Paul Chaney - Internet Marketing Social Media Consulting

Social Media Trendwatch: A Return to the Inbox

One trend I'm noticing where social media is concerned is a move back to the inbox. ClickZ columnist Stephanie Miller says that "e-mail will continue to be a hub for our social activities."

Her rationale: "[C]onsumers want to have centralized management of their friends and connections, but also because the mailbox providers - Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo - want desperately to be more central in our digital lives."

I echo her opinion as does Constant Contact, the company who recently acquired NutshellMail, an application that brings updates from major social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and MySpace right into your inbox. I've found it to be a timesaver and a way for me to stay on top of updates from friends and followers. It fits neatly into my digital lifestyle. 

Another example of the integration of email and social is Tweetbeep, a notification service that sends Twitter updates to my inbox. 

The main issue has to do with control. Aside from the fact that our inboxes tend to be very crowded, they do provide some semblance of control. It's a private space unlike Facebook et al which according to Stephanie are "public, frantic and loud." 

Years ago quite a number of Internet trend watchers said "email is dead." Today, that is hardly the case. If anything else, the inbox is becoming even more important. 

What are your thoughts about the integration of email and social media? Or, for that matter the integration of social media with other forms of marketing.

UPDATE: Here's a great article on the topic of social media and email from Practical Ecommerce, Tools to Combine Email Marketing with Social Media. There is also a webinar Tuesday, July 20, sponsored by Blue Hornet and Shoutlet, Social Email: What's New? What's Next? that might be worth attending.  

Two Email Pitches...Guess Which I Liked Best

I received two pitches via email today, one from AMEX OPEN Forum and one from Kodak. 

AMEX Open Forum

 

If you click the image you'll be able to read the text that says, "Every day, more and more business owners are sharing their insights on Twitter. To help them find each other—and potential customers—we're introducing OPEN Forum PulseSM, a unique online experience that brings together the Twitter feeds of some of the most-followed business owners and industry leaders...You are specially invited to be among the first to participate in Pulse."

This appealed to my ego..."most-followed"..."specially invited"..."be among the first"... Oh, and the email referenced my name in the greeting, "Dear Paul Chaney." Now, it would have been better and more personable had it said simply, "Dear Paul," but at least there was the name reference. 

Contrast that with...

Kodak

No personalization...just one of a one million...generic message... I'm no one special. Plus, it assumed I would even want to attend the Ellen DeGeneres show. (I don't) The OPEN Forum message knew exactly what excited me, tweeting about business and using social media as a tool to make connections.  

I know both were email broadcasts sent via one or another email sending platform. OPEN pulled my info from a database just like Kodak did. But, that's where the similarity ends. 

OPEN did a much better job of making it more personal. There was a sense of exclusivity. It wasn't as good as if some PR person sent me a one-off email (I'm not that special!), but it got the job done.

Guess which one I clicked on. Yep, you guessed right. 

Want to get people's attention and respond to your overtures? Appeal to their innate needs for attention, love. a sense of belonging, self-esteem and self-actualization. All those things Maslow talked about in his hierarchy.  (And use their name for Pete's sake!) That's what the OPEN Forum email attempted to do and it worked.

Email, Social Media Chaos, and the Crashing of the Wave

(Image courtesy of Flickr Creative Commons)

The Wall Street Journal says email's reign is over. Real-time, always-on, collaborative forms of communication have taken its place. They are right.

The problem is that, while there is a semblance of order where email is concerned, the same cannot be said for these new forms. The Journal outlines some specific problems:

• Information becomes more frequent, which can result in it being less personal and more anecdotal. 
• The constant stream of information can be overwhelming, making it difficult to filter out that which is less significant.
• Communication via social media is tied to your personal profile. That's not always a good thing. Rather than hide behind the anonymity of of username@emailaddress.com, the story of your life is being told. 

Social Media Chaos

We are in a time of flux. Some of the most prevalent questions I get regarding the use of social media have to do with time management and how to handle the fire hose of information being aimed in our direction. 

All I can say is, in time a new form of order will arise. That might come in the form of software applications -- tools like Tweetdeck and PeopleBrowsr, for example, which have evolved to help manage Twitter, Facebook and other accounts. 

In fact, I believe in many cases the answer is better software. How do you manage your personal finances? For many, Quickbooks or Mint is the answer. Similarly, you used to maintain your business calendar on a DayTimer. Now, you use Outlook, Google Calendar or some other office software tool. This is no different. We're just not there yet, but we will get there. Necessity is the mother...

Google Wave

If traditional email is dying away, what will replace it? Many think Google Wave is the email for the 21st century. In fact, Google is pitching it as real-time email, a mix of traditional email and instant messaging. Having just received my invitation, but really having no one in my inner-circle to converse with as of yet, I'm anxious to find out whether it will serve as a productivity tool or, as Robert Scoble alleged, a "productivity sink."  

One thing that is certain, "Times, they are a changin.'" We are effectively between the now and the not yet, the what has been and the what will be. There is no escaping it either. Email is less useful than it was. What will replace it is still to be determined. 

For those more interested, here's a great explanation of Google Wave by Rafe Needleman from CNet. 

Channel preferences among teens, young adults

Email Insider just reported the results of research done with several demographic groups age 34 and under regarding their channel preferences for receiving and/or being influenced by promotional messages.

The four groups were:

• Teens: 15-17 years old, still in high school
• College students: 18-24 year olds still in school
• Wired: young males, post-college between the ages of 18 and 34 years old, without kids. They are employed full-time or self-employed, have a good income — an annual household income of at least $35K
• Young homemakers: females, between the ages of 18 and 34 years old, who consider “homemaker” to be their primary occupation

Email and social media, a better fit than you think

For years I've been harping about how I think blogs and email play well together as marketing tools. Now, a B2B Ask the Expert article aptly suggests email has a place within social media as well. Who'd thunk it!

"E-mail marketing could not be better suited to enhance your social media efforts; in fact, it is the key ingredient in launching a successful social media marketing campaign," states the article. "The rise of social media is pushing the evolution of e-mail marketing from blast campaigns to more personal, one-to-one engagements."

How do most Facebook, Ning and other online communities keep members informed? Email is the obvious choice. For example, I manage the IBNMA Facebook group and use FB's email messaging component all the time. It's ability to proactively "push" content is the key -- as opposed to the more passive RSS feed.

Speaking of RSS, in spite of the fact it's been around since 1995 (a long time in Internet years), it's rate of adoption among non-techies still pallors in comparison to old-fashioned email.

Those who prophesied email's demise must surely chagrin (if they even remember what they said). Email is far from dead. In fact, I can't see a time when it will die, even with RSS, Twitter, Friendfeed and all the other choices.

The bottom line is that, today, we have multiple options for how we receive information. The fact that email is still one of them - and a significant one to boot - is a good thing.

What do you think?

Email newsletters: The old is new again

When Jason Calacanis quit blogging last month (he really did) and turned to the use of email newsletters, by the reaction in the tech community you'd think it was the first time someone thought of using email as a marketing or business communications tool.

Jason has always been a trend-setter, so I suspect others will follow his lead. (In fact, others already are.) I do think it interesting that he turned to something as old-school, tried-and-true as email. Like the title says, what's old is new again.

I've longed believed blogs and email can work together as a marketing "one, two knockout punch!" (Corny, I know, but I like the metaphor.) I've been writing about it since 2005 and it's recently become a topic of renewed focus, Calacanis notwithstanding.

Blogs and email can provide any company, large or small, with an inexpensive way to share its message and build its brand.

Still, it will be interesting to see if others follow Jason's lead. Heck, I wouldn't be surprised if even Scoble made the shift!

UPDATE @ 3:19 p.m.: Just saw this report on B2B Magazine which says social media is affecting email marketing.

Business embraces blogging and integrated marketing...so do I

The more I understand marketing, the more I see the need for an integrated approach which spans a wide range of tactics. I've commented on the use of blogs and email, but that's only one way. The kind of integration I'm referring to is something like that provided by companies like Eloqua. Truly sophisticated stuff.

Today, B2B magazine posted two articles with almost the same title, which is what got me to thinking about this:

• Businesses embrace blogging
• Businesses embrace integrated marketing

If I had my druthers I'd focus only on the blogging/new media side of marketing, for that's the new fangled stuff. But, more traditional, tried-and-true approaches like email, Webinars, whitepapers and microsites, while less sexy, are necessary to get the job done.

In my case, getting the job done means generating leads for our salesforce. And it's best done when the right hand knows what the left is doing (i.e. Information from all sources is integrated via a single database.).

So, while blogs, social networking, podcasting and video are all tactics we're putting to use at Bizzuka, I'm disciplining myself to make use of the other stuff too...then blog about how successful I am at doing so. :-)

Blog/email marketing...more thoughts and a challenge

The more I think about the use of blogs and email together as complimentary marketing tactics - a topic I've discussed numerous times - the more I'm convinced they are truly a marketing power duo.

Email is without peer as a tried-and-true marketing technique. Blogs have entered mainstream awareness to the degree they are no longer considered tangential. It's becoming commonplace to see a blog associated with a company's Web site. Since both are content-centric, they pair very well. (I call them a digital "peanut butter and jelly sandwich.")

That's why I feel strongly that some company should create an integrated blog/email marketing platform, and I know just the company to do it too, Compendium Blogware.

The future of email marketing...don't throw the baby out with the bathwater

(First, sorry for the latency in posting. We had a death in the family, then going crazy trying to catch up at work. First one thing, then another.)

For a time it was fashionable to "dis" email as a marketing tool. With the advent of blogs, RSS and social networks like Facebook and Twitter there were those who foresaw its demise. Well, somebody better inform online marketers because, according to eMarketer and others, email is far from dead! In fact, it appears to have a very bright future.
 

Blogs and Email: One-Two Marketing Punch

I have long been an advocate of using blogs and email as complementary online marketing strategies. Blogs serve a customer acquisition function, while email serves a customer retention role. That belief was recently reinforced when I attended a webinar jointly sponsored by a new company, Compendium Blogware, and well-known email reputation service provider, Habeas.

Read the rest of the post at Practical Ecommerce