It’s a rare breed of author who has thousands of names on their email list and just as many followers on Facebook and Twitter. Most authors have either built a website and are just getting into social networking, or have been active on social networking sites and are just now creating a website and building an email list.
Either way, you may be wondering how you can have the best of both worlds and get people to sign up on every type of platform. An article in Internet and Marketing Report cites three different companies and the creative ways they migrated groups from email to social networking and vice versa. Don’t be afraid to steal these ideas!
1. Go viral. A company named Dingo offered its customers a $20 coupon if they signed up for the e-mail newsletter and “Liked” their Facebook page. But there was a catch: In order for the promotion to kick in, the company’s Facebook page needed to get its total number of fans from 300 up to 5,000. And it worked. Within three days of sending out the note, they reached their goal.
2. Offer a reward. Timbuk2 wanted to get its newsletter subscribers to be Facebook fans, too. So they sent out an email blast informing everyone that those who became a Facebook fan in the next however-many hours would be entered to win a bike, helmet, or messenger bag. No surprise … it worked.
3. Keep exclusive content private. Crocs had tons of followers on Facebook and Twitter, but not too many email subscribers. So they posted on their wall and started tweeting about special deals and offers that are only available through their email newsletter. To make it even easier, they included a sign-up app on their Facebook page. We don’t know just how successful this effort was, but the Crocs execs describe it as a “giant leap” in subscribers.
Hope these ideas help you, too!