The Future is In Storage

I wasn’t going to write today. I wanted to make some coding changes to the blog and nothing more. But I noticed my prior post about eliminating email and I felt compelled to write a post today. It’s ironic that I just attended a talk about email marketing at SES by Sundeep Kapur.

In my prior post I wrote, “I have 107 MB on the local machine and 104 MB on the server. At present the inbox has 436 items and an additional 100 in the junk folder.” I predicted trusted networks would eliminate a lot of unsolicited email. But today, two years later, I have 1133 unread items in my inbox and 233 in junk mail. I also keep getting notices that my mailbox has reached almost 400MB, despite archiving anything over 30 days and burning anything over a year to DVD for “permanent archiving”. I write permanent in quotes because digital media is not permanently retrievable. I think it’s actually permanent in other ways, like permanently burned to disk or permanently lost or permanently removed from the server. So anyway, unsolicited email increased over the course of two years. I only digressed because I met an SES speaker who mentioned that he stored important files on SyQuest disks and now cannot get those files because the SyQuest drive is obsolete.  I am also in that same boat - permanent storage on magneto-optic discs - but no working drive to read them.

Another speaker reminded me about how you can send email through Facebook to people you don’t know personally. It costs one dollar per email to reach some people, more to reach other prominent people and $150 per email to Mark Zuckerberg himself. So here’s an oxymoron, Facebook Bulk Mail, a trusted network that should eliminate spam, profiting from allowing people outside your trusted network to reach your inbox!

 I got a lot of great ideas from Sundeep. He talked about great email headlines generating high email open rates; great layout and content generating better click through; timing and relationship building and so on. But here’s the big payday, if the content is relevant, people will want to read your email, engage with you and your brand and buy more stuff or join your cause, or help you out. 

Imagine the day – another prediction – when everything about you is so well understood, all your interests and friends and dining habits and location are granularly targeted by Facebook and other marketers right to the second on your truly personal, wearable computer. How will you manage storage for all that email that you’ll want to read but cannot get to in a lifetime? The future is in storage.

10 Things You Can Do with Social Media and Some Common Perceptions

Here are 10 things you can do with social media:

• join a group or invite people to join a group
• post a news item or job to LinkedIn
• write a blog article
• tweet
• post a blog comment
• mine leads, find information
• read comments
• respond to comments
• post a video
• make connections with other people

In the last two years I’ve heard many objections to social media. Here are some common perceptions about using social media

• I won’t have time: it’s playtime; there’s no revenue opportunity; I don’t get excited about cost avoidance; I’ll be better off spending time on something else; sitting in front of a computer is for people with lots of free time; we don’t want to appear unresponsive
• My audience doesn’t use social media: e.g. Facebook is for kids; decision makers don’t use social media; CEOs and top executives don’t use Twitter
• I already communicate with my audience: people should meet face to face or communicate by phone; I use listserve and email
• It should be centralized; it is a function for the Marketing Communication team; it has to be monitored; there should be rules; we don’t want public criticism

No doubt in some situations there is an element of truth in each of these perceptions. Engaging in any activity means some time commitment. If it isn’t done well, there won’t be a worthwhile revenue opportunity. It’s true Linkedin is a more likely demographic for certain target audiences than Facebook at present. Certain interactions are more productive face to face and a corporate entity has to protect its brand identity and messaging.

The flip side to this is that all of these perceptions are also partially false. I’ve actually heard people who say that there’s no opportunity reverse course and say they fear they will be flooded with inquiries and won’t have time enough to respond. Being unresponsive can have consequences but social media is not a two way dialogue between the company and the group. Group members are relying on other group members to contribute and respond as well. A good practice would be to listen to what people are saying, facilitate the discussion and correct misperceptions. Plenty of busy CEOs, board members and top decision makers at the most prestigious organizations use Twitter, Linkedin and Facebook for personal and business reasons to stay in touch with colleagues, to follow developments in their field and to keep tabs on competitors. And no doubt meetings, email, telephone and traditional media are all important but as a matter of fact, they aren’t all really centralized under Marketing Communications. On top of that, communications about your company go on all the time between your customers and competitors without involvement or approval by your company. An online forum or group gives companies a chance to be part of the conversation.