Mobile Marketing - Follow Google And Follow The Money.

The Mobile Marketing Association is a global worldwide organization of companies mostly at the corporate level. These businesses lay the groundwork of mobile marketing by using the best practices.

The official definition of Mobile Marketing as laid out by this association is "Mobile Marketing is a set of practices that enables organizations to communicate and engage with their audience in an interactive and relevant manner through any mobile device or network."

The key points in this definition are:
* the use of the terms 'communicate and engage' which lends to the concept of mobile marketing being open and wanted and with the permission of the audience and
* the use of the term 'any mobile device or network' suggesting that mobile is more than just phones, text messaging and the mobile web.

Mobile Marketing is not a get rich quick scheme or an individual marketing tool. It is not about buying a list of phone numbers and then sending unwanted messages out to these phones. There may be the misconception from consumers to people looking at mobile marketing as a business that this concept is all about spam. This is not what mobile marketing is about.

Mobile works in conjunction with all of the available mobile marketing tools. There are numerous tools of mobile. These include mobile email, SMS text messaging and mobile websites. Google has its own search engine for mobile web so there is a whole other world around Mobile SEO or Mobile Search Engine Optimization.

Google also has Mobile Adsense and other mobile advertising can be anything from AdMob to banner and text ads inside apps. This is called App-vertising. Other tools of mobile may include downloadable content such as ringtones and games.

Location-aware services locates your phone via GPS and interacts with location-based applications including the new venue database you may have on your phone. There is a lot of this with Foursquare. This may alert people to privacy issues but to businesses, it is the future in mobile advertising.

Mobile content usage is growing and the number of things people do on their mobiles is growing. More than sixty percent of the population are text messaging. Nearly thirty percent of people are using web browsers on their mobiles. People use their mobile to play games, download apps, access social networking sites, listen to music and take pictures. Phones are becoming more than just phones. They are becoming a big part of our lives.

The number of people using their mobile to access Facebook has grown phenomenally over the last few years and the number of people using the mobile web is growing exponentially. There is a lot going to be happening with mobile phones in the future.

Just how big is the smartphone market? Smartphones are more than phones with the basic phone, text and camera features. They are able to take on other programs such as apps, software and a more complicated mobile browser. Smartphones only has a quarter share of the total cell phone market. Those interested in mobile marketing should be aware that everything that Google does now is mobile first. Chances are that whatever they are doing .... that is where the money is.