Integrating Social Media with Email

There is a lot of talk right now about integrating social media into emails. According to eMarketer just over 50% of respondents have implemented, or at least formulated, a strategy to connect the two power marketing channels. With only half of the executives surveyed on the bandwagon, this is a great time to get a jump on your competition.

There are quite a few reasons why adding social functionality to an email template is a great idea.

• First, it takes little-to-no effort to manage directly after you have set it up, especially if you are already monitoring the and interacting on the social media sites you send users too. 
• Secondly, there is not necessarily a lot of user overlap between the two marketing channels; those individuals you reach by email who tweet about your content may not be following you. By using two channels congruently you can expand your social media base while getting some free word of mouth. 
• Thirdly, you can compare your email service provider's analytics with your own to see which content is being shared and clicked to; any content that sticks out might just be a gem you need to replicate to create truly engaging content.

Implementation

There is at least one simple way to integrate social media into email that requires little to no knowledge of social media - AddThis is a link sharing and bookmark service that automates the process of allowing users to post information from a blog, email, or whatever to their favorite social media sites. When the user clicks the Facebook icon, for instance, they are forwarded to Facebook's link sharing page with relevant information filled in and the link ready; similar actions take place for other social sites. One great thing about AddThis is its analytics feature which allows you to track which sites your users post to as well as demographics, clicks, and top content. AddThis's integration in the email provider I use, SubscriberMail, is a little spotty as it allows little-to-no customization, but I'm sure they will work out any problems over time.

If you are trying to be either a little more creative, or a little more controlling, you can build your own tool. Create your own icons for whichever services your target audience is most likely to use, then use the following URLs for links (documentation is linked, for those I could find):

• Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/share.php?u=&t=
• Twitter: http://twitter.com/home?status=
• LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/shareArticle?mini=true&url=&title=
  &source=
• Digg: http://digg.com/submit?phase=2&;url=
• Email: mailto:?subject=&body=

There are a lot more out there but these probably cover the majority of people, especially those just starting out. For any others you may want, you can generally find the documentation on the company's site.