Social media is getting bigger and bigger and in the coming years, it will become even more encompassing. And believe it or not, social media will do your business even more good than it is already achieving, For those hoping to keep social media separate from your traditional email and business productivity tools, let me tell you this – those days of separation are numbered.
Over the last year, Google made the first move by incorporating an entire section in your inbox dedicated to your social media channels. Now with the launch of IBM Verse and other similar next generation inbox tools, the lines separating our social, personal, and professional relationships are going to be more blurred, yet more organized than ever before. In the future, our productivity will be driven by our behavior, but it will also be data driven and seamless. Our inbox will know how we like to work and it will use that knowledge to help us be more productive. For small businesses, this means next generation social CRM, business productivity, and a new lease on work-life, or dare we say, better work-life balance.
Staying organized will have a whole new meaning
How will your new inbox keep you organized? Robust analytics included with tools like IBM Verse enables it to learn your behavior and adjust itself to how and where you work. Naturally, your inbox will sort your mails based on priority, which will help you stay organized. Google’s inbox app, on the other hand, will integrate a social media-style interface to the email feed, so that important information or images will be featured in your feed in such a way that you will be able to view them without a click, creating a very user-friendly experience and mirroring the experience that you are currently seeing in your social media channels.
Keeping track of important things will be easier
Using new innovation, your Google inbox will also display up-to-date information in the fashion of a Google Now card integrated in your email. Google Now will allow you to quickly sort through your email and pull important emails from all the random, unimportant emails residing in your inbox. Not only this, your inbox may feature a list of to-do items based on tasks you complete more often, or people you interact with on a regular basis.
Your inbox will set reminders for you and more
Your email will set reminders for you, but the new technology will take those reminders a step further. Let’s say, you have an important event to attend and you create a reminder for it. Your email will automatically feed more information into that reminder, like the contact numbers and a map of the location. This way your reminders will be automatically updated, and give you all of the information that you need at a glance.
Inbox will become the social CRM tool for small businesses
Inbox will gradually turn into the next generation social CRM for small businesses. Today’s social CRM are able to carry out an impressive list of tasks, which includes tracking mentions of your brand, bridging the gap between social conversations and internal communications, and charting data visualization, to name a few. With social media becoming a part of your inbox, the latter will perform the many functions of social CRMs.
With social media stepping into your inbox, you will find it becoming more interactive than ever. It’s interesting to watch us come full circle: communication is slowly going to come back to where it started from, albeit in a reimagined way.
Do you think the introduction of social media into your inbox will have you using email more effectively again?
This post was brought to you by IBM for Midsize Business and opinions are my own. To read more on this topic, visit IBM’s Midsize Insider. Dedicated to providing businesses with expertise, solutions and tools that are specific to small and midsized companies, the Midsize Business program provides businesses with the materials and knowledge they need to become engines of a smarter planet.
Image: Creative Commons
