Social Email – Why it’s vital that email ‘goes social’ in 2010
For the last 6 months or so, we’ve all seen numerous posts about social media and email marketing crop up all over the web. There’s no doubt that the two “channels” are capable of using sibling-power to maximize engagement, but there are barriers – email content is not as accessible as it could be, needs to be, and if it doesn’t improve then email might be in for a tough ride in the long run.
Currently, some companies are trying to make the most of making their email content, by making is shareable. They do this similarly to how most websites do this, by having a clear list of social networks that the content can be shared on. If you click on the ‘share’ button, you’re taken to your Facebook/Twitter/Digg etc and pre-populates your status-field with a link to the content and usually some text that can be changed before posting. Toys ‘R Us do this well:
Toys R Us Email Creative
Currently, 50% of content sharing on the web happens via email, so people do want to share content via email. If email does not become more shareable, then users will face obstacles, and these interrupt user experiences = users get frustrated and do something else, when they could be telling all their friends about your great new offer or latest product. That’s would be a real shame.
Thinking further ahead, how cool would it be to be able to share specific elements of email content through social networks with the click of a button? Food for thought?
