Research released earlier this year from comScore found that social networking is now the fastest growing category for mobile content, experiencing a massive 240% increase over the previous year.

“Social networking is by far the fastest-growing mobile activity right now,” said Mark Donovan, comScore senior vice president of mobile. “With 20% of mobile users now accessing social networking sites via their phone, we expect to see both application and browser usage continuing to drive future consumption of social media.”

HTC, working closely with FaceBook, has produced two new handsets, the Cha Cha and Salsa models, specifically designed to optimise the social networking experience for the user.  HTC hopes that this tighter integration will appeal to a new generation of consumers who use the site instead of email, and run their social calendars through Facebook’s events functions.

According to an investment presentation given this month by KPCB, Facebook currently has around 200m mobile users, while around half of active Twitter users access their accounts through mobile. These mobile social media users are, on average, more active than other users, with this trend expected to increase as smartphone proliferation continues.

Learn more about the how to harness the latest trends in mobile social media and meet some of the key industry leaders at the Social Media World Forum Europe 2011 in London on 29-30 March. See the full agenda here.