Actually, Facebook changes everything (and nothing)

A lot of people are writing about what Facebook’s new messaging system means for your current email tactics.

So let’s not go there. (You’ll find relevant links at the end of the post).

Instead, let’s look at it as a marker…a staging post in the evolution of online communication: does “Project Titan” have wider things to say about how we need to communicate with our audience?

The most important lessons of the Facebook announcement come not from the nature of the platform itself, but from the goals, principles and thought processes that led to its development.

And what are these lessons?

Lesson 1: Hurrah…email is not dead

OK, let’s clear this out the way.

As Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg said when introducing the new system:

“This is not an email killer. This is a messaging system that includes email as one part of it.”

The incorporation of email in the new system is implicit recognition of the continuing value and longevity of the channel.

It recognizes a need to integrate Facebook with email to extend the former’s reach…to allow Facebook users to communicate more easily with the majority of the online population who aren’t also users.

But email advocates shouldn’t rest on their Facebook-branded laurels.

There are a lot of clever folk at Facebook and the company’s survival depends on understanding communication needs among its audience.

This is what they came up with for the characteristics of “next generation messaging”:

“seamless, informal, immediate, personal, simple, minimal, short”

That’s not going to fit every communication need or audience, but it’s still worth just reflecting a minute on those seven words. Specifically…

Lesson 2: It’s about communication, not channels

Facebook’s “seamless messaging” concept throws the emphasis back onto communication as a whole and away from the “channel battle”.

People don’t want to use email or send a text or chat…they just want to communicate.

They may have preferences for the medium they use to communicate certain content with certain people, but it’s the communication itself that’s really important.

Marketers, in particular, tend to think in terms of channels. In the battle for budgets and self-justification, the medium can become more important than the message.

That inevitably leads to a disconnect between “senders” and “recipients”. Instead of asking “what email should I send?” or “how can we use SMS marketing here?” we should perhaps first ask:

“What’s the best channel or combination of channels to use to communicate effectively with our audience and reach our goals?”

Lesson 3: Low-friction communication and simplicity

Another goal behind Facebook’s new system is to remove “friction” and “technology” from the online communication process…to reverse the trend toward feature overload and messaging clutter.

Email marketing can take a hint from that, for example by:

• Ensuring sign-up forms and sign-up processes are clear and simple.
• Giving people choice and control through preference centers, but without subjecting them to choice overload
• Limiting the information required at or after sign-up to what’s really needed (or finding alternative ways to collect the same information without burdening the subscriber)

Simplicity might also extend to the content itself. Will future subscribers have an even greater preference for short, punchy messaging rather than long-form content? Will text-only email make a return?

Lesson 4: Portability

The idea of seamless channel-agnostic messaging also reflects a trend toward location-, time- and device-independent messaging. More people want to be always on, everywhere they go, whatever device they have with them (PC, laptop, netbook, tablet, smartphone…)

Now combine that concept with the explosion in smartphone ownership and use.

It’s clear that mobile email should be high on the email agenda.

That’s a design issue: people expect your email to work well wherever they read it. And they will read it on different devices using different applications.

And it’s a strategy issue. In a world of instant gratification and 24/7 availability, how does that change campaign timing and content?

Lesson 5: Back to the individual

Perhaps the most important lesson is what Facebook is saying about communication styles, and how it will build expectations of how people communicate with each other online.

A common thread though Facebook’s presentation is supporting personal, meaningful conversations.

Now I don’t expect a personal, meaningful conversation with the company that sends me printer ink. We don’t have that kind of relationship.

But…

…the changes at Facebook reflect and drive the general social networking-induced expectation of authentic communication, based on personality and value. Something that email marketing also needs to reflect.

Lesson 6: Connectedness and control

The need for personality, authentic communication and value, in turn, drives trust. And value and trust become critical factors as more and more messaging systems build in easy ways to restrict access to inboxes.

Facebook’s new “social inbox” messaging system turns the user’s contacts into a de facto whitelist. Like Gmail’s Priority Inbox, it gives users more control over whether messages reach them and/or in what order they are presented for viewing.

This is where trust and value come in, because if you deliver both, this encourages users to make a formal connection to the sender. And that formal connection (friend, follower etc.) will increasingly count at places like Facebook as an indicator of a priority communication source.

Put simply, online messaging systems are trying harder and harder to winnow out the not-so-important stuff from people you’re not on best terms with.

One approach is to then encourage people to formally connect with you, with appropriate calls to action and links to Facebook pages etc.

But underlying this approach is the obvious, but forgotten, need to deserve that connection. Which is where creating value and being trustworthy come in.

(Trust? Personality? Value? Sounds familiar…has anything really changed?)

If you don’t deserve the connection, don’t expect to get it. You’ll be locked out of some prime communication centers. Which, frankly, might be what many users want…keeping some places for personal messaging and others for business or commercial messaging.

Fun, isn’t it?

Lesson 7: No, the kids will NOT end up like us

Email acolytes argue that a lot of these trends and the gravitation toward SMS, Facebook etc. is not a big issue, because however big they might be among younger folk, these communication patterns will change as they get older. Facebook is for high school students.

That’s true, but only partially true.

The Facebook generation will carry their preferences, habits, patterns of behavior, communication styles and technological familiarity with them as they age. They may modify them, but they won’t abandon all of them.

A generation brought up on apps and mobile and Facebook and LOL OMG SMS will not drop these habits completely in the same way they might swap a skateboard for a Skoda.

Facebook is building a platform for new generations. One with a different understanding of privacy and different expectations, habits, skills, needs etc. to people like me. That’s how the world has always worked.

And this will change perceptions and use of channels like email. To suggest otherwise is, frankly, denial.

Lesson 8: No panic

None of the challenges and trends and concepts addressed above will happen overnight.

Some may not happen at all.

None will happen just because Facebook introduced a new messaging system.

And entire audiences won’t suddenly be reduced to gibbering message addicts, incapable of understanding more than 140 characters worth of text.

The relevance of the new Facebook system, like Gmail’s Priority Inbox, is not (just) due to its features and practical impact on today’s email marketing, but what it says about where messaging is heading online. And forewarned is forearmed.

Agree?

Useful links:
10 Ways for E-mail Marketers to Survive Facebook Messages
5 Implications of the New Facebook email services
Facebook launches new multichannel Messages system
What Facebook’s New Messaging System Means for Marketers
5 Connected Marketing Tactics to Prepare for Facebook Messages
Facebook messaging roll-out: Titan or Titanic? (with lots of links)

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• Channel: Email marketing strategy | Email and social media

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