statement. “As social networks continue to invest in improving the user experience on mobile devices and tablets, it will be interesting to see how social behaviours on the mobile platform further evolve.”

Twitter and LinkedIn growth

Two of the most significant gainers of mobile users were LinkedIn (with 134% growth) and Twitter (with 115% growth).

LinkedIn had 944,000 mobile users logging in in September of 2010 and this year saw more than 2.2 million people checking their professional network via a mobile device. This could be, in part, thanks to the well-received mobile app that it released earlier this year and in part to the growing importance of keeping business connections strong in a weak economy.

Twitter also saw great growth and jumped from roughly 3.9 million users to more than 8.5 million users over the last year. And this number does not even include the third-party apps that are popular on devices, such as Tweetdeck or Twitterific -- so the numbers could be strikingly higher.

Two other strong growers in the EU5 social market were Facebook and Tuenti.com, each of which saw more than 50% growth year-over-year.

Brands can rejoice

While the majority of people are using their social media access to stay connected with friends and family, more than 40% of users are also staying up-to-date with brands and celebrities that they are interested in.

This is a great indicator that users are interested in tailoring their marketing interest and that people do pay attention to the companies that they follow or 'like' on social sites.

And more than a quarter of mobile users have received a coupon, offer, or deal from a company via blog or social network.

This should reinforce brands to the importance of making their company visible and attractive to their target audience on social networking sites because, at least in the group studied in the EU5, they are paying attention.

Image Source -- En.bestpicturesof.com

Click to follow writing by Krystal Peak