Since its introduction in the early 21th century, mobile social media have played an indispensable part in contemporary human lives. Mobile social media (such as Twitter, Facebook, and MySpace) can be accessed through texting, calling, or using mobile Internet networks that are currently available at many hotspots (Salehan & Negahban, 2013; Varnali, Toker, & Yilmaz, 2011). Emerging mobile social media that have attracted advertisers’ attention include Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and other smartphone-enabled mobile apps (Dlamini, 2008; Kaplan, 2012). Facebook has launched in May 2014 its mobile advertising network, The Facebook Audience Network, to better target consumers through the analysis of their demographics, interests, and social media behaviors (such as “likes”) (Delo, 2014; Parsons, 2015). In his speech to f8, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said, “The mobile ecosystem needs a way to deliver these native personalized ads to people” (cited in Delo, 2014, para. 4).
Recent trends in multi-platform advertising have augmented the importance of social media and their mobile counterparts in advertising campaign planning by integrating these emerging media into generating consumer engagement and participation after watching traditional 30-second commercials (Wong, 2010). Ad spend in social media is expected to reach $8.5 billion in 2014 and $14 billion in 2018, according to a recent data from BI Intelligence (Hoelzel, 2014).
The rosy prediction that many advertisers share is often attributed to the number of mobile Internet connections that have grown exponentially after the launch of Apple’s I-Phone in 2007. Presently, there are 234.18 million mobile Internet users in the United States. The number is expected to increase to 325.24 million in 2020 (IBISWorld, 2014). Thanks to the drastic cost reduction of mobile broadband access, it is expected that mobile social media population will increase. Lee (2013) concluded the convergence of smartphone and social media has permitted users to access their Facebook, Twitter, and other social media anywhere and anytime. Lenhart, Purcell, Smith, and Zichuhr (2010) found that 81% of adults between 18-29 years old and 63% of adults between 30-49 years old use wireless Internet. A recent Pew report found that 58% of American adults own a smartphone that provides easy and ubiquitous access to social media. The report also found that 60% of mobile phone users access the Internet through their mobile device (Pew Internet Research Project, 2014). Increasingly, more and more people are accessing their social media platforms through these mobile devices. However, tablets, smartphones, and Wi-Fi laptop computers are often intrusive, location-based, and pervasive with their ability to reach a person at any time and any location by creating an encompassing communication environment.