Beyond the Social Sharing Button

In our age of social media, with the opportunity to instantly comment, like, or share, it easy to forget about the social channel where it all began: email. While it is remarkably easy to reach mass amounts of people through social platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, email as a marketing channel still has the highest click-through rates, conversion rates, and ROI than any other channel, as this article on Business to Community points out.

Social media’s appeal and engagement comes from the ability to quickly and very easily create content available to a large audience. The easy-to-read, scrolldown nature of most social media platforms calls for content that is short, sweet and to the point. Emails, on the other hand, require a little bit more. The time it takes to open an email is already equivalent to the time it takes to scroll through about four or five Tweets. So, the act of reading a lengthy email, as opposed to a whopping 160 character Tweet, demands an entire new level of engagement, which is why creating original email content can seem like such a daunting task.

Not to fear! There are ways to easily create appealing email content that requires nothing more than a little bit of social integration. Social integration, however, means much more than the few social media buttons strategically placed at the bottom of the email. Email social integration is the simple recirculation of already great social media content. From YouTube videos, to Instagram photos, to Facebook updates, brand-made social media content that has already proven to be successful can serve as a simple way to more deeply engage email subscribers. In return, user engagement generated from previous social media endeavors can serve as even stronger content to boost email marketing campaigns.

Here are a few tips that will take you beyond the social share button and guide you into truly integrating social in your email content. Continue reading...

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