MediaPost’s Research Brief recently highlighted a survey from Ruder Finn on how Americans use the mobile internet.  The post is worth a quick read and provides some insight on how people use their phones (which is helpful for crafting a mobile strategy).

You can read the full post here.

The survey, the Mobile Intent Index, showed the driving factor behind people using their mobile phones to go online is immediacy.  And that people use their mobile phones as a “social connector” – with 91 percent of mobile users going online to socialize, compared to the 79 percent of traditional internet users.

According to the survey, the top social intents are:

• Instant messaging (62 percent)
• Forwarding emails (58 percent), content (40 percent) and photos (38 percent)
• Posting comments on social networking sites (45 percent)
• Connecting to people on social networking sites (43 percent)

Interestingly, the survey also found the mobile internet users are more likely to manage finances online than traditional internet users (1.6 times more likely) and that mobile intent differs by age and gender.

The study found:

• Men are 18 percent more likely to use their mobile phone to “escape”
• Youth are 9 percent more likely to shop over the mobile internet than the average mobile user.
• Seniors are 18 percent more likely to use the mobile internet to educate themselves.

You can check out Ruder-Finn’s full results here.