page_title: Social media
section_title: Mobile social media
hierarchical_section_title: Social media / Definition and classification / Mobile social media
caption_attribution_description: English: Young people using their smartphones at a party. The ever-present use of smartphones for multiple purposes has led some writers to describe young people as the "thumb tribe" or "thumb generation".
context_page_description: Social media are interactive computer-mediated technologies that facilitate the creation or sharing of information, ideas, career interests and other forms of expression via virtual communities and networks. The variety of stand-alone and built-in social media services currently available introduces challenges of definition; however, there are some common features:
  Social media are interactive Web 2.0 Internet-based applications.
  User-generated content such as text posts or comments, digital photos or videos, and data generated through all online interactions, is the lifeblood of social media.
  Users create service-specific profiles for the website or app that are designed and maintained by the social media organization.
  Social media facilitate the development of online social networks by connecting a user's profile with those of other individuals or groups.
  Users usually access social media services via web-based apps on desktops and laptops, or download services that offer social media functionality to their mobile devices.
context_section_description: Mobile social media refer to the use of social media on mobile devices such as smartphones and tablet computers. Mobile social media are a useful application of mobile marketing because the creation, exchange, and circulation of user-generated content can assist companies with marketing research, communication, and relationship development. Mobile social media differ from others because they incorporate the current location of the user (location-sensitivity) or the time delay between sending and receiving messages (time-sensitivity). According to Andreas Kaplan, mobile social media applications can be differentiated among four types:
  Space-timers (location and time sensitive): Exchange of messages with relevance mostly for one specific location at one specific point in time (e.g. Facebook Places WhatsApp; Foursquare)
  Space-locators (only location sensitive): Exchange of messages, with relevance for one specific location, which is tagged to a certain place and read later by others (e.g. Yelp; Qype, Tumblr, Fishbrain)
  Quick-timers (only time sensitive): Transfer of traditional social media mobile apps to increase immediacy (e.g. posting Twitter messages or Facebook status updates)
  Slow-timers (neither location nor time sensitive): Transfer of traditional social media applications to mobile devices (e.g. watching a YouTube video or reading/editing a Wikipedia article)
caption: The heavy usage of smartphones among young people relates to the significant percentage of social media users who are from this demographic.
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