Sign up Facebook Fans as Email Subscribers (and Vice-Versa)

Gain Subscribers Through Social Media

It's become common for our clients to insert links into email content that drive recipients to social media sites (Facebook pages, for example), and for good reason. Brand pages on social networks are an excellent way to continue, en masse with your most engaged subscribers, a conversation that began with an email.

But something we don't see nearly as often is the use of social media pages to acquire email subscribers. Facebook and the like are well-designed for mass, bi-directional communication with customers, but nothing beats email when it comes to sending targeted, personalized messages based on the recipient's interests, behaviors, or demographics. Why then, do social media marketers not focus more effort on acquiring email opt-ins from their social media fans who are already engaged with their brand?

I suspect that many don't realize that it's possible. Major ESPs (including Delivra) give their clients tools to generate HTML for a subscription form that can be embedded in a web page. Less well known is that Facebook allows one to insert HTML onto one's page. I just added a simple subscribe form to the new Delivra fan page using a Facebook application called Static FBML that allows embedding of HTML. Delivra users can generate their own subscribe form HTML in the Utilities section, under Web Forms--just like I did!

Oh, and for an example of using email to attract social media followers, notice how Delivra client Holiday World subtly uses its email newsletter to publicize incentives for recipients to become Facebook fans of the popular amusement park near my hometown of Evansville, Indiana. I'm looking forward to that new ride in 2010!

Chris Broshears | Product Development