A recent survey conducted by the Pew Research Center's Global Attitudes Project reveals that text messaging is growing worldwide. The survey, Usage Differs by Age and Education; GLOBAL DIGITAL COMMUNICATION: Texting, Social Networking Popular Worldwide, states that across the 21 countries surveyed, a median of 75 percent of cell phone owners say they text. And text messaging is highly prevalent – in 19 of 21 countries, a majority of mobile phone owners regularly send text messages.

As I read through the survey findings, it was interesting to note that SMS messaging is becoming increasingly popular in the U.S. where 67 percent of cell phone users say that they text. That figure seems to be catching up with other countries including the UK, where 79 percent say they send text messages and France, where 77 percent say they use their cell phones to text. Those stats are only overshadowed by Indonesia where a whopping 96 percent say they use mobile text messaging.

According to the survey, young people across every country surveyed are also consistently more likely to use their cell phones for texting and taking pictures or video.

Social networking usage seems to vary considerably by age in almost all countries. The research states that in 13 out of 21 countries, it’s really adults under age 30 who are the majority when it comes to using social networking sites. However, in the US, there is a growing majority of older adults who are using today’s popular social networking sites. The U.S. is the only country in which even a quarter of those 50 or older engage in social networking (at 26 percent).

The study also points to some interesting statistics about Internet access on mobile phones across a variety of countries. But in some countries, gender differences play a big role in the world of text messaging. For example, in Egypt, women are more likely than men to use their cell phones for texting (80 versus 65 percent) and for taking pictures or video (65 percent versus 53 percent).

The takeaway from all of this for any business is that if you haven’t incorporated SMS marketing, social media and multi-channel marketing into your bag of promotional tricks, you should. Using tools like Trumpia’s multi-channel marketing platform, it’s easy to ensure that your message is reaching all of your audience in an environment where more and more people are going digital and are increasingly used to receiving their messages instantly across multiple channels.