Adding Social Media to Your Email

Social media complements email because it provides new avenues for sharing information and engaging readers. When marketers integrate both channels, they strengthen the reach and viral marketing potential of their email marketing campaigns. According to eMarketer, more than half of worldwide business executives have formulated an email marketing and social media strategy and are either already implementing their program or researching tools for implementation.

1. Add “Follow Me” Links to Your Email

Similar to your website, you can add “follow me” links to your email in both your newsletter HTML template. Consider re-designing your email newsletter template to include a call-out box in the sidebar or header of your newsletter with “follow us” links that allow visitors to become your Facebook fan, Twitter follower, YouTube subscriber, LinkedIn connection, etc. This will inform your subscribers that you have a social media presence and build your online following. It’s also a good idea to include a button on your day-to-day business email signature inviting readers to connect with your company through your social media profiles.

2. Allow Your Newsletters to be Shared Through Social Media

According to MarketingSherpa, marketers who integrated social media share buttons in their email newsletters saw a 25% boost in reader interaction and a surge in inbound traffic from social networking sites (June 8, 2009 case study). Integrating these social sharing links in your email newsletters is a great way to expand your readership beyond your subscribers at no additional cost. Here are some tips to consider when integrating content sharing technology on your email newsletters.

• Consider using an email marketing system with a feature that will automatically include the HTML code required to allow readers to share your newsletter.
• Test the newsletter template with a focus group (a small, segmented list) prior to rolling it out to your entire database.

• Track shared article metrics through your email marketing system’s tracking capabilities. To track the number of times other people read a shared article, use a URL shortening/tracking tool like bit.ly.

3. Link out to Your Blog Posts , Videos and Presentations

Email marketing is a great way to promote your other content, especially your social media content (such as your blog posts and YouTube videos). Rather than sending out a newsletter with several long articles that requires readers to keep scrolling down to read more information, you can turn your newsletter into a “summary” of articles. By highlighting top headlines and brief descriptions with “read more” links that direct readers to view the full article on your company blog, you will create a better reading experience for your email subscribers and lessen the workload of your email creator.

You can also include brief descriptions in your newsletter highlighting some of your recent videos and then link out to the videos on your YouTube channel, blog or website. Similarly, you can do this with any social media content. For example, within your newsletter you can write a few lines describing your latest presentation and link to your SlideShare or authorSTREAM channels.

Not only will you increase traffic to your blog and viewership of your videos and presentations, you will further engage readers. As long as you create a consistent branding experience between your newsletter, blog, YouTube channel and online presentations, users won’t feel like they’ve navigated from your newsletter to something totally different. The key to creating an integrated online strategy is by connecting your online content to as many of your online properties as possible. Your website and email newsletters are great channels to use in order to cross promote your social media presence and content.

Find out more about Adding Social Media to Your Email with Emarkable’s Social Media Services.

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