You may have heard by now that Gmail, Google’s web-based email client, is undergoing some pretty drastic changes. We like this video from Mashable, which explains the ins-and-outs of the changes.
Our two biggest takeaways (so far):
1) The new, re-designed Gmail may hide important advocacy messages. By separating all mail into tabs, users may not see outreach messages from advocacy organizations, as they typically would.
Up until now, new messages piled up on the top of users’ mailboxes, requiring the user to act on them in some way – either by opening, deleting, or archiving them. Now, messages may show up in a tab that frequently goes unchecked by the user, leaving important messages to languish. Advocacy organizations will need to adapt their messaging language to avoid obscure automated Gmail tab labels, and to fall under commonly used tab labels.
2) Social media gets its own tab. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Instagram: all notification emails from social media networks will appear in the same tab.
This will make engaging with your social community easier than ever. With the ability to view all of your conversations and interactions in one place with just a click of a tab, managing your online presence won’t take digging through mountains of email notifications anymore.
The new changes to Gmail will roll-out to all users over the next few weeks. We look forward to seeing how organizations will adapt to these new changes to the email provider of over 425 million users around the world.
