Though many may believe that the rise of social media will be the end of email marketing MarketSherpa's 2010 email marketing benchmark report shows that not only has email marketing not decreased but is increasing along with social media.

Ajay Goel's article shows us that the best strategy is not one or the other, but to combine the two. He lists a number of ways we can improve relations with our customers in terms of social media and email marketing. The list includes showing personality though email by having them signed by real people, emphasizing community over product, listening to their feed back and keeping their online social community alive.

For more information check out the article here.

Today, sealed documents in the copyright infringement lawsuit (Viacom vs. YouTube) were made public. YouTube's main defense against Viacom's attack is that Viacom secretly uploaded content to YouTube and publicly complained about it being there. Viacom also tried to buy YouTube a bunch of times, suggesting that the $1 billion lawsuit is an attempt to cash in after the fact.

If this is true, Viacom forced bad PR on YouTube with unethical tactics when they couldn't profit off of them initially in order to steal revenue.

This move is going to cause a backlash of rescinded goodwill against Viacom. The public hates unearthed schemes more than just about anything.