Social Networking versus Email: Do we have to choose?

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I was recently at a local private club and speaking to the Food and Beverage manager about all the summer activities going on at the club. The club was beaming with activity, and I was enjoying “Steak Night”, and he came by to wish us well. He mentioned that the club had been extremely busy this summer and was well pleased, but mentioned that they were having a wine tasting going on in the “Board Room” next door. He said he was disappointed with the turn out.

I ask him; how did you let members know? And he said the usual way, a blast Email.

There is a recent Nielsen study called “What Americans Do Online?” that has just been released this week that addresses this very subject. The article came to my attention while scanning PCworld.com:

“Social media now consumes 23 percent of our time online, stealing time away from e-mail, reading news, and spending time at portals such as Yahoo.com.

The study tracked the online activity of 200,000 American users from June 2009 to June 2010. Time invested on social networking sites grew nearly 50 percent — from 16 percent to 23 percent — and that social gaming surpassed e-mail to take the number two position.

Though e-mail usage dropped on desktops — declining to 8.3 percent from 12 percent — it remains dominant on mobile devices, occupying 42 percent of our smartphone time in comparison to 37 percent last year.

Social networkers aren’t just teenyboppers anymore. Nielsen discovered that twice as many Americans over 50 visited social networks than kids under 18. That means your mom and dad aren’t the only “hip” parents out there with Facebook pages.”
What do we take from this study?

My feeling is that Email has become so filled with spam, our Email inbox blends together like wallpaper.

Finding truly important Emails has become a game of “Where’s Waldo?”

Clubster will provide a unified inbox for all club-related events and notifications. As a club manager, you will be able to post your club event on your members’ Clubster “locker room wall”, and with a simple click of a button, allow members to RSVP.

And yes, our event system will also send an email.

The best of both worlds, all for free….pretty cool don’t you think?

Bill

Read more:

Social Media Changes Old Web Habits

What Americans Do Online