Grow your list through social media Published April 1, 2015 Social media is no longer an experimental platform for email marketers to dip their toe into every once in a while – it is a fully-fledged marketing avenue and an essential tool that deserves to be in every marketer’s arsenal. Whether you specialise in online, mobile or email marketing, social media is an effective complement to any marketing strategy. This rings especially true when it comes to email marketing as social media can help build strong email lists for businesses. Twitter Grow your list via Social Media Twitter, a micro-blogging service which limits messages to 140 characters, initially appears to be a limited, restricting platform. However, Twitter is actually an incredibly useful tool to build email lists. For instance, marketers can use their Twitter bio to describe themselves and embed a call to action, such as a link to a sign-up form for a newsletter. Used in conjunction with an appropriate Twitter ID, like your brand name, marketers can give users a reason to click through to their call to action without sending a single tweet. Moreover as you start to tweet, build relationships with followers and solidify authority within your brand’s industry, your reach (and call to action) extends to more and more followers. Marketers can also tweet vouchers, discounts and offers through Twitter. These messages should give users significant value in exchange for signing up to a mailing list and should be something they would normally be willing to pay for. However by signing up, these offers are handed over for free, making them fantastic incentives for users on the fence about handing over details and delivers more names on email lists for marketers. Facebook If you have a Facebook fan page for your business, this platform can also be used to forge strong email lists. For example, marketers can post samples of their newsletter templates as bait for signing users up to receive them regularly. It also helps to show users the value of your offerings before they hand over their email address. Furthermore, if you’re creating interesting content for your website, simply link to it from your social media. Content can come in the form of a blog post, a video or a news article and, as content creates engagement, this can turn curious users into fully-fledged business assets. Each asset on your email list could potentially be worth hundreds of pounds in the future so it is well worth building relationships and encouraging sign-ups via Facebook. LinkedIn LinkedIn, a professional social networking platform, also provides a number of opportunities for list building. As LinkedIn is geared towards professionals who actively want to connect and share ideas, the platform provides a number of ways for marketers to boost the size of their lists. One place to use to invite subscribers is the end of the Summary page, where you can embed a link to your home page or sign-up page – “Useful Tips on How To…Etc”. You can also use this link in the Websites section of your profile page. LinkedIn is also a veritable hotbed of conversation covering a plethora of industries. This provides an invaluable opportunity for engagement and relationship building, as well as significant exposure for a brand. Utilising social media to build email lists helps deliver a far greater return than a website alone. It is also a great way to make solid impressions with customers using only a small amount of effort. When used in conjunction with traditional email marketing techniques, social media becomes a ‘must have’ tool rather than a ‘might have’.