Is social media replacing email?
Thursday 17 December 2009
TAGS: Email marketing | Search engine optimisation | Social media
The Wall Street Journal ran a piece about the evolution of communication technology, chronicling the rise and alleged fall of email to social media. "Email no longer rules," the title reads, but does email no longer rule? Neil M Hancock, Search Marketing Manager at Silverbean finds out more…
"We all still use email, of course," says Jessica E. Vascellaro, the author of the piece. "But email was better suited to the way we used to use the Internet—logging off and on, checking our messages in bursts. Now, we are always connected, whether we are sitting at a desk or on a mobile phone. The always-on connection, in turn, has created a host of new ways to communicate that are much faster than email, and more fun."
Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't all social networks also require logging on to use? Sure, you can set them up to remember your info so you don't have to log-in every time, but the same could be said for most email services. That's beside the point though.
Why email will always remain an integral part of the marketing mix.
Email will always be an important part of the web, not just is it the quickest and easiest method to verify things but its free, simple and easy to use.
Email is used by billions worldwide and hundreds of billions of emails are sent all year round.
1.) People are still sending hand-written letters
Agreed the sending of letters has decreased in the last 5 years the numbers are still in the millions, even though they could instead make a phone call, send an email, text message, or status update.
2.) Nearly all sites on the web that require registration require an email address.
Some sites are starting to integrate social media into this process but that is still a very small fraction, and they typically still allow for email information as well. However as I mentioned above to get a social media account you need an email address to start with.
3.) Email notifies you of updates from all social networks
If a friend comments on your Facebook status, a prospective client adds you to their LinkedIn account you are sent an email to notify you of this.
4.) Email is universal, and social networks are not.
Nearly everybody on the web has at least one email address. Most places of employment give employees email addresses when they begin working there. Meanwhile, a great deal of employers are even banning employees from accessing social networks.
5.) There are plenty of people who have no interest in joining social networks.
You hear frequent news stories about security, privacy, and reputation issues to do with social networks which do not help to convince non-users to use them.
6.) Email is still improving.
Improvement and innovation of email platforms hasn't screeched to a halt with the rise of social media. There is still development going on, and integration with social media. Google for example is constantly adding new features to Gmail.
7.) Even social networks themselves recognize the importance of email.
Never mind that they update users about community-driven happenings via email. MySpace has even launched its own service recently.
8.) More social media use means more email use.
Nielsen ran a study on the people who consume the most email and interact with the social mediums the most, find the results here. Interestingly the people who consume the largest amount of social media are also the people consuming the largest amount of email.
9.) Email is considered more professional
Many organisations don’t even see the benefits of social media, and consider it to be time consuming without having any affect on the profitability of the company either directly or indirectly. Now many case studies can prove this thinking wrong, but you will struggle to find an organisation that consider email time consuming and a negative for the business, even though people can spend as long on email chatting to friends than on a social network site.
So why bother with social media at all?
The benefits of social media are for all to see, a successful social media campaign can dramatically direct a company’s bottom line both directly in an increase in sales and interest, but also indirectly by the increased brand exposure and improved brand opinion.
Social media should be part of the marketing mix but it will never replace email.
Neil M Hancock is the Search Marketing Manager at Silverbean. If you have any questions or would like to discuss how Silverbean can help you achieve your marketing objectives through an SEO and Link Building campaign; please contact our resident SEO expert using one of the following.