by Amy Olivieri, Regional Development Director, Constant Contact
Email is one of the best ways to get your message heard, and social media is one of the best ways to get that message to spread. Small businesses often struggle trying to choose one form of marketing over the other because of lack of resources or time constraints, but what they may not realize is that it’s not an “either/ or” proposition: success comes from a combination of email marketing and social media. When businesses leverage both together, they really start to increase visibility and reach new customers.
Following are tips to help you integrate email and social media marketing into one unified communications strategy:
Announce Your Presence
After you set up your social media accounts, let people know you’re there, and that your readers should join you there, too. Connect your Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn accounts, inserting the appropriate logos, so all readers have to do is click and find you (and hopefully join your networks). Put similar links in your email signature, which makes it easy for people to find and connect with you.
Email to Social Media
Adding social media to your marketing mix does not have to mean more work. You can— and should—repurpose newsletter content. If you archive emails or post newsletter content to your website, you can use your subject line or headline as the text for your tweet or Facebook post, with a link to the original piece.
If your newsletter contains multiple articles, break each issue into chunks and share one piece daily on social media. Almost effortlessly, you have multiple days’ worth of content to feed your social channels.
Social Media to Email
Social media can also be used to generate content for your newsletter. If customers ask questions on a social media site (or you see a question whose answer would benefit your audience) use them and your answers as the basis for newsletter articles. Also watch for industry-related trends on your social media sites and comment on them in your newsletter.
By implementing even just a few of the simple tactics outlined above, you’ll reap the rewards of having an integrated marketing strategy.
