The sharing of information is an integral part of marketing and the way people choose to share information is continually changing. When planning an email strategy, you should definitely ask, “how does your audience/subscribers share information?”
According to a recent Marketing Sherpa case study on a SmartBrief campaign, the answer may likely include social networks. The study showed a 25% lift in sharing when social networks were included, compared to clicks to forward an article via email only.
Here are the six steps to taken by SmartBrief to develop their social sharing functionality and measure reader interaction:
Step 1:Identify the most relevant social networks
Don’t clutter your email with too many social sharing options. According to the study, the top three social networks among newsletter subscribers were LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter.
Step 2: Point shared links to article summary pages
SmartBrief placed share buttons at the end of each article summary page, rather than one share button that posted the entire newsletter to a subscriber’s network. This allowed subscribers to choose which articles they wanted to share. The team also make the share button upload to a link to the article summary page instead of the original source so they could generate traffic to their own website and introduce non-subscribers to the value already provided to their audience.
Step 3: Use focus group to test new newsletter templates
The team created multiple template mock ups incorporating the share buttons then asked for feedback as to whether the panel recognized the icons and if they had interacted with similar buttons in the past.
Step 4: Stagger social sharing launch across newsletter titles
With more than 100 newsletter titles, the team did not want to roll out the new feature on all of them without further testing. They gradually added more and more titles with the social sharing functionality, each time sending a note to those subscribers highlighting the new feature and providing instructions on how to use the new buttons.
Step 5: Track shared article metrics
Once the buttons were active on newsletter, the team monitored how subscribers used the new sharing feature.
Step 6: Use sharing data to provide additional content
Social media sharing became another source of content for newsletter subscribers. The clicks on the social media share buttons became an element that factored in to a “Most Clicked” story.
Sharing content through social media is a great way to get your content to your audience. Try utilizing this case study as a reference for how to build your own email strategy with social sharing. Please let me know your thoughts and comments!
twitter
facebook
linkedin