GPWA Times Magazine - Issue 4 - April 2008

37 inbox. If these feeds were part of the Facebook News Feed, they’d automati- cally display only if they were current (because the News Feed is chronologi- cal), and I wouldn’t have a backlog of stagnant e-mail to deal with. I could always look at older days in the News Feed if I really cared. Third, I might not be an e-mail-centric user anymore. So breaking alerts might actually get to me faster via Facebook than via e-mail. Currently, most e-mail has a “send to a friend” feature. But what if you don’t have the e-mail addresses of most of your friends anymore? Maybe I’d love to send your sales notice to my friends. I’m physically unable to do that within Outlook anymore, yet I could do it in Facebook. Facebook already lets me post anything I can see to my profile or News Feed for others to see. The viral component is built into these networks, so everything is potentially viral. Additionally, News Feed messages can be private (i.e., just sent to you) or pub- lic (i.e., sent to anyone who has access to your News Feed). In the Fandango example, I can tell it to publish news about my ticket purchases to everyone who gets my News Feed. But a retail company is more apt to want to serve a personalized, private message to each user based on user preferences and A/B testing. Fantasy or Reality? While it certainly sounds good, don’t call your ESP this afternoon to tell them this week’s e-mail should be reconfigured to work in Facebook’s News Feed instead. It’ll be a while before these companies retool their systems to accomplish the task. To my knowledge, Datran Media is the only company doing this now. Though other marketing companies certainly have the ability to post one-off mes- sages to Facebook, Datran is different. Its Facebook integration is truly an integration. It’s added the Facebook channel to its existing suite of tools, including personalization, testing, and analytics. It won’t be long before all ESPs re- alize they need to be CSPs. The age- old dream of e-mail has been the right message to right person at right time. Over the past few years, “right channel” has been creeping into this phrase. As a channel, social media platforms are a necessary, integral next step for traditional ESPs. A true multichannel campaign might include postal mail, e-mail, and social media platforms, all combined. This means your social media capability can’t be a one-off news posting. It must be a fully integrated part of your messag- ing platform. The ClickZ Network is the largest resource of interactive marketing news, information, com- mentary,advice,opinion,research,and reference in the world,online or off. Jack Aaronson,CEO of The Aaronson Group and corporate lecturer, is a sought-after expert on enhanced user experienc- es,customer conversion,retention,and loyalty.