Social media allows a person to get to know another person kind of “from afar.” Accessability is made possible because of the way social media works. Just think of it: it is something to think that so many people have the opportunity to pop into hundreds of people’s living rooms/office for a 30 second comment and pop back out again. That is what facebook and twitter do.

I don’t really think that social media will totally replace email because you CAN get back and forth and very personal interaction going on email. BUT you can also get people never even opening your email and you might not ever know that. Emails can also feel like a “demand” response and that is not a good feeling. Social media interaction is more pallatible. And it is super easy to “like” a facebook post which essentially says “Hey - I read this and am thinking of you” - something that email has no equivalent to.

That’s my two cents. Thanks for the contest. I do hope I win because I really need your help.

Speaking personally, as a relative newb to internet business, social media is more appealing than email for two reasons. First, the barriers to entry are lower. I can start without a list. In fact, social media will help me build my list. I’m already on Facebook, so if I start a new business, all I need is a new Fan Page. I network it to my new blog and I’m set. No aweber-type system to learn and no aweber fees.

Second, I can get closer to my customers, faster. Social media is about building relationships. Customers buy from people they know and like. It’s not so different from the business model I used in my former brick-and-mortar store where I knew most of my regular customers by name. People like to be able to say they know the owner. Plus, social media makes it easy to gather quick feedback from customers, which then allows me to develop targeted products I know my customers want.

Why try to fix something that isn’t broken so to speak, just because you are hearing all these great things about Social Media. Everything has it place in marketing, if you only do one such as email marketing there is no harm in testing to see if your customer base would be even interested. Some markets are not meant for Social Media because of the subject or products, but all markets are meant for email marketing.
Its been around the longest and still works. Ask your customers before really jumping on the Social Media band wagon.

Kim Snyder
Overall Beauty
Overallbeauty.com

Social networking makes us readily accessible to all our clients, it creates a conversation between us, rather than a one-sided pitch that e-mail marketing tends to do. I also think social networking helps clients learn to trust us. They can observe from afar our interactions with others before ever engaging us and decide whether we are worthy of their business.