Graham Winfrey from Inc talks about the power of the email newsletter and I could not agree more. The first thing most professionals do when they pick up their phone is check their emails, before going onto Twitter, LinkedIn or whatever other networks they are on. Email comes first to business people.

Where the email newsletter becomes really powerful is when you start being really targeted and focusing on your niche. If for example I am a lawyer working in "Fracking Law" in the UK - I am probably not trying to talk to 3 million people. I might just want to be talking to 50 people, the CEOs and in-house counsels at fracking firms.

If I have the email addresses of these 50 people then Twitter and LinkedIn barely come into play. I simply send these 50 people an email newsletter on a regular basis with my latest insights, thoughts and goings-on in the fracking law world. If I do this well, not only will more and more of those 50 people start opening my email, they will start using it as a key source to keep up to date with the fracking law industry.

Then, when it's time to hire a fracking law lawyer, who will they choose? ME! Because I was the expert who kept them up to date and did a better job than anyone else of showing that I am the expert they need to hire. All thanks to my regular newsletter. That just seems easier than managing 2 or 3 different social networks in the hope that among all the noise I manage to get seen by one of those 50 people.