Case study: Using e-mail newsletters to engage with your audience

Chris Brogan, a well-known blogger in the social media sphere, has recently started disseminating information related to social media to an audience that can opt in or out of it (primarily readers of his blog), through e-mail. Chris Hambly, our very own Godfather of the SMM, blogged about this recently as well. I wanted to use e-mail newsletters as a case for understanding how to channel your social media knowledge in a way that benefits others, and create a legacy of sorts, so to speak.

No matter what everyone says about their social media consumption patterns, e-mail is here to stay. I don’t think Facebook, Twitter, FriendFeed or any new application can replace e-mail, and the reasons are that it is personal and targeted. When you e-mail someone, it isn’t just to say ‘Hi, how is it going’ (those kind of  one-line enquiries are best used on a Facebook wall, if you ask me) - it is to communicate something of value. It could be about work, your personal life, something you think or did, but it is not usually purposeless (unless it is a silly forward, but that’s a different issue).

I’ve already admitted I don’t use RSS feeds, so e-mail newsletters are a great way of sending me information that I want. Chris Brogan’s newsletter is short, to the point, and packed with useful information. Newsletters are a great way of having an impact on someone’s life even if it isn’t written just for you. This particular newsletter, for example, sent me information about social media tools like Zoho Show, Tiny Paste, Mixx and Evernote that I wasn’t aware of before.

Similarly, our SMM newsletter keeps us in the loop with SMM-related information.

I say way to go, e-mail newsletters.

June 28, 2008 | Filed Under Anjali Ramachandran | 4 Comments