2011 has been an eventful year and the inbox wasn’t any exception. In fact, the inbox washit hard and often. According to the folks at the Radicati Group, a technology market research firm, more than 2.8 million emails were sent every second and about 100 trillion emails have been sent over the course of the year! These stats prove the fact that “email is not dead.” As an email marketer, I am more than a little relieved to hear that!

If you thought 100 trillion emails was impressive, the world of social marketing literally went off in 2011. Check out these mind-blowing stats.

Facebook:

• If Facebook were a country, it would be the 3rd largest
• Facebook has more than 800 million active users
• More than 50% of active users log on to Facebook in any given day
• The average user has 130 friends
• The average user is connected to 80 community pages, groups and events
• More than 350 million active users currently access Facebook through their mobile devices

Twitter:

• As of June 2011, Alexa ranked Twitter 9th in the world’s most trafficked sites with Google.com in 1st position, Facebook 2nd and YouTube 3rd
• Twitter has over 100 million active users worldwide, half of whom log in daily
• 40 percent of active users simply sign in to listen to what’s happening in their world
• Beyonce’s pregnancy announcement on MTV’s Video Music Awards in August broke the record for the highest TPS (tweets per second) spike of all time: nearly 9,000 Tweets per second

So, what can we expect for 2012 in email and social? Some industry experts weigh in with their predictions:

Social Media B2B predicts: Email Grows Despite Its Reported Demise

Email, as the platform that keeps getting called out for its continued expiration, is stronger than ever. Email newsletters drive traffic and results and will do more of the same in 2012. Marketers who send email will get better results by sending email more frequently. Email is still a viable content sharing option with your colleagues. And, inboxes support growing social networks with both a LinkedIn plug-in for Outlook and one for Gmail by Rapportive.

Email Marketing & Commerce predicts: It’s time to make sure email campaigns render well on mobile screens.

An increasing number of people started reading their emails on a mobile device in 2011, and smartphone prices are predicted to continue to drop. Readers will begin to demand that all messages are legible on their mobile devices. Therefore, email needs to continue to be mobile optimized.

Ensuring that both your email and website landing pages render properly is a top priority. As smartphones become smarter and more capable of rendering HTML cleanly, there will likely be less of a need for such specialized mobile markup.

Social Media Today predicts: Go Cross-Platform

Cross-channel promotions are becoming more essential than ever, as Google+ and other platforms continue to grow in popularity and cater to different user types and behaviors. The most social brands on the web are already experimenting with Google+ to find ways to authentically interact with their audience on this emerging platform. Google already announced that promotions cannot be hosted on the social network, surprising many brands that look to promotions to grow their audiences and interact with their fans. Instead, brands can use dedicated microsites, promoted and linked from their Google+ pages like they already do with Twitter sweepstakes, as the hub of a promotion geared toward their Google+ audiences. Microsites are the perfect way to allow engagement for users from their preferred networks, while controlling the visual branding, sharing tools and features.

What are your predictions for 2012? I’d love to hear them!

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