Here’s a question to pose to anyone who still thinks social media will bring about the death of email. If that statement were true, then why are social media companies increasingly focused on improving their email deliverability?

The answer of course is that email is essential for the growth and profitability of social networks. In fact, social media companies are becoming some of the largest volume senders in the email universe, with hundreds of millions of messages being sent to their members each day. These emails include everything from status updates, friend/follower requests, wall postings, updates on tagged photos and invitations to join the network. It’s no wonder that ensuring those messages reach their members’ inboxes is crucial to the success of a social media company’s business.

However, social networks often have a higher mountain to climb when it comes to improving their inbox placement rates. Why? Because some of their practices—especially involving growing their member bases—drive a higher than average number of complaints when compared to other email marketers. Complaints negatively impact on sending reputation (the primary metric used by ISPs when determining how to route commercial email), and as a result, deliverability suffers.

What practices am I referring to? One in particular: allowing users/members to import their entire address books and then sending email invitations to those addresses to join the social network. These invitation emails often result in high volumes of complaints and can also increase the number of unknown users and spam trap addresses the social networking company is mailing to. This in turn damages their sending reputation, which lowers their chances of reaching the inbox.  Complaints and list quality in particular have a huge impact on whether a sender’s email gets routed to the junk/bulk/spam folder or goes missing all together.

So what’s a social networker to do? First, it’s important to regularly monitor inbox placement across the various ISPs and track complaints using feedback loops. Second, social networkers need to stop the risky practice of allowing users to import their address books. Finally, they need to undertake a renewed focus on the subscriber/member experience. How? Here are few ideas:

1. Create a user-friendly preference centre. Allow members to easily access it. Let them choose the types of email communications they want to receive, such as only friend updates, notifications, or wall postings. Promote the preference centre everywhere, including in the footer of every email, the welcome message, the website, the unsubscribe landing page and the member’s profile/account page. Encourage members to use it to customise the types of messages they are receiving and the frequency they are being sent.
2. Clearly communicate the privacy policy. Rather than using a lot of legal terminology, explain in simple and easy to understand terms how the member’s personal information will and won’t be used. Explain how this information can be made public or kept private and how it will be shared with other members. Learn a lesson from Facebook’s recent privacy issues, now being aggressively addressed in Germany.
3. Set the proper expectations. During the account creation/joining stage, explain what members can expect from the email program. Outline its benefits and clearly describe the program’s content and frequency. Provide links to examples of the emails being sent. The more information that is provided at this early stage, the better informed and prepared members will be for the emails to come.

Want more information? Learn how Return Path helped Friends Reunited improve their inbox delivery by over 25%. Read the case study here.

About the Author

Margaret Farmakis is Senior Director, Professional Services at Return Path. View the full bio here.

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