Author: Lucy

The largest mobile companies in the United Kingdom are coming together to boost m-commerce.

The leading mobile operators in the United Kingdom are coming together once more in a joint effort to create a new approach to an industry wide jumpstart to the mobile payments market that has been struggling in the country.

There is already a surprising amount of competition in this market which has yet to prove itself.

The three major players in this mobile payments effort are Everything Everywhere (the joint venture between T-Mobile and Orange), as well as Telefonica UK (also recognized as O2), and Vodafone UK (also known simply as Vodafone). These three companies have announced that they will be working together for both transactions and for mobile marketing.

There is a rival competitor that is notably absent in this mobile payments partnership.

As this mobile commerce platform comes together, it is notable that the operator, 3, is absent in the mix. This is interesting because it will clearly be a factor being considered when competition authorities have their look.

That said, ahead of that time – if it does indeed occur – the players in this partnership will need to come up with a way of accomplishing what they are calling a “groundbreaking venture”, which has promised “to accelerate the development of innovative mobile services for consumers and business customers.”

This does have the potential of adding something different to the transactions and mobile ecommerce space, as it would provide one standard ecosystem that would assist retailers, marketers, and banks, alike, in communicating with consumers. This is a very strong trend, at the moment, and assembling it into a single standard ecosystem is becoming an extremely fashionable goal.

What will also be interesting to watch throughout the development of this partnership is the role that NFC technology will play. It has previously struggled in the U.K., and was abandoned outright by O2 only last week. Also undisclosed, at this point, will be the size of the investment contribution that will be made by each of the companies in order to be able to move this mobile payments startup forward.

According to recent research, marketers will be spending more on Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and other networks.

The results of a new study has shown that B2B marketers have every intention of giving their social media marketing budgets a boost this year, when compared to the amounts that they spent in 2013.

The reason is that there have been a number of important developments in social media networking for business.

In fact, a study that was conducted by IDG Connect showed that IT buyers believe that social media marketing will provide some of the most important online content – for both personal computers and mobile devices – particularly when it comes to influencing buying decisions. This means that businesses seeking to develop the most awareness and appeal will need to develop their online and mobile marketing strategy using the right networks to reach these buyers.

The importance of social media marketing is finally coming to the point that it is measurable with some accuracy.

Vendor created materials and white papers are both given greater weight than networks such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, YouTube, and others. However, research has been consistently showing that starting this year, this trend will begin to reverse itself, to the point that it will actually flip within a span of two years when it comes to the buying process. Companies that are hoping to stay on top of their effective marketing efforts will need to make sure that they have established themselves on the right networks.

Furthermore, recent surveys are suggesting that this trend will apply in a broader sense to other B2B industries. Therefore, marketing budgets in business to business will begin to dedicate a greater share of their funds to creating and maintaining valuable content over social media.

A survey from AdAge showed that they anticipate that B2B marketing firms will boost their overall budgets this year, and 80 percent of them intend to raise the amount that they are spending over digital channels. It can be accurately assumed that a strong percentage of that will be directed toward social media marketing. The network that is likely to benefit the most when it comes to B2B is LinkedIn.