Be a Social Media Rock Star: 4 Ways

One way to get more social media friends, followers, fans and fervor is to leverage your email marketing campaigns.

Flickr/Andrew J Ferguson

My email marketing company, VerticalResponse, truly believes that email and social media go together hand in hand. Why? Because your messages need to be where your prospects and customers are reading them, no matter what channel they like to pay attention to. And if the stats are right, Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin alone will reach over 1.5 billion consumers in 2012.

So I came up with four little tidbits you can do with your email marketing campaign to get more friends, followers, fans and fervor.

1. Be Proactive

Send a "like me" or "recommend me" email campaign to drive people to your Facebook page. Use a template like the one you see below. (This is just one of more than 700 free email templates that VerticalResponse offers.) It's important to have a presence on Facebook since it's the No. 1 social media network that your customers and prospects are using on a daily basis.

Give your followers and fans a reason to "Like" you by giving them a coupon or special offer. A few other ideas to get people to visit your page:

2. Incentivize Your Twitter Followers

Similarly, send a "follow me on Twitter" email campaign with one solo message: Get special deals if you follow us. Using a template like this one here makes designing it a snap.

3. Button Up

In every email campaign you send, include "follow me" buttons that link to your social media profiles. It has become as common as including your phone number, URL and address. Side note: Include the buttons in your customer service emails that you send out when a customer has a question.

4. Pin Your Emails

If you're on Pinterest (like we are!), post the hosted version link of your email to a board. Choose the offer or article you want to show, and in the pin description make sure you use your keywords so that if someone is searching Pinterest for your products just like they'd search Google, they'll find your products or business.

Integrating your email marketing and your social media efforts is the smartest and easiest thing to do to maximize the time you spend setting up your marketing. Do you have any ideas to share? Love to hear them!

Janine Popick is the CEO and founder of VerticalResponse, a leading provider of self-service e-mail and event marketing, online surveys, social media, and direct mail solutions. The company was ranked No. 1,771 on the 2011 Inc. 5000 list. @janinepopick