What’s All the Buzz About the Inbox?
By now you’re probably aware this blog focuses on integrated marketing, creating online and offline messaging strategies, to reach all your customers. Have you noticed the big Internet players are doing the same thing with your email inbox? They’re integrating online and social media in surprising new ways. Recently Facebook made it easier to comment on posts directly from your email inbox and now Google offers a similar feature.
Google recently launched its social networking platform ‘Buzz’ and it made its debut right in my Gmail inbox. It wasn’t just the announcement of the new platform that caught my attention. It was the cool new features Google uses to integrate social networking with Gmail. You don’t have to login to a separate Web site, you can simply jump back and forth, commenting on posts from my network while answering emails.
A New Kind of Inbox
You can see Buzz notifications containing real-time comments from your friends. It sits in the same inbox as your regular Gmail, and you can jump between your regular inbox and your Buzz conversations. Sure, Google Buzz is positioned as a Gmail feature, but it goes far beyond the inbox. For example, all public updates you post will be posted to your Google profile page – watch out LinkedIn, you might have a new competitor!
Google Buzz also offers easy ways to share photos, video, comments and more. See the video about Google Buzz on Youtube.
What Does This Mean for Marketers?
Google and Facebook know that for most people, the entry point for the Web is their email box. While that might be changing as the Millennial generation enters the Web through social networking sites, everyone who uses social media is still required to have an email address. And as consumers migrate from Myspace to Facebook or LinkedIn as their preferred communications channel, they’re very likely to hold onto their email address, while ignoring their once favorite sites.
Email is the critical link for the Web and social media. Without email, consumers wouldn’t have adopted social media as quickly. Email is now the critical hub for getting consumers to stay engaged with social media. So whoever holds the customer’s email address, holds the customer.
Is your email list growing? I bet if we asked Google, they’d give us a big smile.
UPDATE June 29, 2010: I recently covered more on why social media will never replace email in Facebook Thinks Email is “Probably Going Away” (Really!?!).
