Mobile social networking: the latest explosion

If you’re not logging onto Facebook or Twitter from your phone yet, you’re quickly falling behind the times.

A new report out from industry tracking giant Comscore found that in August, 72.2 million Americans access social media from mobile devices, a 37% increase compared to the same time last year.

Usually with statistics like this, there’s a big chunk of people who maybe logged in once or a few times but not regularly. In this case, though, 55% of people who check out social content from their phones do it on a daily basis.

The most common activity for mobile social networkers was posting a status update. 80% of those polled said they regularly update their status as part of their mobile activity.

This is accelerated not only by the dedicated Facebook and Twitter apps, but because of the integration of these platforms in other apps, like photo gallery apps that allow users to post pictures directly to Facebook, and widgets that give users content from their social networks every time they look at their phone.

“Social media is one of the most popular and fastest growing mobile activities, reaching nearly one third of all U.S. mobile users. 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,” said Comscore SVP Mark Donovan in a statement.