Even as Facebook email has struggled to carve out a niche among web users, the recent move by the company to replace email addresses on user profiles with their assigned @facebook.com address has caused many to reconsider their position. According to a study from AYTM Market Research, 68.2 percent of respondents didn’t notice the change, but more than 48 percent would consider using the address.
More than 51 percent said they would not make their Facebook email address one of their primary accounts. However, with many saying they do have interest in receiving messages via Facebook mail, marketers may see an influx of @facebook.com addresses enrolling in their email marketing campaigns.
Pairing social media marketing with email campaigns has helped many improve conversions from their messages. However, Facebook’s move represents a major step in direct integration between social and email, essentially migrating people’s inboxes to their Facebook pages.
Google recently rolled out its own social email feature that allows Gmail users to act on Google+ notifications directly from their inboxes. Brafton highlighted the new feature in a report discussing Google’s push to make Google+ a more relevant part of web users’ activity and social media marketing efforts. At this point, Facebook’s goals with email campaigns are unclear, but it could make for some interesting competition in the email market.
