How do you communicate with your readers and followers that are raving fans of your website and blog but don’t necessarily visit it on their own every day? Or just as important, how do you get an average follower to want to become a raving fan?
Let’s face it, your audience needs to be reminded that you are there. It’s not that they don’t want to engage with you, but if you are out of sight, you are probably out of mind. It’s just the nature of human behavior.
If you can learn how to self promote your business through email and social media, you have an incredible opportunity to deepen your relationship with your audience and earn new followers as well.
The key is to have great content. If you do, your readers will want to know when you plan to release more. Coming up with ways to ask them to join your email list, your Facebook pages, or other social networks is the opportunity that leads to growth.
The true power of email and social media is in the metrics, and numbers don’t lie. If you grow your influence through these tools, then your business will see an increase in social interactions and a bigger bottom line if done properly.
How do I get subscribers?
Good question…try asking. If you encourage people to subscribe to your email updates or join your social media pages, they will.
Of course not everyone, but many will.
On your website, put a nice, friendly pop-up that asks for their email address. Tell them specifically how you will and will not use their treasured information. Remember, email is highly personal and we are all tired of being spammed.
In addition to the one-time popup question, one of our regular bloggers (Kris de Leon) offered to give a free eBook to anyone who joined our email list. We gave a visitor something they wanted, and in return they entrusted us with their email address. It was a win-win.
We launched The Internet Conference in November 2011. No one knew a thing about it. Here it is the end of December, just one month later since the launch, and already we are approaching 300 people who have subscribed to the email list. Would they have done it if we didn’t ask? I highly doubt it!
We send out an email everyday and almost 50% of them open it within a few hours after it goes out. What I love about email is that when you grow your list, it is yours! You can really take it with you when you go, and you can communicate as much as you want. You have full control!
Not so much on social media. However, we’ve discovered working with other clients over the last 18 months that adding content 4 or 5 times every day creates an opportunity for people to enjoy, like, and share your content, and it can be just as powerful as email.
The key again is to have great content!
It doesn’t always have to be your content either. On Facebook, share a interesting link that is related to your subject matter. Or, embed a well done video.
The key is to provide value – value is what creates great content!
I define value as; “Give someone something they can use right now to improve their situation without it costing them a penny.”
If you can do that, you will earn the right to interact with your audience and then your sales opportunities will follow.
This is really powerful stuff!
If people opt in to receive email updates from you or join your social media pages, they have given you direct access to communicate with them! That is a powerful privilege.
When people give you permission to send them your content, this opens up new marketing channels. The power of email and social media is in the numbers and interactions. When done well, it is extremely powerful!
Please take a moment to leave a comment and tell us how you are using email and social media to connect with your audience.
Don Purdum is the founder of The Internet Conference (www.theinternetconference.net), a site and conference dedicated solely to covering internet related issues for business. In November 2011, Don started The Internet Conference to fulfill his passion of helping businesses of all sizes reach their potential online. Our goal is to offer the ideal environment for businesses, entrepreneurs, marketers, and non-profits to learn from the experts and gain firsthand knowledge of what is “out there” and how the web can help a business of any size! Don has been an entrepreneur since 2003. He owns a successful web design and development company in Dallas, TX, where he resides with his wife of 18 years and two kids.
Don Purdum
President/Founder
Email: [email protected]
