"Leading social networking companies must bring a solid mobile strategy to their customers, giving them the liberty of staying linked all the time. SMS provides an excellent addition because people already know how to use SMS. It provides an easy way to expand on core offerings, drive personalization and build loyalty to ultimately access more 'eyeballs' which results in higher advertising dollars." Vikrant Gandhi, mobile analyst for leading analyst firm, Frost & Sullivan Not only do people want to be connected through social networks to friends, family members and colleagues; they want to be connected wherever they are and whenever they want.

Adding SMS mobile messaging capability to your social networking application will enable them to do this. Mobile messaging options increase the value of your social network and this is displayed through increased numbers of users and increased revenue generated off of the social network.

Mobile messaging is one area of commerce that is showing unprecedented growth despite the economic downturn; the opportunities for social networks to capitalize on this are enormous. There are now more people that have mobile phones than have access to the Internet and industry experts predict that by 2010 the number of mobile phone subscribers will approach the 4 billion mark. Informa Telecoms predicts that “the global social networking market will grow to a massive $28 billion for revenues generated from all business models in this industry by 2012.”

With the pressure on to achieve the highest possible returns on investment with the lowest capital input, mobile messaging comes out tops. In one SMS stroke, mobile messaging frees users from having to be deskbound to access their social networks through an Internet connection. Text messaging functionality therefore works to retain existing users, is a novel way of attracting new users and opens up multiple revenue streams for the social networking application. Clickatell’s innovative SMS solutions will mobile message-enable any social networking site or application. Your users are demanding access ‘on the go’ and if your social network is not going to be left behind, you need to add a mobile component now.

What are the defining benefits of mobile messaging for social networks?