With Google’s integration of its new “Buzz” social framework within Gmail, it signals a shift in how consumers interact with Online messaging.  The line separating email inboxes from social network messaging and “streams” is quickly diminishing, but what does it mean for email marketers?

It certainly doesn’t signal the demise of email marketing by any means, but does provide an opportunity for marketers to think outside the box and engage customers who are quickly combining the various messaging methods they utilize into a single “feed,” if you will.  As Google’s Buzz shows us, social networking and email can come together to form a killer messaging platform for users, but marketers need to also realize that focusing on one or the other can have crippling effects.

Imagine having your branded email message sitting in the inbox of your subscribers alongside marketing messages that show up in the same user’s social feeds.  The potential for  engagement  skyrockets, and provides a wealth of opportunities from a branding standpoint.  Marketers are already utilizing this approach — targeting users via email and social networking — but are doing so completely separate of one another.  Defining an approach that integrates and compliments both email marketing and social-media branding can do wonders, especially as the convergence of social-streams and inboxes become more  prevalent.

Social media messaging has been deemed an “email killer” for a while now, but the truth is that both technologies are fundamentally different.  As social media and networking grows, the uses of which will be much different to that of email.  From a marketing standpoint, combining the qualities of both can produce highly successful results if done properly.