subject: Why Do So Many Social Media Experts Dislike Email? [print this page] Why Do So Many Social Media Experts Dislike Email?
"If you don't have email, you are missing three quarters of potential regular readers." - Darren Rowse (ProBlogger).
It always surprises me how many times I have checked out someone's blog and they are supposed to be an internet marketing and / or social media expert and they don't have any way to capture a visitor's email address on their website. It's surprising because all of the professionals and gurus all say that email has been an important component of their overall success online.
Why Do So Many Social Media Experts Dislike Email?
Because maybe they think that it's not effective anymore? Well that really depends on how you use it, there is the right way and there is the wrong way, just with any other platform, if you use it the wrong way then you are not going to succeed.
Because maybe they think it is old fashioned? As Darren Rowse puts it "the average mom and pop still uses email, it's familiar".
Because maybe they don't want to fork out the money to pay for an email marketing system? The way I see it, if you are a marketing professional then you should be collecting emails just so you can understand how the whole process works!
You Don't Own Your Facebook Profile!
I received a message recently from someone who had their Facebook profile suspended and wanting to reconnect (and this is someone who is supposed to be a social media expert), if you don't know this already, once you get your Facebook account suspended, you lose access to everything including any groups and pages that you have set up. The reality is that you never really own your Facebook profile and if you do something that Facebook considers to be inappropriate you will get suspended, some reasons for which Facebook might suspend you include:
You are adding friends too aggressively, everytime someone receives a friend request from you, they have the option to accept or reject your friend request, if they choose to reject your friend request they also have the option to specify if they know you or not, so if you have too many people reject your friend request and stating that they don't know you, you will get suspended. This is true not just for Facebook but other sites like Twitter and Youtube as well, they just have different ways of going about it.
You are sending out too many messages, this is particularly the case if you are sending out the exact same message, individually to too many people, every message that you send can be tracked back to your Facebook profile and if enough people click on the "Report/Block this person" your Facebook profile will get suspended.
You are posting too much stuff on your news feed, this is especially true if you have your Twitter account linked with your Facebook profile, Twitter followers are very different from Facebook friends, with Twitter there is no such thing as over-sharing, whereas with Facebook you have to be a bit more discerning about what you post.
Why You Should Be Collecting Emails On Your Blog Or Website
Because unlike a Twitter, Facebook or YouTube account, you own your email list for life and you are pretty much free to do with it as you wish, even if you get your Facebook profile or Twitter account suspended.
Because people are fickle, today's most popular social media networking site may be tomorrow's ghost town e.g. MySpace.
Because as an internet marketing / social media professional you should be familiar with all effective mediums of online communication (email is still effective based on what the majority of gurus and professionals have to say, it's not mutually exclusive, you can have an email list and a Twitter account and a Facebook profile and a Youtube account, it's allowed).
So What Now?
Of course it's not easy, just because you have an opt-in form on your website, doesn't mean that people will sign up, here are some tips to help you get started:
Provide an appropriate incentive for people to opt-in, this will evolve over time and really depends on your niche / audience / source of traffic.
Use a proper email marketing system, don't just rely on Microsoft Outlook or whatever email client you normally use because if you send out too many emails from your computer / domain eventually enough people will flag you as a spammer and you will get black listed (it will happen, everyone's definition of spam is slightly different, even if they have double-opted into your email list you're going to get some people who complain). With a professional email marketing system there is usually a team of people involved in developing relationships with the major email providers such as Gmail, Hotmail and Yahoo to ensure a high rate of email deliverability.
Start today, test, track, test, track, test and track some more, eventually you will come up with the right incentive that appeals to your audience and in a few years time you will have a substantial email list that you own and that will be helping you to make money for years to come.
