A recent study by Get Satisfaction posted on Mashable titled “Why Do People Follow Brands” caught my eye recently, as I thought it would be interesting to unpack and apply social media data within a mobile context.

Or, as a a lot of people are trumpeting recently, getting “mocial” with it. For what it’s worth, if I had lingo powers, I think “sociobile” rolls off the tongue nicely (so-shuh-bull sounds more like a real word), but I suppose when in doubt go with fewer syllables.

For all intensive purposes, a workable definition of “mocial” is, “The intersection and interplay of mobile and social.” So using your cell phone to post a Facebook status update is “mocial networking,” mobile purchasing of animals to take another step toward Farmville dominanace, “mocial gaming,” and businesses using mobile phone communication to engage consumers with cross channel social/mobile marketing campaigns, “mocial CRM.”

Not sure we’re going to get a dictionary entry or Facebook page for such wordsmithing, but you get the basic idea: mobile and social overlap (like, a lot) and thus businesses need to have a strategy in place that addresses both.

Which brings us back to the aforementioned study. Let’s take a look at its first data point:

I ) What are the top reasons people follow brands on social media? 

Few things to note here:

• Customer Acquisition: the overwhelming reason why people follow brands on social media is because of specific deals or offers
• Customer Retention: people follow brands that are a part of their lives in order to get more engaged with that brand
• Strategy: content matters – people are more likely to engage with brands that have interesting and relevant content.

Now – reread the list and ask yourself whether the above conclusions are specific to social media or actually apply to both social and mobile:

• In mobile, do we need incentives to attract subscribers? Check
• Is our goal for mobile subscribers increasing customer lifetime value? Check
• Does content matter? Check

B2B “mocial” at work! Yes we’re building “subscribers” instead of “followers,” but ultimately what gets us there in social is most likely going to get us there in mobile. The reason is that mobile phones possess the exact same characteristics that make social media, well, “social”; mobile is an interactive and personal communications medium.

Given this “mocial” nature of the data, let’s look at the rest and see what we can discover:

II) How many brands do you follow on Facebook?

~90% of people follow less than 10 brands on Facebook. This makes immediate customer acquisition a crucial piece of any social media strategy, as there is a finite digital media mindshare that brands can occupy. For creators of a a mobile subscriber database, the thinking is exactly the same. List building to capture mindshare –particularly list building now – is an absolutely crucial step for marketers going forward.

III) For brands that you follow, 

What’s important to note here is that ROI doesn’t just come down to driving purchases. It’s purchases + top of mind awareness + brand equity from referrals (compounded by today’s shared media effect) that needs to be incorporated into an overall marketing strategy.

So there you have it: three mobile/social CRM need-to-knows:

1. You need incentives to encourage people to join your mobile subscriber database/social media following. Once joined, your ultimate goal is increasing customer lifetime value through the use of engaging content.
2. Start building a list now in order to secure crucial mindshare within individuals’ limited mobile/social attention spans going forward.
3. Don’t confine your mobile/social ROI strategy to purchase, rather also include the value derived from top of mind awareness and referral effects.

Thanks mocial!