6 Social Networking Tactics for Email Marketers

Posted by Marc Kline

There are plenty of people writing about how to leverage social networks for profit, so I won’t waste your time rehashing them.

Instead, I’d like to share some tips about what I know best - email marketing - and some ways to bridge some social networking tactics to your campaigns that can make a real difference in the results you see at the end of the day.

Take a look and see if you can implement some or all of them to your campaign today.

How to Make Your Email Campaigns More Social

Place a small headshot image next to your signature

Every social networking site has a place for your picture. So does your email! Show those pearly whites right next to your signature to infuse some more personality into your email.

It may seem like a minor change, because it is, but subtle changes like this (like creative personalization, geographic targeting, and other subtle tricks) can contribute to a waterfall effect when used together.

Start a group on a social networking site (e.g. Facebook, MySpace) your subscribers can join

Social network Email, by nature of it’s technical specs, is a one-to-one communication tool. Even when you send to thousands of people, it’s usually important to write your copy as if you’re talking to one subscriber personally.

Social networking, on the other hand, is a many-to-many communication tool, which differentiates it from the conventional web and email experience and contributes to its popularity.

Would your subscribers be even more engaged with your content if they could discuss it with one another? Would they then share it with their friends on the social networking sites they use?

Hint: Having your subscribers communicate with one another may get them more interested in your content without you having to do any more work.

Interact with your subscribers

Walkie Talkie Cans Just because email is one-to-one doesn’t mean it has to be one way. Remember that people can always hit reply to anything you send them. Take advantage of that fact. Ask them for feedback.

You can also use polls and surveys, and include the results and subscriber feedback in your future messages. TV and radio programs do this sort of thing to keep you tuned during commercials.

Even though the time between our emails last at least a little longer than 30 seconds (or at least it should!), this is a great way to keep your subscribers “tuned in”.

Write like a real, live person

You are real and live, right? You aren’t a robot like these guys over the on the right, are you?

Well, don’t be afraid to write like it! Remember to connect and relate with your subscribers, and be approachable. Of course, you can overdo it with the personal information, but too often I see email marketers underachieving on this front.

Network with other content providers

Networking with others with similar interests, of course, is natural on a social networking platform. It’s not necessarily so with email, when we’re focused on getting our newsletter out on time with relevant content.

Still, there are many potential benefits to linking up with non-competitor authorities in your industry. Think: ideas for content to fill your newsletters with, possible guest writing opportunities that help build your list, and a word of mouth campaign that builds your authority and rapport (with real live, humans… and robots…really, like Google).

Link up your social networking profiles

Are you a social networking addict yourself? Do you Twitter, have a Facebook account, or share pictures related to your website or business on Flickr?

Unless you have some serious skeletons in your closet, try making use of your email newsletter’s sidebar, signature, or footer and throw in a few links.

If you write your content like someone your subscribers can get to know and trust (see #4), and someone they want to be associated with, you just might make some new friends (and get exposure to friends of friends, and friends of their friends, and so on).

What is This List Missing?

I can give a partial answer: your ideas! You’ll have to fill in the rest.

Are you a social networking addict? Have you used Myspace, Twitter (some of us do - see Tom, Sean, and Justin), or Facebook (join our group!) for your business?

Please share so we can all benefit from eachother’s thoughts on this topic. Contribute to the discussion below.

Tags: list building, multichannel marketing, social media, strategy

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45 Responses

Aaron Abber
June 20th, 2008 at 12:25 pm

Marc,

Great article.

But I have a question:

With some rare exceptions when I have looked closely at the people saying "social networks are a great marketing tool" the amount of time necessary to add and maintain a social network when one is starting from a relatively small position seems to out-weigh the benefits.

It seems this strategy works better when one already has a large following. Am I missing something or is this good advice for newbies as well?

You n00b friend,

Aaron

PS: Do you have a personal "I Love Marc" fan club I can join?

PSS: How come you used Justin’s pic in the article and not yours–are you hiding for an Ex or did you have a disfiguring accident?
Marc Kline
June 20th, 2008 at 2:20 pm

My Friend Aaron,

I’ve seen plenty of small businesses , including local restaurants and mom and pop shops, make lots of friends and generate some buzz on social networking sites. But the degree of success a business can attain probably varies upon a number of factors, and size very well could be one of them.

Still, the amount of work required is probably going to be dictated by the amount of people interacting with you. It could take you only minutes to upload a few pictures and write up a quick profile about you and what you do, especially if you have already written a bio on your website.

Just like we suggest to new users of email marketing, I say get *something* up and see what kind of results you get with a basic set up. Put up a profile and link it in some of your emails. Let your own results dictate how much or how little time you dedicate to it as you move forward.

You can always get your feet wet first to see what the water is like before doing a cannonball into the pool!

P.S.

I can’t speak of any scary ex or disfiguring accident — I just had one of Justin’s emails handy. I thought about putting together something just for this post , but my pic *is* kind of bad. Actually, I was sick for "class picture day" here at the office, and it shows!

P.P.S.

There is no "I Love Marc" club, but there is some sweet irony involved with your comment. Let’s just say you should see how next week, and no, I’m not launching my own fan club (though I don’t discourage others from starting one) Ha!
Aaron Abber
June 20th, 2008 at 2:36 pm

Marc,

Justin emailed me pointing out how I’ve had my own success with social network marketing in terms of comments on blogs. Which is true. (Don’t let it go to his head, OK? He’s right so little that one victory and he thinks he’s God’s gift to email.)

My comment was more about building a network at places like FaceyBook. And you are right: Put it out there and see what happens. I guess maybe I focus so much on building my list in more "traditional" ways I haven’t really given FB and other sites a chance.

And if you need to substitute a pic for the one you have above, try one of Bob Dylan.
Bryan Ellis
June 20th, 2008 at 3:04 pm

A really good way to integrate Aweber-based email marketers with MySpace is to publish all of your emails to an RSS feed, then using a tool like RSSOnMySpace.com you can include the feed in your MySpace page. A very similar strategy has been driving a small, but steady flow of traffic for me recently.
John Rodriguez
June 20th, 2008 at 4:23 pm

Hi Aaron,

Marc has a good point with "get *something* up and see what kind of results you get".

If you’re thinking about Facebook specifically, create your business Page (as opposed to creating a Group) and drop in some information. Looking at your website, it looks like you’ve got video, and I saw something in there about podcasts as well.

You can upload that stuff to your FB page to get it started. There are RSS feed aggregator apps for FB that you can add to your page as well:
http://www.facebook.com/apps/index.php?q=rss

Then start hitting up your FB friends to get them to sign up as fans (of course, first become a fan yourself). You’ll probably also want to promote your page on your website, and encourage your regular visitors to become fans as well.

Obviously, you’ve got an email list as well… In your next newsletter, put in a promo for your FB page and encourage your subscribers to become fans.
Cenay Nailor
June 20th, 2008 at 5:26 pm

Marc, could I address Aaron without offending?

Aaron, I started recently on MySpace and Facebook with ZERO following. As a test, I put only 15 minutes per day into building the page, inviting people to be friends, comments on their blog/page/profile.

It took consistent effort (what doesn’t?) but pretty soon, I wasn’t the one doing the work. Others were asking ME to be a friend. Acceptance means I can message or comment on their site. If I have a great offer, I let them know (after a few personal comments/messages) and point them to my capture page. Of course, on that capture page is an opt in box for my AWeber list (one of I should say).

Yes, it takes a little work. But YES, it is worth it. My MySpace marketing (for example) brings in $700 to $1000 a month, for about 2 hours a WEEK’s work.

Just my two cents.
Rich
June 20th, 2008 at 11:29 pm

So… how do we have our pics show up beside our names on comments on this blog? (like the staff)

lol…
Tarik
June 20th, 2008 at 11:34 pm

I didn’t know Gmail allowed you to include images in your footer. I will consider adding a picture of myself to build more trust around my newsletter.

Thanks for the suggestions.
Links Saturday 21th June 2008 | Pachecus.com
June 21st, 2008 at 11:25 am

[...] 6 Social Networking Tactics for Email Marketers [...]
Aaron Abber
June 23rd, 2008 at 6:46 am

John and Cenay,

Thanks for the great tips. You guys have me convinced I need to try this one out. I have a product launch Friday, but I will try putting social network marketing into my routine in July and see results I get.
Sylvie
June 23rd, 2008 at 4:28 pm

Wow! The tactics #2 seems particularly interesting. I think seriously to use it!
Bryan Hee
June 24th, 2008 at 10:30 am

Twitter created buzz in the social networking. It’s doesn’t require "fancy" language. You can send "sms" to update your readers. It’s user friendly and even can send "sms" from your mobile phone. Great tool to update and interate with your readers 24/7,365 days.
Mark Lee
June 24th, 2008 at 11:33 am

Good advice here. Thanks for that. I’m active on a number of ONLINE networking sites - one (Facebook) is more ’social’. The others are business focused (eg: LinkedIN, Ecademy, AccountingWeb).

One thing I’ve learned from my membership of these sites is that email marketing is only one aspect of marketing. We need to be clear as to the objective of our emails. They will often be a ‘call to action’. Often our objective is to maximise the number of recipients who will take that action.

To do this we need to first take the opportunity afforded by the online networks to create or enhance our reputation within relevant communities. In this context, relevant means those that we hope will be receptive to our email marketing. Spamming them will be counter-productive.
Gail Goodman
June 24th, 2008 at 11:48 am

HI all. I’ve used social marketing to get listed on google. I wrote on one yesterday and 21 hours later I was #10 on page one. I alwaus check the first page though sometimes I get second page. You must must try doing a lens on http://www.squidoo.com. It also got me on page one of google second spot. Please take my advice and do it and the next day check page one and two. Maybe I was just lucky but its worked several times!
Nancy
June 24th, 2008 at 11:51 am

Great info especially #4…Thanks for confirming that one issue that many over look…
Jon Rognerud
June 24th, 2008 at 5:20 pm

Great tips, thanks! I love aweber - have been using it for over 3 years now.

On a related note, I think that Squidoo (@Gail Goodman comment above) has become somewhat spammy. The key though - is to test, as you mention.

A way to see how much spam (often seeded by ‘viagra’) is placed, try a search in Google with keyword + site reference, like this: "viagra" site:http://www.squidoo.com — it will return the pages referencing the keyword(s). You can then visit them and see that they are ‘bogus’ profiles (spam). The domain can be replaced with any domain you seek to check.

Compare this search to a human edited search engine like Mahalo.com — like this: "viagra" site:http://www.mahalo.com — and you’ll notice the viagra references are not "spam".
Lukeither
June 24th, 2008 at 10:14 pm

Hello, since email is an economical means of marketing for people that have a low marketing budget, adding a picture to your email signature is a very professional marketing tactic.

I’ve added my pic to two of my emails that was a great marketing tip.

I also received so much more from the comments. I am a web designer/developer and am a novice blogger and have been stumbling onto a lot of invaluable informatin just like this one.

Thanks Marc.
Nick Grimshawe
June 25th, 2008 at 1:02 am

Thanks for the great info. I will definitely look into putting my picture beside my sig file. And I like the idea of marketing your social networks as well. I usually put up a contact list with my email, IM’s and phone # but I will now include a couple of social networks.
Tamsin
June 25th, 2008 at 7:46 am

Thank you for sharing the tips. Just as it is with sending out emails, I wanted to endorse what Mark Lee says re: not spamming or even over selling on social networks. There is an etiquette and it’s all about building up relationships and posting comments and information which is of value to others.

There is a really good free training programme teaching all the latest in social marketing ideas and techniques that’s going on at the minute, which I’m sure you guys at Aweber will know all about as Aweber is often mentioned - I don’t think there’s anything like it elsewhere on the internet, just great teaching and people freely giving of their time to help others. It’s called the Thirty Day Challenge and I hope you don’t mind my mentioning it here, but it really is a brilliant example of how to use social networking correctly, and could help a lot of your readers/clients. I’m not linked to it in any one, just participating in it.

Thanks again for your tips.
Marc Kline
June 25th, 2008 at 8:53 am

Thanks for all the great comments. @Lukeither I’m especially glad you’ve found value in these comments. I hate to feel like a talking head because I’m sure everyone out there together as a whole have better ideas than I alone.

Here are two other random thoughts I’ve pondered over the past day or so on this subject:

* What about publishing an archive of newsletters on your social networking blog (available on some platforms) or linking to some on your website? Of course, each newsletter should have a link of some sort to drive interested viewers to a sign up form.

* Our recommended approach to email marketing and the way social networks are typically used for word of mouth marketing have a lot in common. For one, they both tend to focus on promoting branding through content that is valuable to the viewer independent of any product or service we’re selling.

Any other random thoughts or suggestions anyone would like to share?
Nina
June 26th, 2008 at 1:23 pm

Good ideas. I have 2 questions:
1- How do I insert an image into my signature file? I haven’t seen that option in my Sig File settings.
2- I’ve been trying to implement Social Bookmarking onto my sites, especially my health blog (hosted by Blogger). I can’t figure out how to get the icons like Digg and Delicious and Reddit and Technorati (and others) onto my blog posts. Any suggestions?

Thanks!
Bernie
June 26th, 2008 at 9:21 pm

Great article and ideas - all round.

re Nina and the social bookmarking links.. I had the same problem and then found this:

http://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php

It’s basically a widget which lets folks add your site to a what looks like most of the social bookmarking sites.

That’s a great idea about RSS On Myspace etc.. thanks
Nina
June 28th, 2008 at 1:28 am

Thanks, Bernie. I’m not sure I understand how to use that page you gave me. I click on the links to the various social bookmarking sites, and they want me to register.

What I need to know is how to create icons/buttons to put at the bottom of my blog posts so that others can "tag them" to their bookmarking site of choice. All news sites and most blogs have this feature. It must be easy if millions of people make it happen, but darned if I can figure it out.

Every internet marketing company gives tips that make it sound easy to implement new steps. "Just throw something together", "just" publish your emails to an RSS feed, etc.
For the average person trying to do business online, most of these so-called simple steps require many details that are never explained simply.

That’s my soapbox, and where I’m getting stuck. Any very basic tips are appreciated!
Bernie
June 30th, 2008 at 8:02 am

Hi Nina, sorry - I wasn’t terribly clear, click the link at the bottom of the addthis.com page marked "get your own AddThis Button", then on the next page the light blue "get your button" link … then you can pick a style, register an email address and it’ll make a little bit of code to paste into your page which adds a link to all the current social networking sites.

I *think* the addthis.com site then even lets you know which links were clicked but I haven’t sussed that yet. You can see it in action on my site - http://www.acidgfx.com on the right hand side.

Hope that helps
Dylan
August 3rd, 2008 at 3:19 am

Excellent Ideas. Many people mentioned Twitter, I think that is a great tool for interacting with your subscribers.

Just add a ‘Follow me on Twitter here’ at the end of every mail you send.

I think setting up a facebook group specifically for your sub lists or list is a pretty good idea to allow them to interact with YOU and WITHIN themselves.
Debbie
September 10th, 2008 at 12:09 pm

Hi,

I recently added a pic to my sig block in outlook. It really makes your sig alot more friendly…so thanks for the tip!

But a question, several people have told me that a box with an x shows up when they open my e-mail versus my pic.

Any tips on how to solve this problem?

Thanks so much!
Marc Kline
September 10th, 2008 at 3:14 pm

Debbie,

Thanks for the heads up letting me know you’re trying out a tip. Feedback like that makes my day.

Concerning your question about the red X that sometimes appears over your image, check out this article for some insight:

http://www.aweber.com/faq/questions/419/Why+Should+I+Always+Provide+Alternative+Text+for+My+Images%3F

Basically they, like many, probably have images off by default for HTML email. If they add you to their address book or contacts list, or if they have an option to set to always display images from you, that may help.
S
September 18th, 2008 at 2:18 am

Great work Marc! These tips will definitely help the Email marketers.

In my point, social networking is impacting Email marketing. Actually social networking sites and blogs help businesses to directly communicate with qualified potential customers. On the other hand, in Email marketing you are not sure whether you have reached to your potential customer or not. Even in your tips, you are using social networking sites as a base for email marketing.
Josh
October 2nd, 2008 at 1:12 am

One surprisingly simple approach that has worked extremely well for me is to simply ask subscribers for their questions in the welcome email. I ask every new subscriber for two questions with a promise to answer the questions in an upcoming newsletter. The result has been improved interactions and, more importantly (for me), I ALWAYS have good content for my blog and newsletter. No more writer’s block!
alexander
November 20th, 2008 at 1:23 pm

Excellent tip about bringing the social site style headshot pic into your email signature. That gives it a much more personal feel and builds the connection.

Also, on these sites like Facebook and MySpace is sometimes the only way to reach certain authorities in your market. Then of course you can do partnerships, link swaps, blog post swaps, and many other possibilities come to light.
Aaron Day
January 16th, 2009 at 7:59 pm

This is response to Aaron Abber’s question about time vs. results.

These social networks, social bookmarks and social messaging can be a huge time-sponge, especially Twitter as most of the communication is meaningless and it’s really easy to Twit away hours of time, however in today’s world we all must (or should) be involved on the web, to attempt to impact our world in a more positive way.

I can attest to this though, I’ve met more people on-line that have had a positive effect on my business, through these new (ish) networks, in a shorter period of time than in all the 15 years that I had a static website with a "Contact Us" form. Having said that, an integrated website/blog/social networking strategy is the key to leveraging both time and effort.

Btw: Now you can add widgets to a site or blog that add tremendous value to the your target market, in terms of being able to establish your cred.
Scot McKay
January 22nd, 2009 at 3:46 am

I have really grown to love Twitter as an e-mail marketer. It’s like having an open forum to communicate as a real, live human being to literally thousands of people at once.

Simply start a conversation and those who wish to join in are welcome to do so. It really helps add the personal connection, especially for those on your e-mail list. And there’s no need to do any hard-selling. In fact, that’s almost counterproductive.
Clive Praed
January 22nd, 2009 at 5:15 am

A very interesting post.

However, I have been advised that, if I want to get my email read, NEVER use an html email - only use plain text.
This I am now doing so this negates the pic thing.

Everything you say, in theory, is correct. In practice it never seems to work out.

1. In 2 years I have never had any communication from anyone on my list.

2. In two years nobody has ever bought anything. LOL - I call Aweber "dead money". Must just be luck.

3. In two years nobody has ever even signed up for a free membership from an email.

4. In four years of promoting Aweber I have not had one sign up from my link - mind you, I’ve not had one single affiliate sale in four years, either.

Your post is very accurate - if we lived in a perfect world. We don’t.

I do "Twitter" - Well, I click on the odd ‘follow me’ and have ‘follow me on my blogs, but I have no idea what it actually does. I just click on ‘follow me’ and that’s the end.
I never know if anyone has clicked on mine or not.

As for the other so-called "Social Sites", well, I’m over 16 so I’m far too old for any of them.
Ted Raiter
January 22nd, 2009 at 5:26 am

thanks for the post and the comments — (we even got one from the famed Aaron Day!)

one thing I’m curious about, that i guess was addressed earlier and i missed (?)

a lot of the really talented email marketers will just say flatly "always use text, not html" for deliverability reasons.

i imagine that an image being coded into the html (and drawn from elsewhere) doesn’t hurt deliverability, but does aweber have any stats on deliverability of the two formats?

(sorry for the nOOb question, but what is the point of a pretty email that no one receives?)

i reckon this is aweber’s business (deliverability) and by creating dual formats aweber overcomes this somewhat….but if there were NO loss, why would so many of the "experts" advise on just sticking with text when html offers so much more flexibility? resistence to change or something real?

thanks for your post.
Jane
January 22nd, 2009 at 9:14 am

Thanks for the great list and tips. I just started by making a personal page for Facebook so I could see how all this works. Now I’m going to put up a page for my business and then I can fire it up by asking some friends from the other one to become fans.

My input to the discussion is that I am a 60-something who felt that this was probably wasted effort since my target audience - folks over 50 - wouldn’t ever see me in Social networks. WRONG!!! My personal FB page filled up rapidly with peers from around the world. I’m not sure Twitter will be valuable since texting is slow moving with the older generation, but I’ll try it also.

This forum is great because ordinary people (sorry Marc- but you are a techie) give us lots of good tips and hints learned the hard way.
Malia
January 22nd, 2009 at 10:15 am

Great points. I have loved the results of using twitter and facebook in my campaigns. I have seen that my twitter and facebook "friends and followers" who are also my newsletter readers are my MOST responsive group. They love the longer e-newsletters occasionally, but also like the little announcements about specials and such that come through FB and twitter.

I have been working to find the balance between sending too many emails about specials, sales and giveaways and sending my more "meaty ones" that my readers love. Using Twitter and FB for the quick sales and such has been the answer.

Also, thanks for adding the Twitter tie in for the newsletters. I am getting new subscribers that way. Some tweets and FBers do not even realize I have a website out there, especially when they add me as a friend through another friend’s link. As soon as that monthly email hits twitter, I get more sign ups.

Great discussion!
Malia Russell
Twitter: MaliaMR
David
January 22nd, 2009 at 6:49 pm

Hey Marc… it shows on top Justin’s pic next to his email sig…

Is is possible to do this in our sig using the "global fields"

…How do we add our pic to our sig??

Thanks!!
Marc Kline
January 23rd, 2009 at 9:15 am

David,

Including a picture in your message requires the use of HTML, and currently Global Fields are suited only for plain text.

If you’re able to get around in HTML, I might recommend adding your picture to one of your messages, then save the HTML used to put that picture in your message as a text snippet on your computer. From there, you can copy and paste it into messages at will.

The alternative would be to create your own customized HTML message, either from scratch or from one of our templates, and include your picture in the signature section. Then, when you’re looking to create a new message, use our copy feature to duplicate your customized message and enter the new content you’re looking to send.
marifa
February 7th, 2009 at 9:12 am

Hello Marc,

I am a novice incomputer to be honest and for the past five months I am learning and still have to learn a lot of things in this field. You
see I am an MLM networker and since I have this computer I’ve been trying to find ways to expand my small business and earn a little bit more if not much. By searching on the web, I got some ideas on how to do it but have not started yet. In fact, I found aweber very helpful and learning a lot from Justin.

Thanks a lot…
{!firstname}, Think Before You Personalize - Inbox Ideas: Email Marketing Tips by AWeber
February 11th, 2009 at 3:03 pm

[...] I’ll be honest here and say I haven’t tested it in quite a while - partly because other tests are more interesting or exciting (like testing what happens when you add social networking links to your emails). [...]
Pete
March 5th, 2009 at 3:23 pm

Hey Guys,

Thanks for the great tips. I’m going to add a small picture to my outgoing Aweber e-mails right now. I have also been planning to start a Facebook group, but have been putting it off. Thanks for the reminder and for validating it is a good idea.
Bryan Hee
March 6th, 2009 at 1:40 am

The money is in the relationhips with your list. Two way communication is vital for us to provide solution what your list want and solve their problem.

Polls and surveys is the best way to collect feedback from your list and know their problems and needs. The money will come if we solve their problem or satisfy their needs.
Michael
March 22nd, 2009 at 2:05 pm

Great article. I am seriously considering getting the AWEBER marketing system since it offers plenty of advantages. Kudos!
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March 24th, 2009 at 9:05 am

[...] styles and locations for your calls to action, adding a headshot to your email (one of our social networking tactics for email marketers), or whatever other split tests you believe may impact your campaigns’ [...]
Reason 9,785 Why You HAVE To Get In Subscribers’ Address Books - Inbox Ideas: Email Marketing Tips by AWeber
June 3rd, 2009 at 2:32 pm

[...] So is coming across as a real person (see our social networking tips for email marketers). [...]