What? Mocial? Yes, some marketers are using this newly coined term lately. The world is nowadays Mobile and Social. We learn, conduct business, manage finances, message, interact, share, etc. from our mobile phones, iPads or other tablets and do so via applications integrated into Google, Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin … hi5, Bebo, Google+, Myspace, Skype, Tumbler, Foursquare, Blogger, Youtube, Flickr, Meetup, LastFM, Instagram, Friendster, Yammer … whew, you name! Btw, Wikipedia lists more than 200 major active social networking websites.

There’s a change into greener pastures for people to interact and transact. Their mobiles. Ruder Finn’s mobile Index Survey show that 91% of web users use their mobile web to socialise, 46% for mobile banking and 44% of youth shop over their mobile. According to Nielsen, social networks/blogs now account for one in every four and a half minutes online (22% online).

You get the point and this is no longer new knowledge… We are Mocial and so marketing incentives should embrace it. Commonly incentives have participants who work on the move, sales reps for example; however, people [whether office, site or mobile workers] look at their incentive programs after hours or during their breaks. 40% of our reward online redemptions happen during weekends or between 5pm to 10pm. The other 60% funnily enough happen around 1pm, lunch or after lunch. Which tells me that people are looking at their incentive programs and working towards their rewards or claiming them when they are doing their lifestyle things, not necessarily during work.

They look at these incentives when they are mobile, when they normally would web-socialise, message with friends, have spare time, etc., which reinforce my thoughts that incentive programs must consider the importance of utilizing mobile/social media components and facilities within programs to allow their participants to communicate, redeem, reward and engage.

When we see these numbers and I look at how often I use my own mobile devises, to do all of the above, I can only think that it all stacks up to develop better tools that could translate into mobile and social-network accessible programs. At the beginning of the year we did our first app. It gave access to participants of an incentive program into sales reports and achievements. As well, it had information on the reward and the program criteria. It was welcomed extremely positively, participants are happily using it and we are getting more enquiries on incentive apps. We didn’t develop a ‘redeem your reward section’ but I see it as the beginning of a new way to manage programs. A new way on how HR and Marketing departments conduct their business to assist in keeping people engaged.

Next month we are presenting a new app project again and hope to see more employee communication, loyalty and incentives MOCIAL solutions rolling out in the not too distant future.