Whitepaper. 10 ways to integrate marketing and social media

Transcription

1 Whitepaper 10 ways to integrate marketing and social media

2 10 ways to integrate marketing and social media If your company is looking at and social media as two separate and parallel channels to distribute your content, than you re missing out on a lot of opportunities. A clear multichannel strategy welcomes the unique opportunities of each channel and uses one channel to boost the other. In this whitepaper we ll give you 10 tips that you can use immediately to unite your social media and marketing. Social media have one weakness. You re just renting space. With you create and send a message, and you know exactly who received it. With social media you don t have that luxury. The control is extremely limited. Social networks use algorithms to determine whether a person gets to see a specific message. After you have done all the work to get a fan, Facebook comes in to determine who gets to see what information. That s why it is so important to convert your social connections into contacts. By giving your fans the possibility to receive your content directly into their inbox, you can deepen those relationships. Thay way, you also get more control about how you communicate with them online. Make sure that the subscription possibilities are easy, clear and visible. 1. Converting fans and followers into contacts On Facebook you have the possibility to add extra tabs. By placing a subscription form on your facebook page, it will always be visible at the top of the page. Unfortunately Twitter doesn t have the option to add widgets like Facebook does.. But you can easily alternate your subscription form with your regular tweets. The most direct way is to tweet and occasionally ask your followers to subscribe. Simply use a url shortener like bit.ly to directly link to your form. Also clearly state the benefit of the subscription. 1

3 LinkedIn groups are very neat when you re looking for people who are interested in a specific topic in order to widen your reach. Especially when you know that 81% of Linkedin users are a member of at least 1 group. You can create your own LinkedIn groups to promote discussions about your company or business, or you can become a member of other groups. Share content with the members of those groups that will encourage them to subscribe to your newsletter. 2

4 2. Start a conversation about your content Just sharing the link of an article is not always good enough. Try to get a conversation going about a specific article in your message. By drafting a recap of the article and asking for feedback, you ll get more reactions, and your content will also be visible for the social connections of those fans. 3. Sell exclusive content before sending out your newsletter Would you like to add an exceptionally good piece of content, a coupon or a special announcement to your newsletter? Definitely make your social media followers curious a few days before. Of course this strategy doesn t work as well as intended if you re already sharing your entire newsletter or some articles each month. This piece content would no longer be exclusive. Think about when and how you re going to share your content. 4. Talk about your newsletter in a video Online video is a quick and easy way to give your communication a human side and to offer your fans a look behind the scenes. You can also use video to mention your newsletter to the people who missed your subscription form. Talk about an interesting topic from your next in your video, place it on Youtube and share it on your social media pages. And don t forget to encourage your audience to subscribe to your newsletter! 3

5 5. Promote the design of your newsletter on Pinterest If you re already active on Pinterest, then you know that it s a fun tool to show off your graphic design. Consider creating a new board on Pinterest where you can pin the design of your newsletter each month. Include the link to your subscription form every time! 6. Let your contacts share Social media like Facebook, Twitter en LinkedIn allow you to add sharing buttons to your newsletter. With these sharing buttons you can easily widen the reach of your campaign. In order to that, you of course have to create content and offers that are relevant to your audience and that they find relevant to share with their own network. You can include sharing buttons for your entire newsletters or just for specific articles in that newsletter. 7. Mention -only promotions Show your contacts that you appreciate them by offering them exclusive content from time to time. You can use this exclusive content in your social media posts, with a link to your subscription form. 8. Provide multiple subscription forms on your website When your followers click on a link to your website or blog, that have to find a subscription form on that specific page. Provide a subscription form for every page on which you offer content, like whitepapers or blog articles. People that took the time to click on a link to read more of your content, are always worth the extra effort. They are already interested and should be able to convert to an contact. 4

6 9. Forward to a friend This is a bit of an old school tactic, but too many marketeers are still not benefiting from this neat little feature. Content that is sent by friends or family gets more opens and reactions. Of course you should again include content that is interesting and relevant. The contacts that receive this should be able to easily subscribe to your newsletter as well. Consider to include a link to your subscription form next to your forward link. 10. Use video Linking to a video can be a fun little extra. But just as with social media, using video because it s popular isn t a good argument. If you re going to add video, that video should contribute to a positive reading experience for your contacts. Usually people add a screenshot of the video as an image that links to the video on youtube or vimeo. But an animated gif or a vine video also work well. Just keep it short and powerful. This is . A reader isn t going to take the time to watch a very long video. Optimize the experience, be concise and if possible, try to stick to the 30-second rule. Go mobile! Smartphones and tablets have a big influence on the online behavior of users. People are even online when they are on the go, and they often spend time in their inbox, on the web, and on social media. If you re going to share the content from your newsletter on social media and vice versa, it s important that that user has the same online experience on every medium. That s why you also need to adapt your design to mobile. Fortunately that is very easy in Flexmail! 5