Nokia’s new smartphone, the N8 started shipping last Friday bringing the Finnish mobile company right back into competition with the likes of Apple for the hotly contested smartphone market.

Apple’s iPhone remains the dominant product in the market and so it’s an uphill struggle for any new smartphone trying to break into an already crowded space. Nokia have received some good results from a focus on social media channels to drive traffic to their website.
In the last month, Nokia has had a huge drive of traffic from social networks. In August only 5% of traffic to Nokia UK came from social networks, however in September this had jumped to 26%. The chart below shows how Nokia has come to rely less on traffic from search engines in recent weeks because of the spikes in social networking traffic.

In the last week, three social networks feature prominently in top websites visited before Nokia UK: Facebook, Tagged and Bebo. In particular, traffic from Tagged.com rocketed in September, overtaking Facebook at its peak.

As a result of the social push, the Nokia N8 was the fourth most searched for mobile phone for the week ending 25 September 2010.

Nokia’s use of YouTube content to show off the phone’s features has also had a positive effect on the brand. Mark Loughran, General Manager, Nokia UK spoke about the product: “The Nokia N8 is a great multitasker, packed with market leading innovations, which include the best picture and video capability available on a smartphone,” but the ability for consumers to see these innovations on YouTube rather than hear about them has been a big plus.