Facebook’s Christian HernandezFacebook became a mobile first company within the last one year, in step with Christian Hernandez, director, vertical business partnerships on the social networking giant in his presentation at IAB Mobile Engage a couple of minutes ago, entitled ‘Social is Mobile’.
Hernandez didn’t actually utter the words: ““Facebook is the principle function of a smartphone today” through the presentation, but they did form the title of 1 of the slides he used, which showed 23 per cent of smartphone usage dedicated to Facebook (surely, 21 per cent Facebook, 2 per cent Instagram), with Google sites in second place on just 10 per cent.
Hernandez revealed that each day, Facebook sees more users on mobile than on the net. Inside the UK, Facebook has 26m monthly active users on mobile, out of a complete of 34m. On a world basis, Facebook has 655m daily active mobile users.
Hernandez noted also that almost all of folk on the earth, 4.5bn of them to be precise, have never used the web, and that a better generation of mobile users will mostly access the internet purely through a mobile device.
He explained to delegates how Facebook had needed to “retool” the company’s engineers with a mobile first mindset, and the way it had worked during the last year to create a more unified Facebook experience across different connected devices.
He also referenced the variety of mobile news feed story impressions daily – 65bn – and urged brands to apply the inside track feed as a method of engaging with consumers, stating that 65 per cent of likes and interactions happen within the news feed.
Summing up, Hernandez encouraged brands to examine mobile and social more strategically, instead of an (often last-minute) add-on. “Social and mobile shouldn’t be objectives,” he said. “They could be on the core of the creative process, your planning and execution.”
It was no surprise to listen to Facebook bigging up mobile on this way, nonetheless it was interesting to listen to Hernandez talking about retooling the corporate for mobile first, and he did have the capacity to avoid spending an excessive amount of time telling the audience that everything is mobile now.
To be fair, I haven’t heard the phrase “mobile is the handheld remote control to our lives” mentioned once today, but the various speakers have felt the necessity to make the purpose that the realm has already gone mobile, and if you happen to haven’t, you’re at risk of missing the boat. Nevertheless, I concede that I actually have maybe been to too many conferences and that lots of the brand budget-holders within the audience today are still to dip their toes within the mobile waters. It sort of feels incredible to me, but maybe it’s true.