The buzz around the new Facebook Social Inbox has been unbelievable. It has been dubbed as anything and everything ranging from “The Gmail Killer”, “The Modern-Age Email”, “The Convergence of Email and Social Media” and what not. I’d like to stay away from throwing in my expert opinion on whether it’s a Gmail killer or not and rather focus on what I do best – the business aspect of it!
While a so-called seamless integration of IM, SMS, Social Media and Email has been talked about for several years, its impact in the business world has been limited due to various reasons. Facebook ranks amongst the world’s most popular websites (ahead of Google in certain countries like the United States) so it’s most appropriate for such a site in order to ring in the features which would encourage users to spend even more time on it rather than seek alternative websites for email, social media and instant messaging.
Is the Social Inbox just another @facebook.com email address? Does the so-called “Conversation History” offer any value to your business? Will it change the way your business communicates with partners and customers? Let’s get down to business.
Convergence of Email & Social Media
To put it in simple words, the Facebook Social Inbox is the biggest convergence of email and social media till date. For long, I’ve argued that social media is not an alternative for email and vice-versa and I’m glad to know that Zuckerberg and company believe the same.
From a business perspective, it’s huge. You can prioritize and classify messages in your Inbox so it’s easy to manage separate lists for partners, employees, existing and prospect customers.
Moreover, you can bounce emails from users who aren’t known to you thereby controlling spam effectively.
Social Conversations
I must say that I’m fascinated with the whole notion of being able to maintain a conversation history. It would be interesting to see how Facebook manages the priority of business messages vs. an actual friend’s dialogue but I definitely sense a good opportunity there.
I, for one, would be glad to own a “Prioritized Inbox” which lets me
1) Have social media conversations with my Facebook fans
2) Organize and prioritize messages
3) Chat in real time with my fans (customers)
4) Use SMS push notifications
As humans, we tend to associate more with people than brands. I believe that the new Facebook Social Inbox provides a fantastic opportunity for brands to humanize themselves and initiate social conversations.
Email Marketing
I believe that the Facebook Social Inbox opens up a new window of opportunities for email marketing. Not only can businesses maintain a secondary Inbox which handles all the email marketing messages, they also get access to their fan base for future marketing campaigns within Facebook.
From a customer’s perspective, you have the facility to delete conversations which you do not like.
It’s Still Early Days
Of course, it’s too early to predict if the Social Inbox will be well received in the business fraternity or not. From my study so far, I believe that it’s a decent start and the prospects look promising. I’m eagerly waiting to receive my @facebook.com address and start exploring my personal Social Inbox!
Do you think the Social Inbox will change the way businesses use social media and email? Will it be a game-changing business tool? Are you planning to use it for your business? Please share your thoughts by leaving a comment below this post.
Exceptional analysis of this new Facebook feature – it will be interesting to see the changes, especially with the number of Business Fan Pages established. Will Facebook become the new mini internet?
With every product/feature launch, it may seem as if Facebook wants to be become the new mini internet. I must add though, Facebook is a great example of savvy companies that have learned a great deal from the failure of failed/failing companies in their industries i.e. Myspace, etc.
Every feature Facebook has launched in recent times has been targeted towards getting users to spend more time on its platform with features they can and will use daily. Hence, making them even more relevant. This is very smart of the Facebook team. They do understand, if they fail to innovate, some website is waiting in the corner of some living room or another dorm room somewhere, to take its place.
Will Facebook become a mini internet? Let’s wait and see 🙂
Always a pleasure to see your great comments Bill. Thanks.
I found this on Twitter and am reading it at Stumbleupon. I have no interest in my business, family and social life colliding in one inbox – better to move from tab to tab.
I won’t go so far as to say it will be as successful as Buzz, but even if it becomes wildly popular, FB will never be ‘the Mini Internet’ unless of course for trendy purpose you want to change the definition of Internet.
/.02c
I agree, there is a lot of potential. But also a lot of possible issues. I am a bit skeptical on privacy issues concerning this new service, and overall it doesn’t encourage me to use Facebook at all in first place.
I believe I still like the email concept, with an eye on what Google is going to learn from this and implement in its own services.
I do understand your concerns Gabriele. When it comes to Facebook, privacy is always a concern.
Facebook messages has a high chance of succeeding based on the fact that many people are already getting used to receiving and sending Facebook messages. Facebook has studied this growing trend and wants to leverage it’s possibilities with the “Social Inbox” concept by offering an @facebook.com address, with the hope that users get comfortable with doing all their communication via Facebook and hopefully ditch their traditional email inbox.
As rightly expressed Gabriele, Facebook’s major challenge would be convincing us we have nothing to worry about as regards our privacy.
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