Is Email A Social Network? It Certainly Would Be The Biggest
Posted by Patrick Murphy on Thu, Dec 08, 2011
Step back a moment. What do you think of when I say the word “social media”? The first thing to pop into many people’s minds is “Facebook”! And you’re right. Facebook is one of the dominating platforms in social media today. But if you expand your thinking, you could find that there is anther social media network dominating Facebook… and what could be bigger than email? Email is the largest social network on the planet.
If you don’t believe me, think about it. Everyone in your email contact book is like every Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter contact in one. And the email inbox is a far more organized way of managing online messaging. By using email, we participate in the largest online message sharing activity that goes on each day. Over 188 billion emails are sent each day; Facebook and Twitter combined only produce 200 million messages.
Email trumps social network activity
So Facebook and Twitter are processing much less than 10% of the messages of email servers around the world. Email is also still growing, contrary to popular belief. There’s been almost a 20% growth increase in email use since 2009. While some companies move to ban email use in it’s current form, they tend to realize that unless all of their clients and investors want to give up email too, it’s just not going to happen! So know I’ve proved that email transactions are growing every year, but how can we be sure that email is really a social network? And where does this fit with an inbound marketing strategy?
Let’s consider the definitions of a social network. It’s a social structure made up of individuals that are tied by one or more types of interdependency... like friendship, common interest or business. Email offers a structure made up of individuals and organizations, like with contact lists, mailing lists, etc. It also ties these lists to specific types of relationships, like speaking to business partners and subscribers. It can also be used to discuss common interests. Based on these criteria, email makes up a social network.
So how can we justify email use as part of an inbound marketing or social media strategy? Simple. Email is a social network too. And it offers the ability to interconnect with other platforms. Have you tried modifying your email templates to include CTA’s to other social networks or platforms?
Do you think that email is a social network? Let us know below.
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