The Ways Social Media And Email Co-Exist By Changing Each Other

Email was once the medium for digital information transaction. It was there and still is the powerful way for marketers to reach their audience. But with social media, things are changing.

But will email die when people can do practically anything with social media?

Quick answer: no.

There were questions that predicted something will kill email, and the best answer for that is social media. However, social media isn't at all killing email, nor is email dying because of the popularity of social media.

Although social media and collaboration platforms exist, just like any other critical tools, they all work alonside email. So in this view point, we can see that each channel is complementing each others' strengths.

Social networks have changed the way we communicate with others digitally. But they have also guided email's continued development into a better one. Surprisingly, social media is also taking cues from emails. So here we can see that both will work together for the foreseeable future.

Social Media In Changing Email's Design

As one of the oldest means of digital information transaction, email acts as an unifying element in the modern digital ecosystem. Many online services still rely on email for registration, authentication and others. Email is still the common denominator, and still will be.

While there are attempts to "kill" email, none has ever succeeded in doing so.

With social media around, email has evolved to become more customer-centric. These data range from social, to mobile, to offline, and more, and can be focused into a targeted medium that is as responsive and real-time as any social network.

But data is only one part of the equation. Social media is also changing how users interact with contantes. Here, email changed by accommodating both the growth of social by incorporating social’s ability to relay information in a quick manner.

Social media is very quick in conveying headlines to attack users' attention. Headlines on social media are similar to the subject lines in emails. Here, emails change by forcing all messaging channels to reorient themselves to focus on headline display.

And because social media have more character restriction, posts are usually small but attractive. Emails that are less subjected to character restriction, also change by bringing a more friendly form to their subject line and pre-header text into the central focus of users. So the email content is also trying to grab attention as quickly as possible.

How Email Guides Social Media

Email is still the reliable method for authentication. For this particular reason, there are many online services that employ users' emails are verification method, Why? Because people know that at the end of the line, there is a human that verifies their email.

Social media is for human by nature. But increasingly, bots are also taking part in occupying the ecosystem. This is the reason why email is still a powerful mechanism that social networks want to adopt to push further into building a transactional and file-sharing services.

Taking examples from email's strength and weaknesses, some social media networks are creating their own verification methods. For example through security verification receipts that are sent through the app, sending SMS messages straight to the users, and so forth.

Regardless their way of creating new ways, they’re simply building out transactional communications between themselves and their users. This is a method that social media copies from emails.

In addition to that, social media are also creating small, but powerful communications between a group of trusted friends while facilitating activity or action. These communications are not just simple interactions like sharing photos, as they also include dynamic maps, bill payments, locations and many more.

Like email, social networks are evolving to meet the needs of the user wherever and whenever they’re required.

Social Media And Email Benefiting Each Other

They can be enemies, and probably friends. But they're learning from each other to co-exist, benefiting from each others' strengths to minimize their own weaknesses.

Social media is all about being social. It's a place for casual talks and sharing life experiences. This is a contrast to emails that are more personal, formal with contents that are well-crafted. Social media is only getting closer to email's strength when it's faster and more personalized in building a better and more personal transactional medium.

But meanwhile, both email and social networks can work together to provide a superior customer experience.

The two means of communication are built on each other and improve their respective mediums to reach the ultimate goal: finding, identifying and sending a clear message that everyone needs.