As we come to the end of another busy year we can see that mobile usage of almost all kinds is still on an upwards trajectory with no real end in sight. SMS, MMS, mobile web, USSD and mobile broadband usage are all way up on last year and they all look set to continue growing for the next few years. While some of that is expected (MMS, mobile web and broadband), experts were predicting that usage of others (SMS and USSD) would start to fall by now, that has not happened.

While there are many reasons for the continued growth of all forms of mobile usage, perhaps the biggest driver these days has been social networking. It seems that social networking, and in turn social media, was made for mobile. All the existing social networks, like Facebook and MySpace, have expanded their offerings to include mobile while all the new comers, like Foursquare and Aka-Aki, have based their offerings on mobile from the start.

Mobile and social media work very well together, especially in developing countries. There are many reasons for this, but the most important are:
Having your own mobile is much more affordable than having your own PC
Mobiles come with data already, you don’t need to get a provider to connect
Mobiles are private
It’s much easier to learn to use a mobile phone than a PC
And, most importantly, mobile makes social media IMMEDIATE!

Mobile phones transcend time and space and, by doing that, make themselves not only the most important device in the developing world, but also the most important device in marketing. Social media already incorporates the mobile phone into much of what it does already, but in the future your mobile phone will become the single most important device for social interaction, media and marketing.