The communication media mix

I hear different perspectives more & more about the best channels to talk to and engage with users. From Nielsen online's recent research that Social Media is the new email, through to Google's Eric Schmidt claiming Twitter is the Poor Man's email system. This was also a subject brought up by Shel & Neville's FIR conversation at the end of last week and is one I'd like to enter.

So, what's my perspective? What's the best channel? Is it....

• Posts to MyBeboFaceSpace?
• Email bulletins
• RSS feeds
• Regular Blog posts
• etc.?

Well my view is... (as is often the case)... it depends. To use one particular online communication channel is no longer the right approach. If your customers are using multiple channels, why aren't you?

This goes for Marketing departments through to PR teams and even further afield. If your customer demographic (or just particular segments) communicates via two main channels (e.g. Email & RSS), then you need to as well. Also, don't forget that as nothing stays the same for very long, you will need to monitor your customer / channel mix and perhaps change this over-time.