How to Integrate Social Media and Email Marketing

Chances are, your company has had an email newsletter since AOL was big, but your social media profiles went live sometime around the time Barack Obama took office. Now that you have both (and hopefully not using AOL), there is a way to extend your social presence through your email newsletter, and vice versa.

At the moment, however, most marketing mavens aren’t taking advantage of this. According to a recent study published by eMarketer, only 13 percent of marketers include features in their newsletters that make it easy to share its content on social networks. If you are one of the lucky 13 percent, congrats! Come back tomorrow. But if you are sheepishly sinking down a inch or three in your chair, read on. Here is how to integrate social media and email marketing.

Why You Should Integrate Social Media and Email Marketing

Just like a blog post or article can go “viral” across the web, your email promotions can gain tons of attention when you make it easy to share. A study recently published by Marketing Sherpa stated that the presence of a social sharing buttons increased reader interaction by 25 percent. Additionally, overall inbound traffic increased via social networking sites: 2,070 percent from LinkedIn, 1,680 percent from Twitter, and 1,351 percent from Facebook.

How To Integrate Social Media and Email Marketing

Share buttons are now commonly found on all types of web content. They are also very easy to integrate into emails. If your newsletter includes several different articles, be sure that each one links to a page on your website, and that the Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn share buttons are available for each article.

Also, make sure that the email itself has prominent links to your various social profiles. Use call-to-action statements in the email sidebar, encouraging readers to “Follow Us on Twitter” or “Become a Fan on Facebook”. This will not only help readers connect with you socially, but also build your audience.

Once you’ve integrated your social media profiles with your email newsletters, don’t forget to cross promote and grow your audience. Remind your Twitter followers, Facebook fans, and LinkedIn network that you have an active and informative email newsletter. Once they sign up, they are likely to share the content with their extended network as well. Create content that is absolutely addictive and your email newsletter can grow into an unstoppable rebel force in generating business and the almighty dollar.