Media Comparison: Social Networking Sites vs. E-Newsletters

When it comes to online marketing, trends play a very big role. For example, when emails were the “in” thing, consumers saw a wide dissemination of electronic newsletters. Five to ten years later, the marketing flavors have changed. From banners and e-newsletters, we now have social networking pages, otherwise known as “Fan Pages” doing what e-newsletters used to do.

Micro blogging as a trend

Compared to electronic newsletters, though, these fan pages only give out snippets of announcements to readers. Also, they don’t crowd email space with their announcements and catalogues. Instead, these announcements and catalogues are posted publicly, on an online “mini-site”, with links to the main website. Why would small business owners want to do this? These days, online networking websites have newsfeeds which publish newly posted announcements from the user’s contacts in a single page.

This is a more effective and affective promotional campaign for most Internet marketers simply because they’re not annoying their clients with too much information. Instead, they’re just passively there. Their clients get to know about their products only when the links are clicked on. Otherwise, they’re not considered a nuisance because they’re eating up too much bandwidth.

Ready to Ignite Your Website?

Possible disadvantages

Passivity is a double edged sword though. Not all social networking users log in at the same time, and when you post in the morning, for example, you’re announcing your business event only to a limited number of contacts. Other contacts will have to click on your page for them to be able to read your announcements.

There’s also the possibility that an unhappy client would post something nasty on your social networking page. This can’t be helped because the social networking culture is all about dialogues. It’s not about you announcing something and enjoying the power of speech alone. Unless you’re good at handling negative comments, social networking pages can also damage the reputation of your business.

If you look at the ups and downs of the social networking page, though, you’ll realize that it’s all about how well you adjust to the changing cultures online. The dialogue culture of Web 2.0 will be around for many years. Between the emailed newsletter and the social media page, the latter is still the better choice.

To take advantage of what social networking can bring to your website contact Ignition Media. We specialise in Social Media marketing, SEO and website promotion for small to large Gold Coast and Brisbane businesses.