Email offers can help oil the wheels of social networking

As a marketer, are you getting sick of social media yet? Maybe not; but are you getting the true value from it? Or do you think it’s impossible to measure return on investment around this channel, and it’s just something you must be seen to be doing?

Whatever camp you fall into, perhaps it’s time to take a deep breath, step back from the whirlwind that is social networking and re-evaluate. Marketers are taught that every campaign must bring true return on investment. It’s a push/pull effect, but can you honestly say Twitter or Facebook is doing that for you as an organisation, especially if you don’t yet have the followers? Will it ever be able to?

One way that I think could work is actually working with your existing followers to develop more followers. Kind of like a friends and family campaign. After all, what motivates one person normally motivates their friends. Email can now be connected to social media, allowing users to forward messages to their friends with a single click. Combine this with relevant, targeted offers to your database, and you may just find that social media proves its worth after all.

Paul Bates
UK MD, StrongMail Systems