Facebook and Email: Part 2 of 2

As mentioned in my first post about using Facebook in conjunction with your email marketing program, here are a couple more tactics for bringing the two channels together.

Do it “like” this
We all want to be “liked,” right? In addition to sharing our emails, it’s possible to simply “like” them. Facebook’s “Like” buttons can be incorporated into emails, and in some cases, that “liking” activity can be tracked via the ESP.

Comparing “Like” vs. “Share.” The benefits to an email sender of a recipient hitting the “Like” button in an email are similar to that of sharing, but it’s less of a commitment for the recipient. The recipient simply hits the “Like” button and the link to the web version of the email campaign appears on their profile page and also in their friends’ news feed. The difference is that there isn’t a place for a recipient to add in their personal endorsement when the “Like” button is used. So your recipient is still spreading the word about your content and passing it along to their network, but they aren’t asked to take the step of giving an endorsement.

Send it on Facebook
Just announced on Monday, April 25, 2011, is the “send” button for distributing website content within Facebook to a select group of friends.  To use this functionality, you would need to have a URL for your message (the “view as a web version” of the campaign) or embed this button within the landing page that’s a part of the email campaign.  To entice your recipients to “send it to a subset of their Facebook friends,” it will be imperative that you not only give them a reason to do so, but explain why they should keep the message exclusive to a select group instead of “liking” it and sharing with all of their Facebook friends. It’ll be interesting to see how this functionality evolves. Here’s the link to the Facebook developer’s page with more information.

Convert email subscribers to Facebook fans
Just as you’ve converted Facebook fans to email subscribers by including an email sign-up form on your Facebook page, it’s possible to drive email subscribers to your Facebook page and connect with them on the social networking site as well.

By adding an email subscriber as a fan of your Facebook page you’ve created an additional touch point with one of your more engaged customers. This is an opportunity to have a more immediate dialogue with an engaged customer. It’s also an opportunity to speak directly with them and with a greater frequency than through email campaigns. In the end, it doesn’t matter which came first – the email subscription or Facebook fan connection. A customer who engages with you in both channels is very valuable and should be treated accordingly in both places.

Got another idea (or two) for blending Facebook with your email marketing program? Leave a comment on this blog post or a note on my Facebook wall.

Facebook and Email: Part 1 of 2

For the sake of discussion, I’m going to assume you’ve heard of Facebook. But just so we’re all clear, it’s a “social networking service and website” (to quote Wikipedia) that connects people to their friends, family members, co-workers, etc. for the purposes of sharing information about their daily lives.

But can it really help your email marketing program? Of course! Here are a couple of tactics for using Facebook to enhance your email marketing program – and vice versa. This post is part 1 of 2. More tactics will be posted this time next week.

Email sign-up forms in your business’s page
This is low-hanging fruit. If you have a Facebook page for your business, incorporate a sign-up form for your email marketing program into the page. Some email software providers (ESPs) have a means for users to build the form directly into your page. Otherwise, link to it from your welcome tab.

By doing this, you’ve converted a Facebook fan into an email subscriber and have an additional channel by which to communicate with them.

Make your email messages shareable
You’ve created a fantastic email campaign and want to enable your recipients to share this message on Facebook. (You’ll first need to create content that your recipients will want to share. What’s considered shareworthy will vary from sender to sender, and even recipient to recipient. That’s an entirely separate posting, but here’s a link with concepts for sharing B-to-B content. Some of the ideas could apply to B-to-C as well.)

To be able to share your content or message on Facebook, you need to use the share URL that Facebook has created. By doing this, it will create a preview of your content, which can then be posted to a Facebook profile or sent as a direct message.
The simplest way to give a subscriber the option to share your link is to add this code into your email:

http://www.facebook.com/share.php?u=URL

Just replace URL with the link you want to share. In the case of an email message, it would be the URL to view your message online. Don’t forget to include a call to action to “share this message”, preferably using a Facebook icon or linked text.

For example here is the link for the blog post of this message arranged so you can share it on Facebook.

Share this post on Facebook

When you create a link such as that, a preview window will open with optional image selections from the page URL provided. There will also be a place for your email recipient to include their thoughts as to why this link is worth viewing. Once they hit the “share” button in that window, the link is posted to their Facebook profile profile, their wall is updated and the URL will appear in the news feed of their friends with your recipients’ endorsement. Your message now has a personal referral to your recipient’s Facebook network!

Showing up in multiple news feeds is when you start to leverage your recipients’ entire friend list. This process has the potential to move virally as people leave comments or share the item with their friends and family – and so on and so on.

---

Got another idea (or two) for blending Facebook with your email marketing program? Leave a comment or post to my Facebook wall. Otherwise, stayed tuned next week for a couple more ways Facebook can enhance your email marketing program.