Put a fork in it

When FB messaging was announced email marketers had a total conniption. There were blog posts written about how FB Messaging was going to kill email as we know it.
Now, slightly more than a year later marketers have declared FB Messaging dead.
Sometimes I think people spend way to much time believing their own press. FB messaging was never designed as a marketing platform. I said as much back in November 2010 when it was announced.

[…] I really don’t think this is going to be a marketing platform. Zuc said during his talk that the messaging of the future is: personal, immediate, informal and short. None of this applies to marketing mail. I have no doubt many marketers are going to try and get into the FBox, but that’s not what it’s for.
Really folks, stand down and stop panicking. This isn’t going to kill email, it’s just another way to message.

Color me shocked that people haven’t flocked to using their FB messaging accounts for marketing and email marketing is still going strong. Oh, wait, I predicted that, too.

[E]ven if Titan is somehow a total game changer and is going to require explicit permission, it’s not going to destroy email marketing. Everyone who has a facebook account already has another email account. Marketers who can’t get explicit permission to mail to the facebook account can certainly keep sending “permission” email to their other email accounts.

Suffice it to say, I’m not impressed with the declaration that Facebook Messaging is dead. In fact, I’m mostly wondering who thought it was ever actually alive.

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The answer is 42

I continually run into companies that don’t really have a goal or understanding of their email marketing program. They’ve never really asked questions about how they’re using email or even why email is the right answer. Lots of companies are also diving head first into email marketing or the social media craze without having thought about what their goals are and what they want to happen.
What regularly ends up happening to companies that jump in without a clear goal is they get into a situation where their delivery is bad. Then they read a lot of best practice advice on the net and try to implement all of it. Sometimes that works, but other times it doesn’t. Finally they hire me or another consultant to help them sort out where it all went pear shaped.
My consulting isn’t about rote recitation of common best practices. Instead, I want to know about a client’s business and what they think about email.  The most frequent question I ask clients is: How does email fit into your business? What are your goals for your business? What is your value proposition?
Some of my clients can’t answer these question. They just tell me they want to use email and they don’t know what they’re doing and that’s why they hired me. Well, I can help them successfully send email, but I can’t help them decide what role email plays in their business. Those are the decisions my client needs to make. I can’t set their business goals for them.
When was the last time you actually sat down and just thought about your business goals? I know that sometimes it’s hard to find the time to look at your business and where it’s going. “Think about it? I’m too busy doing it!” But every business person needs to look at their business goals.
Once you’ve thought about your goals, think about your email marketing program. Is email helping you to reach those goals? How?
If you’ve reached your current business goals, what are your next ones? And how does email fit into those goals?
Sure, having an answer is good, but are you actually asking the right question?

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We lie more in email than in person

People are more prone to lie over email than face to face.

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Court rules blogger is not a journalist

Last week a federal judge ruled a blogger, Crystal Cox, was not a journalist and not subject to first amendment protections. I haven’t been following the case very closely, but was a little concerned about the precedent and the liability for people like me who blog.
Reading some of the articles on the case, though, I’m less worried. This isn’t a blogger making some statements. Instead, Ms. Cox acted more like a stalker and harasser than a reporter. The judge even concluded that had she been granted protection as a journalist it was unlikely she could prevail as there was little factual basis for her statements.
Others have done better summaries of the case and the effect and I encourage everyone to read them.
Seattle Weekly
New York Times
Ars Technica
Forbes

I also discourage folks from applying this ruling to all bloggers. It’s not clear she was doing anything journalistic. I did find it interesting that some of her techniques to ruin the lawyer’s search results were defined as Search Engine Optimization. I’ve long thought SEO was akin to spam: say something often enough in enough places and you start to dominate the conversation. Not because you have anything useful to say, but because no one can get an idea in otherwise.

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