Recently, I told a friend in his early 20’s I would email him some info, he looked at me strangely and said, “Oh, send it to my Facebook, I never check my email.” Curious, I asked him if most of his friends had abandoned email. “No, some have work-related accounts but most communication is by texting, Facebook, and some Tweeting.”
Observations only go so far but MediaPost’s Email Insider has some research to back up a growing trend that email has less a dominate role in the communications mix, particularly for teens. Although 44 percent of the teens participating in the research believe email will stay around, it is thought of as “professional” with 41 percent assuming social media will bypass email. The remaining 15 percent don’t know or care.
For public relations/advertising and marketing professionals targeting youth, this is just a continuation of an alignment of “traditional” email communications with social networking programs. With “72 percent of adults on a social network”, I argue that all email marketing no matter the age group must have social networking components.
As with all communicating strategies, determining your program objectives, audience/s and message/s will lead to a multi-faceted and on-target plan. In today’s world, no matter the age group, the plan needs to include social media.