Powering Your Conversations Across Social Media and Email

Think about the last conversation you had with a brand. Maybe that conversation was over Twitter or via Messenger. Regardless of where it was, it probably wasn't the only conversation you were having with the company. You might have recently received an email from them or attended a webinar or live training.

The idea is that you don’t interact with brands in a bubble, just like your contacts don’t interact with you in a bubble. Your contacts are opening emails, following you on Twitter, and having conversations across all the channels you are present on.

This is where connecting your social and email marketing strategies comes in. Creating a consistent experience as well as continuing the conversation with your users should be an important part of your overall marketing plan.

Blending your social media and email marketing will only enhance the experience you are delivering to those interacting with you. Let’s look at some ways to create these consistent conversations.

How do Social and Email Connect?

When it comes to social media and email they are, simply, better together.

As two staples of your inbound marketing strategy, it makes sense that they will be powerhouses to not only creating conversations with your contacts, but also promoting the content you are sharing with them.

When inbound professionals focus all their energy on one channel, they don't capture the full picture of the conversations they're having. On the contrary, when you bring it all together, you have a full view of your contacts' buyers journey and the conversations they are having within it.

By pairing your social media and email strategies you can have an understanding of the bigger picture. For example, you can see how the email communications you're having with your audience are relating to the interactions you have on social media. You'll also be able to put a face to that email address and pay attention to their actions beyond opens and clicks, which in turn gives you a better idea of their needs.

Tie together email and social and you can:

• Use email to grow social followers and expand your reach.
• Develop the right content approach for each channel.
• Tie it all together with integrated campaigns.

You know that your contacts are exploring the internet everywhere, finding your content and sharing it. Understanding the conversations and content on each of your channels and leveraging that to grow your social followers while developing your relationships through email creates the perfect blend of using all the tools in your inbound marketing tool-belt. 

Tips on Connecting Your Social Media and Email Marketing

As an inbound professional, how can you leverage the power of social media and the ROI of email as part of your bigger marketing strategy?

Check out these tips for connecting your conversations across these two channels:

• Add click-to-tweet functionality.
• Encourage newsletter readers to share your email content.
• Run a contest on your social media sites and promote it to your email list.

Let's walk through the steps.

Add click-to-tweet functionality

Consider adding click-to-tweet functionality for certain parts of your content, giving readers the ability to easily share snippets of information to their social channels.

You have already created great content for your email. By allowing your users to share it easily, that content can spread and help you continue those conversations on other channels. Think about the last time that you read a great sentence or quote in an email and wanted to share it with your followers. Or, perhaps an idea was presented that you wanted to ask for the opinions of others. Creating a click-to-tweet will allow your users to share content you created that will inspire others.

Want to create the click-to-tweet function?

Check out how to do it in HubSpot here.

Encourage newsletter readers to share your email content

Your newsletter readers are absorbing a lot of your content at once. Creating a web-page version of your email content so someone can share out this content will enable you to gain more followers and reach wider audiences.

This is the power of bringing email and social together. You are not just creating net-new content or re-purposing existing content, but instead allowing others to share your content, thereby extending your reach. Your newsletter is a great email to use for promotion because you can gain new newsletter subscribers when that content is organically shared on social.

Want to create a web-page version of your email?

Check out how to do it here.

Run a contest on your social media sites and promote it to your email list

This is a great conversational strategy. Try running a contest on your social channels and promoting it to the contacts that are interested in that content. Or vice versa, run a contest on social media giving away something to individuals who join your mailing list during a certain time-frame. The idea is to create conversations and connections across your marketing channels.

Marrying your email and social marketing strategies is a great way to re-purpose content and show your users that you know they don’t interact with your content in a bubble.

Want to learn more about connecting conversations across channels? Check out the Inbound Marketing Certification from HubSpot Academy.