by Ron Daly
So, you've probably heard the bad news by now. Email is "going away", according to Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg. I know, you're stunned. Apparently the message delivery systems that send almost 2.8 million emails per second are just going to wither and die because the Facebook lady says so. What are we going to do?
Okay, I'm being sarcastic. But you can't argue that Facebook and its ilk are popular (and easy) ways to get your website content out there. One button and one piece of content can jack up your readership on an article or post. So, how can you make your email content easier to share?
More and more businesses are integrating social media sharing into their email messages and sharing their messages in social streams. Take a look at this chart from eMarketer daily:
These are all fairly simple undertakings. How can you get started? Here's a quick "cheat sheet":
Tweet Your Newsletters - If your newsletter is anything like ours, there's a permanent link where folks reading your email can click over and read the full story. Send that link out via your Twitter or Facebook feed to encourage folks to read and even sign up.
Broadcast Blog Entries - It's a pretty simple thing to do if you're using Google's Feedburner (as we are). Go "burn" your feed and enable email delivery. Easy to do, but you may just want to send out a "best of" email every few weeks. Both are good ideas.
Include Follow Us links/Share Links in Your Emails - There are very simple links you can find via your favorite social network's website that will let readers share content with their friends/buddies. Why not include them? You never know when you'll get picked up by a "big-time" social media user. More eyeballs is never a bad thing.
It's that simple. Go get started! We're going to be including these features in our company newsletter this month, so be on the lookout.
In conclusion, no, I don't think email is going anywhere. That doesn't mean you shouldn't seize opportunities to share content with new readers across a number of networks and channels. It's easy to include links and re-directs in an email, so why not take the extra time to encourage folks to spread the good word about your company?
What's in an email? New opportunities...if you're open to them.
