The way I see it, email & social media often go hand-in-hand. It’s not either/or – it’s both/and. The right tool for the right job, with the caveat that sometime the right tools need to overlap and play nicely together.

Google’s recent announcement of Wave is also a boon, as it’s shaping up to be the next killer app that rethinks email as it should be today, not how it was intended when it was invented.

Here’s a quote from the article about Strongmail Solution’s new thinking:

StrongMail, which enables direct marketers to integrate social media into email marketing programs, has developed a social media framework that consists of three core functions: Social Programs, Social Direct and Social Share. As direct marketers struggle to fit social media programs into their overall marketing strategy, Ryan Deutsch believes the tools that integrate both will become the hub that supports strategies.

Among the tools being introduced into the market today, Influencer Ad enables marketers to create direct-response campaigns. The tool is being offered through a partnership with PopularMedia, which focuses on developing social and viral campaigns.

The biggest challenge then becomes making the campaign interesting to drive it virally. For example, rather than send a coupon in an email for 50% off a bar blender, the email would include a link and message to “mix your friend a drink.” Clicking on the link would enable the person to virtually make a strawberry margarita and send it off to share with Facebook friends.

The pages that allow consumers to mix and share drinks are served up by StrongMail. Technology tracks the message and the people who concoct the drinks. It lets marketers identify “influencers,” Deutsch says. Based on behavior, the marketer can target people with specific promotions.

This is the beginning of a new way of online marketing and communication to collide and converge. I can’t wait to see what’s next!

I want to apologize for the microphone issue for the first 12 minutes. I had no way to monitor how I sounded and didn’t realize the problem’s cause until the moderator, Carol, helped sort it out. The entire webinar was recorded, so if you can turn up your speakers a bit and listen carefully for those initial few minutes, it does clear up and is very easy to understand after I fixed it.

In fact, to watch and hear the webinar, simply click this link: http://budurl.com/TwitterWebinar

I answered as many questions during the Q&A as we had time, but I’m more than happy to answer any questions that we didn’t have time to answer during the webinar. Feel free to post your questions in the comments below or send me a question to either @churchtechie or @anthonycoppedge on Twitter.

Thank you again for learning alongside me as we leverage technology & communications to effectively communicate the Gospel of Jesus!

The team here – Anthony, Nathan & Evan – have created version 1.0 of this site and E-Book. Because technology changes constantly, we’ll be adding updates to both regularly. Once you buy the book, you can come back for free updates (later revisions) and, most importantly, share your thoughts, experiences, questions and comments right here on this blog.

I have intentionally kept the price of the E-Book extremely low – five bucks – because I know how many volunteers, part-timers and even staff will hear about this resource before it comes to the attention of their church leadership. It’s affordable for everyone.

Additionally, we’ve included a unique license for churches:

We fully license churches (or volunteers) to buy a copy for a staff member and share it with their volunteers for free. For example, if your church has three staff that could benefit from the book, then please pay the ridiculously affordable $15 and give out copies like free candy to your volunteers!

Thank you for supporting this E-Book. I truly hope that you find it to be simple, practical and effective in helping your church leverage Twitter for ministry!

- @anthonycoppedge