Many people ask me a very important question when they sit down to talk about social networking and getting started in the world of social media. They often feel very frustrated not knowing how to get started or they feel overwhelmed by the notion of sitting down for hours and hours, building their network of followers and friends. What they often do not realize is that they already have a social network they have been building for years – their email address book.
Since we first heard that simple statement, “You’ve Got Mail!” all those years ago, we have been developing our social network of friends, followers, business contacts, and of course, our email lists. This is the backbone of every social network online. Many of the social networks cannot operate unless they are tied into your email system. We wouldn’t get alerts when the network has been updated; we wouldn’t be notified of new friends; and we would never find out when a new conversation was started without email as the main catalyst. When you get that funny comic or YouTube video or that joke sent to you by your mother – yes, my mother is known for this – it arrives via email and you also send it on to your “network”. (It has also become second nature for many of us to delete these as spam – sorry mom – so be careful and don’t overdo it.)
When signing up for a new social network or that latest application that allows you to connect with your friends, make sure to see if they have a component that allows you to tap into your already existing network of email contacts. This can often be imported into a new program and you have instant groups or an index of people to whom you can reach out and involve in your new social application. Many times just sending an email to your current email list of friends and followers to let them know you are using the latest social media tool is all you need to do – and it takes off from there. Don’t forget email is, in some cases, the life blood of how social networks operate. You have been using email since the beginning of time. Now put it to good use in the new age of social networking.
