Mike Arauz is a strategist at Email is Still King
A couple weeks ago Faris posted this great little informal interview with Clay Shirky:
This quote has been ringing in my head since I first heard it. Shirky uses this insight to underscore his assertion that email is actually the most powerful online social tool we've got right now. Its relative significance, compared to newer tools like Facebook or Twitter, is derived from the fact that email use is now familiar and common enough to be taken for granted. Shirky references the recent presidential election as an example of email's power to influence and persuade, as messages were furiously forwarded from friend to friend and family member to family member either to support or to argue against emerging narratives about the candidates, their personal histories, and their policies.
The more I've thought about Shirky's assertion, the more I've begun to recognize other evidence of a renewed appreciation for email as a publishing platform and communications tool.
Back in July, internet celebrity and start-up superstar Jason Calacanis announced that he was officially going to stop blogging, and start writing a regular email newsletter available only to a limited list of readers.
In September, actress Gwyneth Paltrow announced Goop, the latest extension of her emerging celebrity as lifestyle brand (a la Tyra Banks, Christy Turlington, and Oprah). Goop is a weekly email newsletter written by Gwyneth herself (there's an image of her autograph at the bottom, so it must be her writing, right?); its subjects include fashion, fitness, culture, food, and travel ... basically, things that are important to the people who care about what's important to Gwyneth.
On the non-celebrity side of things, 2008 has seen a number of relatively new email newsletters flourish: Very Short List, Photojojo, UrbanDaddy, and Brooklyn Based. These newer lists joined the ranks of veteran newsletters like Daily Candy and Flavorpill.
While everyone's writing about how the economic downturn means the end of ad-supported blogs, the email business seems to be going strong. When I spoke to Ben Lerer, founder of the awesome Thrillist, he said that they "have seen explosive growth like never before" in the past few months.
What does email offer that other newer tools don't?
To the reader, an email feels like a one-to-one communication, whether it's actually one-to-one, one-to-few, or even one-to-many. This key difference in the audience's experience of email cultivates a sense of intimacy between author and reader, and helps to strengthen the author's reputation in the eyes of the reader.
Both Facebook and Twitter are primarily broadcast communication tools; even though they include one-to-one capabilities with direct messaging, the main forms of messaging are automatically sent from the author to everyone who follows them. This undermines any feeling that the reader might have that the message was carefully composed for them.
Ben Lerer pointed out that email offers much needed curation of content. Not everyone has time to go out and read 1,000 different cool blogs every day to dig up one or two gems. At a time when we have more incoming streams of information than ever before, people appreciate being served on a silver platter, and someone who's willing to risk their reputation to tell you that what they're sharing with you is worth your time.
Also, there's a huge difference in the quality of attention. When users check in on Facebook they are confronted by a torrent of activity from their friends. It is assumed that you'll miss some things, because there are simply too many discrete messages to keep track of. So, the reader learns to filter on the fly and tune out certain messages. Twitter users have a similar experience. A Twitter power-user who follows many people and is online most of the day has to learn to ignore certain people. And the novice Twitter users don't check in that regularly, and therefore miss messages simply because they weren't listening at the right time.
When a reader comes across a blog, even if they're a loyal reader, they're reading in the outdoors; it's the difference between seeing stick on a trail in the woods and seeing the same stick mounted on a white wall in an art gallery. "There's also something to be said for the quality of an audience that's opted in," said Lerer, rather than coming across your content as you hop from one link to another.
Email offers an amount of devoted attention unmatched by any other emerging online communications tool. As a result, email messages are afforded the luxury of being substantive in their content (generally the more meaningful, relevant, and useful the content is, the more successful the newsletter).
And this difference makes email a uniquely powerful tool in the influence arsenal. When I think about the three variables that contribute to influence, popularity, reputation, and the ability to inspire action, email offers a unique way to cultivate relationships and inspire action. It makes sense that people like Jason Calacanis or Gwyneth Paltrow would turn to email, because they already had huge popularity. What they needed was a format that makes their readers feel special; compared to blogs and the broadcast platforms that Facebook and Twitter have become, email actually feels very intimate. Even if there are tens of thousands of other subscribers on the list, when they read that email they feel like it's a direct message from the sender, and in effect it is.
Ultimately, it comes down to the loyalty and respect that you can earn among your audience. Successful communications are about cultivating a reputation for always delivering valuable information to your audience, and translating that attention into action. Right now, email still seems like the best opportunity to do that.
[Web communications platforms] don't get socially interesting until they get technologically boring.
This quote has been ringing in my head since I first heard it. Shirky uses this insight to underscore his assertion that email is actually the most powerful online social tool we've got right now. Its relative significance, compared to newer tools like Facebook or Twitter, is derived from the fact that email use is now familiar and common enough to be taken for granted. Shirky references the recent presidential election as an example of email's power to influence and persuade, as messages were furiously forwarded from friend to friend and family member to family member either to support or to argue against emerging narratives about the candidates, their personal histories, and their policies.
The more I've thought about Shirky's assertion, the more I've begun to recognize other evidence of a renewed appreciation for email as a publishing platform and communications tool.
Back in July, internet celebrity and start-up superstar Jason Calacanis announced that he was officially going to stop blogging, and start writing a regular email newsletter available only to a limited list of readers.
In September, actress Gwyneth Paltrow announced Goop, the latest extension of her emerging celebrity as lifestyle brand (a la Tyra Banks, Christy Turlington, and Oprah). Goop is a weekly email newsletter written by Gwyneth herself (there's an image of her autograph at the bottom, so it must be her writing, right?); its subjects include fashion, fitness, culture, food, and travel ... basically, things that are important to the people who care about what's important to Gwyneth.
On the non-celebrity side of things, 2008 has seen a number of relatively new email newsletters flourish: Very Short List, Photojojo, UrbanDaddy, and Brooklyn Based. These newer lists joined the ranks of veteran newsletters like Daily Candy and Flavorpill.
While everyone's writing about how the economic downturn means the end of ad-supported blogs, the email business seems to be going strong. When I spoke to Ben Lerer, founder of the awesome Thrillist, he said that they "have seen explosive growth like never before" in the past few months.
What does email offer that other newer tools don't?
To the reader, an email feels like a one-to-one communication, whether it's actually one-to-one, one-to-few, or even one-to-many. This key difference in the audience's experience of email cultivates a sense of intimacy between author and reader, and helps to strengthen the author's reputation in the eyes of the reader.
Both Facebook and Twitter are primarily broadcast communication tools; even though they include one-to-one capabilities with direct messaging, the main forms of messaging are automatically sent from the author to everyone who follows them. This undermines any feeling that the reader might have that the message was carefully composed for them.
Ben Lerer pointed out that email offers much needed curation of content. Not everyone has time to go out and read 1,000 different cool blogs every day to dig up one or two gems. At a time when we have more incoming streams of information than ever before, people appreciate being served on a silver platter, and someone who's willing to risk their reputation to tell you that what they're sharing with you is worth your time.
Also, there's a huge difference in the quality of attention. When users check in on Facebook they are confronted by a torrent of activity from their friends. It is assumed that you'll miss some things, because there are simply too many discrete messages to keep track of. So, the reader learns to filter on the fly and tune out certain messages. Twitter users have a similar experience. A Twitter power-user who follows many people and is online most of the day has to learn to ignore certain people. And the novice Twitter users don't check in that regularly, and therefore miss messages simply because they weren't listening at the right time.
When a reader comes across a blog, even if they're a loyal reader, they're reading in the outdoors; it's the difference between seeing stick on a trail in the woods and seeing the same stick mounted on a white wall in an art gallery. "There's also something to be said for the quality of an audience that's opted in," said Lerer, rather than coming across your content as you hop from one link to another.
Email offers an amount of devoted attention unmatched by any other emerging online communications tool. As a result, email messages are afforded the luxury of being substantive in their content (generally the more meaningful, relevant, and useful the content is, the more successful the newsletter).
And this difference makes email a uniquely powerful tool in the influence arsenal. When I think about the three variables that contribute to influence, popularity, reputation, and the ability to inspire action, email offers a unique way to cultivate relationships and inspire action. It makes sense that people like Jason Calacanis or Gwyneth Paltrow would turn to email, because they already had huge popularity. What they needed was a format that makes their readers feel special; compared to blogs and the broadcast platforms that Facebook and Twitter have become, email actually feels very intimate. Even if there are tens of thousands of other subscribers on the list, when they read that email they feel like it's a direct message from the sender, and in effect it is.
Ultimately, it comes down to the loyalty and respect that you can earn among your audience. Successful communications are about cultivating a reputation for always delivering valuable information to your audience, and translating that attention into action. Right now, email still seems like the best opportunity to do that.
Thursday, November 20, 2008
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2 Comments:
Mike: You make some very good points, but I'm always left wondering: when does email become spam?
Email is a "push" technology, so there's no way to avoid it. But how many people who signed up read Paltrow's emails on a daily basis?
It's sort of like New Yorkers who've never been to the Empire State Building- because it's always there, it's easy to take it for granted. You don't have to seek it out. So it's too easy to think "oh, I'll get to it later" or "oh, I haven't gotten around to reading the last two emails" and skip over it.
That said, we tend to vastly overestimate the level of online sophistication for the average American. Most are not on Facebook, assume that commenting on a blog will result in a slew of unwanted junk email, etc. and so forth. So for those people, email is actually a great tool for all the reasons you've stated.
The trick is to strike the balance between spam and welcomed guest.
Mike -
Agreed. Email is still huge, and will be huge for a long time. I forget the exact phrase and the attribution, but somebody smarter than me said that generally, nothing ever really dies: books, TV shows, and radio programs continue to be popular today even as newer content distribution vehicles have been accepted by the mainstream. I get plenty of Email things every day that I signed up for and absolutely enjoy in the privacy of my own email box. I like scanning subject lines and judging an Email by its cover.
And there are some communities that communicate exclusively through old-school listservs... for example, Scrapbookers and Quilters. My mom's a quilter, and she gets regular, super-long email strings from a single list curator. It's a little baffling (even for her, since she blogs, tweets and all that) but some people still prefer it.
Oh, and per Alan's comment:
Email is spam when you didn't sign up for it.
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