Here are several excerpts from an interesting article by Loren McDonald, Expanding Email Reach Via Social Networks:
Some email marketers say that the growth of social media directly challenges email’s supremacy for communication. To me, now is a prime opportunity to expand the subscriber relationship to incorporate community, content sharing, feedback and user-generated content.
Integrating Email with Social Media
Three aspects of social media integrate well with email:
1. User Community/User-generated content: Readers post information and experiences about your products or comments content on your Web site, which you can reprint, with permission, in your emails.
2. Reviews/ratings/popularity: Your customers can decide which product to buy or which article to read based on popularity (top sellers, most read or forwarded) with statistics posted in your emails.
3. Sharing and viral content: Email has always been viral, whether users just forward your messages on or use your forward-to-a-friend function. But the forward rate is typically very low–maybe 0.1 percent without incentives to a few percent or more with incentives.
Adding a forwarding request or a link to your Web forwarding form might move the needle a little, but neither solves some basic problems…
- Sending to a large group of forwardees takes a lot of time for the recipient.
- Some recipients worry that companies will spam their friends if they use a Web form.
- Forwarding from the email client can break your HTML.
- Actions on forwarded email can be difficult to track.
- Email Social Media-Sharing Case Study
Incorporating a “share” capability in your emails solves these email-forwarding weaknesses. We at Silverpop are in the final stages of beta-testing a “share to social” feature–a one-click button that lets readers post an article headline, description and link to the Web version of an email on their social-network pages (MySpace and Facebook for now, with more to come).
Why Integrate Email and Social?
Retooling your email program for social media has these benefits:
- Your readers can generate buzz and brand awareness when they post your messages in personal spaces where they have control of content and trust of friends. A positive personal endorsement from a friend is the best possible introduction to your brand that you could hope for.
- Exposing your email program to new audiences can build your email list.
- You encourage more reader interest and involvement, which builds relevance and anticipation–both of which build inbox recognition.
All of these together can lead to greater ROI without significantly greater expense.
