Social networking websites are white hot right now. We read about it in the news, investors are clamoring to put their money in it, and consumer’s young and old use these social networks to connect and communicate. Even Microsoft is getting in the game as it recently paid $240 Million for a small stake (1.6%) in Facebook.
Question: What drives new users to join or existing users to log back into their account?
Answer: Users of the social network upload the email addresses of their contacts and email their friends to join the network. An email prompts a prospective user to join a site or a registered user to come back and see the activity in their network.
Why does this matter? Because ExactTarget is helping social networking sites solve a number of problems, such as managing deliverability, scaling the email volume with our infrastructure, and monetizing their emails with an ad supported model.
Email not only drives user membership and traffic, it can also generate revenue. Is social networking going to kill email? NO, it’s going to make it more important and useful than ever.
