Juniper Research predicts that 1.3 billion consumers will rely on their mobile devices to access social media sites by 2016.

In the ?Virtual goods: real revenues on mobile? report, Juniper looked at how consumers are using their social media accounts to drive revenue via virtual goods. The study also looked at mobile social advertising spend and which parts of the world mobile and social is growing.

?This year we have seen an explosion in the number of people accessing mobile social media services via their mobile phones,? said Charlotte Miller, research analyst at Juniper, Hampshire, Britain.

?This is reflected in the integration of Twitter into iOS5 and several manufacturers, such as HTC and Sony Ericsson integrating Facebook into their versions of Android,? she said.

?This is due to continued growth in the smartphone installed base and an ever increasing appetite for sharing data on social networks.?

Social spend
Tablet spend is expected to increase with the devices accounting for almost half of total mobile social media revenue, showing the amount of leisure activity that consumers are spending on mobile devices.

However, several mobile social media services are still not offering mobile-specific advertising, which could hurt the industry in the coming years.

?Social media advertising is big business on the desktop, so to see mobile apps and Web sites with no hint of advertising beyond brand pages was completely unexpected,? Ms. Miller said.

The study broke social media sites into four areas ? content publishing, dating, geosocial networking and social networking.

According to the research, a growth in virtual goods has led to an increase in mobile social media.

Juniper predicts that by 2016, total global spend on virtual goods will reach $4.7 billion.

In particular, the Far East and China play the largest role in virtual goods monetization.

As far as particular sectors go, the mobile dating industry is predicted to be worth $2.3 billion by 2016, which is an increase from $1 billion this year.

Mobile tweets
Mobile social media is a hot topic and is being increasingly used by marketers looking to tailor messages to specific users.

Facebook is reportedly planning its own mobile advertising platform, which is expected to compete head to head with Google.

However, brands need to remember to keep their social media messages short and sweet, especially for mobile devices.

For example, according to data from Virtue, social media engagement on mobile devices increased 4.3 percent with messages that were less than 70 characters long (see story).

Now that consumer adoption of mobile and social is steady, brands need to think more strategically about how to insert social media into their mobile efforts.

?What our forecasts for the user base really says to marketers is this ? you cannot afford to ignore mobile social media,? Ms. Miller said.

?Mobile social media offers a unique opportunity, not only to develop brand awareness, but to reward consumers for desired behaviour, such as bringing friends to a restaurant or becoming a regular customer,? she said.

Final Take
Lauren Johnson is editorial assistant on Mobile Marketer, New York