How to use social media and email marketing to spread your message further

The integration of social media and email marketing now makes it easier to extend your content beyond your database. Subscribers will share your messages with their friends and family on twitter or facebook which will allow you to find prospective customers and members more quickly.

Below are some best practices for integrating social media and email marketing and expanding your reach.

You can now share your newsletters on Facebook and Twitter
When sending a e-newsletter to your customer base, you can also automatically share a link to the web version of the email with your Facebook fans and Twitter followers. This will get your newsletter content in front of both your subscribers and all of their social media connections at the same time.

Include a Social Share Bar with all your outgoing email newsletters
Adding a Social Share Bar to your e-newsletters makes it easy for subscribers to share your message with their friends and family, thus helping to spread your message well beyond your original distribution list. It's word-of-mouth marketing made easy.

Social media is more than just buttons
You have to remember that social media is more than just about adding Tweet and Like buttons to your e-newsletters. You have to give people a reason to connect with you and interact with your content on social media sites.

You may also have to tell people who are less social media savvy than you are, to click the share buttons or connect with you on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc if that's what you want them to do.


If you want to find success on social media, below are some other best practices to follow:

Use your subject line as a tweet
When your email message is shared through social media, the subject line is often the default text that gets published, especially via Twitter. Make sure your subject line is appealing to both email recipients and those who might be seeing a link to your content via social media sites.

Don't forget to take into consideration Twitter's 140-character limit, which will help keep your subject lines short and succicent. (We recommend you try to keep it shorter than 120 characters so your followers can easily retweet it.)

Drive the conversation
Your content should be engaging. Add a social call to action, such as a question at the end of your newsletter article, that directs readers to your Facebook Page to respond. Tell recipients to tweet their response along with a hashtag of your choice.

Track your social shares
With Social Stats, you can track how many subscribers shared your email with their social media connections and see how many people clicked to view your message via social media. It's a great tool to for seeing how far your message is distributed beyond your original contact list. You can then see which social networks are most popular with your subscribers.

Don't forget to listen
Social media is a great way to spread your message and to reach new prospects more quickly. But in addition to generating share-worthy content, you have to remember to listen to your customers.

Take the time to read what your customers and members are posting on your Facebook Page. Monitor Twitter for mentions of your company name, products, or services to see what people are saying about you. By listening, you may also find new trends or great pieces of content to share with your newsletter subscribers and social media followers. Social media is a two-way street of content.

Keeping a close eye on social media can be resource consuming, but tools such as TA Fastrack Social Monitor can help cut down on the time spent on the task and allow you to respond quickly to those with a complaint and thank those with compliments.

When the year started, business and organizations were using social media and email as almost separate marketing entities. As we enter 2011, they're a complimentary team that can help power any organization's marketing efforts.