What happens when mobile meets e-mail?

A few months ago, I highlighted what I consider the forgotten social network: e-mail. Now Mashable has a great look at how mobile affects the way consumers use e-mail. The most fascinating finding?

“Last year, Nielsen looked into what impact social media is having on e-mail usage. The results showed that there is a strong correlation between those who are frequent e-mail users and users that are also active across social media.

In fact, the study basically showed that social media makes users consume more e-mail, not less.”

Google is famous for trying to get more people to use the web, figuring increased web usage leads to increased search usage which leads to increase revenue for Google. Sounds like something similar is going on here. Yes, as the study notes, some consumers use social as a replacement for e-mail. But, it does follow that consumers who use the Internet to engage with friends, family and brands will use as many channels as they need to do that.

So, how does this affect you?

Easy. Getting your customers to engage with you – whether via e-mail, social or on-site – is the end game. So, why would you take any single component out of your playbook?

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