The Death of Email is...

premature.

Like the death of lots of things tech related.

Social Media was supposed to kill it off.

But after a few conversations with friends about how they get social media notifications, I found that email is still being used.

Even some of my college age kids who stopped using email, started using it again when they entered the work force, because they had to. It was a work requirement.

And some even like it.

Last week I asked the question on Google+:

How do you get your social media notifications?

I get emails from Facebook, Google+, LinkedIN, YouTube and Twitter when someone mentions me, so for me, Email is still my top source for important stuff.

And in a few minutes, the responses:

Joe Taylor - Email is my primary source of notifications; I have a very limited number of notifications that send me a text message.

Don Mitchell - Email is still my primary source although I am beginning to turn off some group notifications on FB so I'm not inundated when I post on an item in a group. I see my Twitter replies via TweetDeck. I like the "mute" option on Google+ for discussions that get really active.

Dylan McIntosh - I use notification on my iPhone as primary method. Most I still get emails as backup.

Because of the number of people I follow on Twitter and other social media channels, it is impossible for me to keep up without an email notification.

And since email continues to be the primary form of business communication, I doubt this trend will change in the near future.

What are your thoughts?

ScLoHo is Scott Howard, a Solutions Consultant with Cirrus ABS.

You can contact him here:

Social Media is Mainstream

Friday I posted a story about the Online Revolution extends beyond Social Media. Click here to read more.

But Social Media continues to explode as I'm sure you'll agree after watching this 4 minute video:

The Online Revolution

There is a very good reason why I made a career move this month.

The move to Net-Centered Marketing, one of the hallmarks of my new employer, Cirrus ABS, has become mainstream in the business world.

Led by the growth of Facebook to 600 Million users and a goal of 1,000,000,000 (A BILLION), Social Media is impossible for small and large businesses to ignore.

But interestingly, not only is social media, but other forms of internet communication are growing at a remarkable rate according to this survey from Mediapost:

Social, Mobile and QR Codes Coming On Strong As SMB Marketing Mix With EMail

According to a new survey by Pitney Bowes, 76% of small businesses agree their ideal marketing mix includes a combination of physical and digital communications. 72%, say they would do more of it if they had the right customer communications management tools.

68% say they are choosing new channels such as email, and 54% say social media, because they are found to be cost effective in communicating information to their current and potential customers as compared to all other options. 51% say they cannot get further engaged in multi-channel communications due to limited resources and time.

Though the most popular marketing tool used currently is email, during the last year the most popular new channel being added by small business owners is social media, with 20% of those surveyed just beginning to use it, while 12% added mobile marketing. The newest tool to enter the marketing mix is Quick Response (QR) codes, which have become increasingly visible. While some respondents acknowledge a lack of understanding and perceived complexity toward them, among those using them, almost half are using them on their business cards, 45%, and integrating them in direct mail, 44%.

New Marketing Tactics Used By US SMBs In The Past Year (% of Respondents; April 2011)
New Tactic	% of Respondents
Social media	20%
Advertising	12
Mobile marketing	12
Email	11
QR codes	9
Direct mail	8
Other	16
None	25
Source: Pitney Bowes, SMB Owners Report, May 2011

Debra Thompson-Van, Vice President, Marketing, Pitney Bowes, observes that "... small business owners are increasingly challenged to effectively communicate with their customers and prospects in ways they want to be reached.... discovering that a combination of marketing channels is most effective in reaching prospects and customers... (and) need tools that are easy to implement and more information on how to use them... "

The study found that, while 68% of respondents used email and 60% used advertising most often, social media, with 50%, and direct mail, with 44%, are a tight third place.

The findings say 58% of small businesses surveyed use multi-channel marketing, and that traditional and new digital marketing methods are co-existing to create effective campaigns. Though business owners are integrating various channels, there continue to be barriers to integration for many.

Please visit Pitney Bowes here for additional information.

Social Spam is Real..

Spam.

The junk mail of email has gone social.

I hope you are not falling victim to it,

But I really hope you are not contributing to it.

When the mail man delivers junk mail to your home or office, you probably glance at it and then throw it away.

Email can filter most of the spam that is sent to your inbox. I receive about 900 spam emails per week, which I glance at, (but don't open) and simply delete it. It's the price we are willing to pay for a free service.

But Social Spam is a little different.

With Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube and all the other social channels, you get to select who to follow, friend, like and subscribe to.

There are a few people that I used to follow on Facebook that I learned to ignore or unfriend because they were simply pushing stuff at me to buy, instead of engaging me.

If you are simply pushing your products or services without engaging or conversing you are not being social.

You are Spam.

The Reality of Twitter & News Reporting

Imagine if real people were reporters.

If instead of requiring a college degree in journalism, followed by a job search and climb up the ladder, (which in media usually means jumping from job to job), all you needed was a way to communicate that the rest of the world could read or listen.

Last night shortly after 10pm, I saw a tweet on Twitter that President Obama was going to address the nation at 10:30pm on an issue of "National Security".

While the press corp waited and waited and waited for the official announcement, word was already out and the news organizations stole the thunder from the President by telling us what the announcement was going to be about.

But back to my original question,

What if virtually anyone could get the word out, and you didn't need all the millions of dollars that networks spend to run their news operations?

This has been going on over and over again since the birth of social media networks like Facebook and Twitter.

It is 9:30 Monday morning as I type these words and about 30 minutes ago, I found an eyewitness account of one man who was where the action was in Pakistan and was tweeting about it, initially without realizing what was going on. I have selected a few of the tweets.

ReallyVirtual Sohaib Athar

Helicopter hovering above Abbottabad at 1AM (is a rare event).

17 hours ago

ReallyVirtual Sohaib Athar

Go away helicopter - before I take out my giant swatter :-/

ReallyVirtual Sohaib Athar

A huge window shaking bang here in Abbottabad Cantt. I hope its not the start of something nasty :-S

ReallyVirtual Sohaib Athar

The abbottabad helicopter/UFO was shot down near the Bilal Town area, and there's report of a flash. People saying it could be a drone.

16 hours ago

ReallyVirtual Sohaib Athar

Here's the location of the Abbottabad crash according to some people http://on.fb.me/khjf34

ReallyVirtual Sohaib Athar

Interesting rumors in the otherwise uneventful Abbottabad air today

10 hours ago

ReallyVirtual Sohaib Athar

RT @ISuckBigTime: Osama Bin Laden killed in Abbottabad, Pakistan.: ISI has confirmed it. Uh oh, there goes the neighborhood :-/

10 hours ago

ReallyVirtual Sohaib Athar

I need to sleep, but Osama had to pick this day to die :-/

9 hours ago

ReallyVirtual Sohaib Athar

Uh oh, now I'm the guy who liveblogged the Osama raid without knowing it.

9 hours ago



Then @ReallyVirtual is found by the mainstream media:

ReallyVirtual Sohaib Athar

and here come the mails from the mainstream media... *sigh*

9 hours ago

ReallyVirtual Sohaib Athar

For the curious, here is life in abbottabad two minutes ago http://twitpic.com/4s8nfq

8 hours ago



And this is one of my favorites:

ReallyVirtual Sohaib Athar

I am JUST a tweeter, awake at the time of the crash. Not many twitter users in Abbottabad, these guys are more into facebook. That's all.

7 hours ago



And watch what he does to handle all the new Twitter follower notifications in his Gmail:

ReallyVirtual Sohaib Athar

For the people who are trying to email me to reach me, I simply can't filter out the notifications from the emails :-(

ReallyVirtual Sohaib Athar

I guess an 'is now following you' GMail filter is the next logical step

7 hours ago

ReallyVirtual Sohaib Athar

Thank you Google, thousands of email reduced to a few dozen.

7 hours ago


And his tweets continue:

ReallyVirtual Sohaib Athar

@jovensclaudio The gunfight lasted perhaps 4-5 minutes, I heard. That was around 10 hours ago. There are no other gunfights that I know of.

6 hours ago

ReallyVirtual Sohaib Athar

I'm sorry to all the journalists trying to reach me via phone/email etc. for not being able to reply to their queries individually.

5 hours ago

ReallyVirtual Sohaib Athar

Need to sleep after talking to @mosharrafzaidi and @OmarWaraich as they got to me first in person.

4 hours ago

ReallyVirtual Sohaib Athar

Reuters got to me before I could go to sleep.

3 hours ago


And finally:

ReallyVirtual Sohaib Athar

Bin Laden is dead. I didn't kill him. Please let me sleep now.

2 hours ago


So who is this tweeter? According to his profile:

Sohaib Athar

@ReallyVirtual
Abbottabad Lahore Pakistan

An IT consultant taking a break from the rat-race by hiding in the mountains with his laptops.

http://www.reallyvirtual.com

What led me to this was a tweet by @DonKincaid that caught my attention.

Click here for more info on Don.

This is the power of Twitter and other social media networks. Pass this on to your skeptics.

Left hand vs. Right Hand (Arby's Part 2)

Yesterday, I shared with the first part of my experience with Arby's and social media.

Click here to read how it all started.

Everything was fine. The person Tweeting for Arby's was helpful, provided links and I was happy.

I even mentioned on Twitter that I would be sharing this story:

ScLoHo: The Twitter conversation and follow up I had with @Arbys today will be the subject of a story on ScLoHo's Social Media Adventure next week .

Then a few hours later, I received an email from the Customer Service people in response to what I filled out on their online form.

Dear Mr. Howard,

Thank you for taking the time to visit our Customer Feedback website to submit your comment.

Arby's Restaurant Group, Inc. is the servicer of the Arby's brand and currently owns and operates 1,100+ Arby’s restaurants. All our remaining restaurants are owned and operated by franchisees. Franchisees are allowed to run their own specials, issue their own coupons, and set their own prices for menu items. Please contact your local Arby's restaurants to find out about any specials they are running.

Contact us again if we can be of further assistance.

Sincerely,

Arby’s Customer Relations

This was clearly a form letter. I would have been happier if they never wrote back, but when they sent this email which demonstrated that they were not really listening, I wrote back:

Thank you for your reply.

However, I believe you are not understanding the problem.

My neighborhood Arby's lists a special promotion. The most recent & current breakfast promotion is a wrap combo including potato cakes, wrap and a drink for $2.99 plus tax.

4 times now, I have ordered this and had to correct the cashier when they wanted to charge me over $4.00.

With tax, the special costs $3.23.

No coupons are required, the posters are in the store windows, and yet there is a problem getting the person taking the order to push the right buttons.

If you are not able to help, then please give me the name and contact information of who I should talk to.

Thank you,

Scott Howard

ScLoHo Marketing Solutions

www.ScLoHo.net

Fort Wayne, Indiana

Direct: 260-710-7078

And I also went back to Twitter:

ScLoHo: Things were going good in my Twitter conversation with @Arbys . Then the form letter arrived via email. Will be an interesting blog post

I decided to write a 2nd part of this Arby's story which is what you are reading now.

The person who tweets for Arby's responded:

arbys: @ScLoHo Did you get a confirmation number in your email? If so, can you send me your number?

So I tweeted back the confirmation number and also this tweet:

ScLoHo: @Arbys All I really want to do is help with a customer service price issue. I really like & will continue to do biz with you

And they responded:

@ScLoHo We appreciate the feedback & your business! We will alert the franchisee regarding the accuracy of specials / promos as we definitely want you & all customers to have a positive experience at our restaurants.

So, the person on Twitter was better at customer service than the person(s) manning the website customer service desk.

This is a classic case of the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing, but fortunately the person Tweeting on behalf of Arby's took charge and took action.

I thought all was over, until I got this note in my email Saturday:

Dear Mr. Howard,

Thank you for taking the time to contact us regarding the problem you encountered with your recent visit to one of our restaurants. We share your concern and frustration with the incident you encountered, and sincerely regret any inconvenience this may have caused you.

Please be assured that, at Arby's, quality and consumer satisfaction are our highest priorities. Thanks to consumers like you and the information you provide, we are better able to trace the source of a problem and take any actions that may be necessary to resolve it.

Your comments have been shared with both the Area Supervisor and the Director of Operations for the Fort Wayne Arby's. They are addressing this issue with the restaurant's management and staff to ensure that all orders are being correctly rung in and that all customers are charged the appropriate price for their meals. I have also requested that the Area Supervisor contact you directly regarding this issue since it has happened on more than one occasion.

Once again, our apologies for your inconvenience and I hope we can continue to consider you a valued customer.

Sincerely,

Jacquie Moore Arby's Customer Relations

Note that this is the first time that a person actually attached their name to the conversation.

I wrote back:

Thank you.

Please understand I am very happy with Arby's, and the store that I visit most often.

I work in marketing, advertising and consulting with regards to building customer relations and my concern is not personal, but only through my personal experiences have noticed this problem that some one should be aware of so steps can be taken to correct.

My reason for sharing all of this with you was not to scold Arby's.

Quite the opposite.

They stumbled a bit but they went out of their way to respond even 4 days later!

And the story continues:

Monday evening I received a phone call from the local store manager, which went to my voicemail.

He wanted to talk to me personally about my experience and he left his cell phone number and also mentioned that he would have the next couple of days off.

I decided to not disturb him on his days off, but this morning I returned his call and he was very gracious and honest in explaining what happens when they have special promotions and promised to improve on making sure the front line employees where more diligent in ringing up orders correctly.

The lesson to learn:

You are bound to make mistakes, what matters most is how you handle them.

Sometimes the best way to handle a customer service question is a face to face or at least telephone conversation.

Don't hide behind the technology or websites and social media. Use them as tools, but be sure to dig in until you have done everything possible to satisfy your customers and clients.

You Don't Have To

Despite what others might tell you,

You don't have to be online.

You don't have to be on Facebook.

You don't have to be on Twitter.

You don't have to have a blog, a website, an email address. You really don't.

You can hide from all of this in the name of Privacy.

I know this because a co-worker of mine who we hired at our radio stations 2 years ago had none of these when he started.

Heck, he didn't have a computer and never used one.

He had a successful sales career selling aerial photography for 25 years to farmers.

Then Google came along.

Google Maps and Google Earth basically wiped out his business.

Now those farmers can go online and see their spread free.

So my co-worker started a new career at age 53. Wednesday he turned 55.

He has an email address. But he is functionally illiterate in this computer/internet/social media world.

See, I respect your decision not to participate but...

You are placing yourself at a disadvantage in a world that will be using these tech tools if they are not already.

Age is not the issue. I have another friend who bought his first computer 2 years ago. He is now 69 and doing more than my co-worker with his computer and online.

We have been entering a tech world that is going to separate the connected from the unconnected. And as each year passes that gap will grow wider and wider.

You don't have to know it all, no one does and no one will.

But if you DO want to do this internet/social media thing, there are plenty of free resources, including this website to help you.

I'll be back Monday with more.

Keeping track of the important

and ignoring the rest....

Last month I was one of four panelists on the Social Media Breakfast Fort Wayne event.

The general topic was Managing It All.

And I noticed each of the four of us, do it a little differently, which is great.

But I'm not sure if I clearly stated how I do it.

My Twitter followers is in the 1700+ range. Over 95% of Twitter users have less than 500. I follow back about 2/3 of them.

Facebook and LinkedIn I use too but my connections there are under 1000.

I rely on two tools to filter out the noise and stay on top of what needs my attention.

Email and a setting on my smart phone.

Good old fashioned email. I get email alerts for Facebook, LinkedIn and Direct Messages from Twitter.

I also use a Twitter application on my droid that chirps when I get a mention or Direct Message, which alerts me to something that I should respond to.

It's that simple.

What do you do?