Why Every Event Should Be Mobile

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Click to enlarge.[/caption]We released a new infographic today that illustrates broad mobile adoption worldwide, but slow adoption within the events industry.Today, two out of three business travelers carry smartphones and 84 percent use mobile applications while on the road. More than 47 percent of all web views are on mobile devices, yet only five percent of event planners invested in mobile technology in 2011, with a projected increase to 12 percent in 2012. These numbers start to paint the picture of a massive chasm between mobile adoption in business and mobile investment.With 87 percent of the world using some form of mobile technology, mobile phone penetration rates are high on virtually every continent.

• North and South America: More than 94 percent
• Asia Pacific: More than 69 percent
• Africa: More than 45 percent
• Europe: The highest mobile penetration rates can be found here, with a staggering 117 percent penetration due to many people carrying more than one mobile device

So, what are all these people doing on mobile devices? They’re browsing content, networking socially and professionally and working – many of the same activities that bring professionals together at events. In fact, two in five US smartphone users and one in four in Europe used smartphones for social networking, respectively. Overall, 55 percent of all Twitter, and 45 percent of all Facebook traffic comes from mobile devices.As mobile continues to flood into every aspect of personal and professional life, the meetings, conference and events industry is woefully behind in supporting the mobile experience. Let the statistics above serve as a call to action for organizers to take notice. The time to invest in mobile is now. To learn more about the future of mobile technology in events, read our new whitepaper, The Future of Events is Mobile, here.Eric Olson is an expert in small-to-mid-sized business (SMB) solutions and gets active by skiing and participating in triathlons.