What does social email marketing mean?

05.07.2010

How can email marketing and social networking sites be integrated?
The most common way of integrating social media is by means of a feature that allows users to share newsletter articles on one or more social networking sites. In technical speak, this feature is known as ‘Share with Your Network’ (SWYN).

The SWYN process should be designed so that the user can complete it as easily as possible. Integrating the ‘Share in...’ buttons of the networks makes child’s play of sharing and forwarding content to friends.

Is it possible to actively trigger viral effects?
Yes, provided modern email marketing solutions offer integrations with Twitter or Facebook:

Integrating email marketing with Twitter: The marketer creates his or her newsletter as normally done with the email marketing solution. At the same time, the marketer can compose tweets, which will automatically be posted on Twitter when the newsletter is sent out, directly in the newsletter template. The marketer can then decide whether he or she wants to create tweets for every article or as a summary of the newsletter. The landing page is automatically linked.



Integrating email marketing with Facebook: Inxmail GmbH is taking its specially developed Facebook application one step further: Marketers can now place their newsletters directly onto the profiles of social networkers. The advantage for Facebook users is that they can subscribe to newsletters, receive them and comment on them on Facebook without having to enter their email address.

What makes a successful campaign?
Content is king. This applies equally to email marketing, online marketing and campaigns on social networking sites: Good content presented well – that is and remains the key to success. Simply providing social networking links is no longer sufficient.

Should messages be customised?
If, as is the case on Twitter, the text length is limited, shorter texts that are tailored to social media must be developed. Apart from this, the same rules apply as in email marketing. The messages must offer the recipient a real benefit, such as exclusive information or offers that are specifically suited to the newsletter’s subscribers. This provides an incentive for users to share the content with their friends and to discuss it on the social networking site.