360DigitalInfluence

As a follow up to our recent webinar, Facebook Bootcamp for PR, you’ll see five blog posts in the coming weeks exploring the five trends set out in our presentation. With over 30 million active users Facebook Mobile is a trend that’s gaining serious momentum over the last year and eMarketer.com predicts that worldwide numbers across networks will reach 369 million by 2010. This is great news for brands looking to leverage social media for offline events; some of the new possibilities include signing up fans via SMS and extending consumer generated media programs to include mobile uploads.

Mobile social networking has always been popular in Asia and to a lesser extent in Europe where limited access to broadband internet made smart phones an attractive platform for the newest technologies. AllFacebook.com noted that Facebook has been pushing hard over the past week or so to up its mobile numbers, frequently featuring a link to the Facebook Mobile page on the homepage or posting instructions for how to update status or photos from your phone.

Facebook is doing a great job of promoting its new offering and giving users plenty of ideas for how Facebook Mobile will be fun and easy for them. Unlike Twitter where it always seemed that outside forces had to come in to fix problems, fill gaps, or explain what the heck Twitter was, Facebook has never failed at self-promotion.

So what does this mean for brands? Get creative! Here are some ideas for leveraging Facebook Mobile for your campaigns:

• Sign-up fans on the spot at a conference, concert, or with a television spot. Fans can now become a friend of your brand page instantly through a short code SMS message.

• Prompt users to status updates. Facebook Mobile updates will function the same as Twitter updates, so remind event attendees to update their statuses or write on your brand page wall in real time. If you have an internet connection and a screen, you could display your brand page at an event so that mobile users could see their comments and reactions show up in real time.

• Create a mobile upload contest. Expand the classic photo contest to include mobile uploads from fans. Collect the entries and display them on your brand page.

As with most new Facebook technologies, the sky is the limit for the right brand and the right idea. Get creative and think about what makes mobile social networking unique: freedom of mobility, short and immediate information, and more personal contact with fans.