Is the growing popularity of social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter slowly killing off email as an effective marketing tool?

“Death of email” articles like the one from the Journal assume that two methods of communication cannot coexist, each having a unique role to play. For decades now, television and radio have managed to survive — and even compliment each other — even though many media experts believed that TV would kill off the radio box. Likewise, the Internet was supposed to kill off everything — but it hasn’t (though I know some magazine and newspaper publishers who believe the Net gave them two shots in the hat).

Email and social media both have a specific utility. One does certain things better than the other — and that utility can and will change over time. Right now email works best for longer messages, communicating with more personalized, targeted audiences, and adding embedded content. Social networking offers greater immediacy, ease of use, a sense of personal empowerment, and potentially higher levels of frequency.

Email and social networking sites are used in different ways and communicate different kinds of information. One easily compliments the other. Like many of you, I tweet, participate on social networking sites, and send out and receive tons of email.  (I also blog, manage several web sites, and participate in various forums, but that’s another story!)  I don’t see the two as competing for my attention. I use them in the way that I need to and choose my tool according to the task I have in mind.

We’re also finding out that heavy social media users are also above-average users of email play. A Nielsen report back in September showed that social media use did not decrease email usage but actually increased it.

Says Nielsen’s Jon Gibs –

It’s perfectly logical that as people make connections though social media, they maintain those connections outside of the specific platform and may extend those connections to email, a phone conversation or even in-person meetings.

For marketers who worry that social media are making their email programs obsolete, nothing can be further from the truth. The strategy, as always, is to use media that mirror your target audience’s media behavior. In many cases, that means developing your presence in social networks and having a robust email marketing program.

Then, today, comes this article from the Wall Street Journal about the demise of email and a follow-up piece from OnlineMediaDaily suggesting that email might still have a role to play in the way that people communicate.

All this makes me wonder if the growing popularity of social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter are slowly killing off email as an effective marketing tool?

It’s important to put the email versus social networking contest into perspective. As the WSJ itself points out, email continues to grow, as does social networking, albeit at a faster rate:

In August 2009, 276.9 million people used email across the U.S., several European countries, Australia and Brazil, according to Nielsen Co., up 21% from 229.2 million in August 2008. But the number of users on social-networking and other community sites jumped 31% to 301.5 million people.

The problem with the Journal’s “death of email” article is the assumption that two methods of communication cannot coexist, each having a unique role to play. For decades now, television and radio have managed to survive — and even compliment each other — even though many media experts believed that TV would kill off the radio box. Likewise, the Internet was supposed to kill off everything — but it hasn’t (though I know some magazine and newspaper publishers who believe the Net gave them two shots in the hat).

Email and social media both have a specific utility. One does certain things better than the other — and that utility can and will change over time. Right now email works best for longer messages, communicating with more personalized, targeted audiences, and adding embedded content. Social networking offers greater immediacy, ease of use, a sense of personal empowerment, and potentially higher levels of frequency.

Email and social networking sites are used in different ways and communicate different kinds of information. One easily compliments the other. Like many of you, I tweet, participate on social networking sites, and send out and receive tons of email.  (I also blog, manage several web sites, and participate in various forums, but that’s another story!)  I don’t see the two as competing for my attention. I use them in the way that I need to and choose my tool according to the task I have in mind.

Given the increase in email use by 20% in the past year, I think we can safely say it is not going away. What does alarm me, however, is the attitude within some companies that social networking is somehow evil and should be ignored by employees and the marketing department.

Ignoring 300 million users on social networking sites? Unless you’re selling cruise missiles to the Pentagon and don’t care about consumers, that’s more than a little short-sighted.