Social Media Integration With Email Marketing

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If you run an autoresponder, chances are you’re going to spend quite a bit of time writing and refining your autoresponder messages. Instead of having to then take the time to re-post it to your social networks, why not have that reposting done automatically instead?

Most autoresponder services allow you to automatically post your emails to your social networks. This can help you save a lot of time, while automatically giving your subscribers a whole lot more content.

Here’s how to setup your email systems to automatically send emails to your social media sites.

Mailchimp

Log into your Mailchimp account. Click on “Integrations.”

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Choose the service that you want to automatically post to.

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Click “Log In” to authorize your social media account to be posted to by Mailchimp.

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Once your social media accounts are setup, go and create a campaign as you normally would. Now in the campaign setup process, you’ll be given the option to automatically post that autoresponder to your social media sites.

If you check the checkbox, the auto-tweeting or auto-posting will go into effect effective immediately.

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iContact

To automatically send your autoresponder emails to your social media accounts in iContact, just follow these steps.

First, click on “Social” along the top navigation.

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Click “Get Started” to continue.

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Select which service you want to post to.

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You’ll be taken through the authorization process. Once your social media account is authorized, you’ll see the “post to” check box on the bottom of your send messages box. Check that box whenever you want to send a message to your social network(s).

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ConstantContact

ConstantContact is one of the best autoresponders to use if you want to send visual HTML emails. ConstantContact’s “Simple Share” makes it easy to share your content with your social network(s).

First, start by creating and editing a message as you normally would.

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Then save your draft and go to “Schedule”. Under “Social Sharing,” click “Simple Share.”

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Choose which social network you want to share your message on.

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ConstantContact will take you through the authorization process. Once your account is authorized, you’ll be taken to a share screen.

Customize the message by clicking on it and editing the text.

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Click “Schedule” once you’re ready for the world to see your message!

Aweber

To share your message via Aweber, go to “Messages” then “Broadcast” and setup a message as you normally would. Then on step 2 “Sharing” select the Facebook / Twitter account you want to share the post with.

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Click “Connect to a new account” if this is your first time.

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Follow through with the account authorization. Once your account is successfully added, you’ll see this notification:

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Now whenever you want to share a message, all you need to do is check the box at the bottom and change the subject line.

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That’s how to post to social media automatically using your autoresponder service. We’ve covered all four of the major small business email services today. If you want to regularly give more value to your users without having to spend a lot of time creating links and uploading content, this is one easy way to have your email service do it all for you.

Top 10 Social Media Tools

social_mediaThe number of social integration tools available is vast and getting bigger every day. It seems every other month a new “big” social media tool comes out. Most of the time the tools don’t make that much of an impact. Those that do however can truly help you save a lot of time and resources.

There are social media tools for just about everything: Posting updates, generating reports, finding people to follow, save time, manage teams, get email reports and so on.

Which tools should you use? Here are ten of the top social media integration tools for you to choose from.

Tool #1: Hootsuite

Hootsuite can almost go without explanation. It’s the largest social media integration tool on the web and provides a whole host of technologies and solutions completely free of charge. A lot of things Hootsuite offers for free are paid features of other integration tools.

Hootsuite allows you to manage feeds across multiple social media sites. They have analytics and reporting tools, albeit most of them are paid. You can integrate a team strategy, as well as analyze you contacts.

If you’re not sure where to start in social media integration, Hootsuite is a good bet.

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Tool #2: Tweet Deck (by Twitter)

Tweet Deck is one of the largest social media integration tools on the web and the largest integration tool for the Twittersphere. In 2009, they had a 23% marketshare. The only other website that had a larger usage rate was Twitter.com itself.

The primary function of Tweet Deck is the social media dashboard. They feature an intuitive and easy to use dashboard that works with both Twitter and Facebook. In the past, they supported LinkedIn, MySpace and FourSquare, though they have since dropped support for those sites and chosen to focus exclusively on Twitter and Facebook.

Tweet Deck was purchased by twitter in May of 2011. It’s now run by the Twitter team.

You can run Tweet Deck on just about any operating system, including Mac OS, Windows, Linux, iOS (iPhone / iPad) and even Google’s tentative Chrome OS.

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Tool #3: Sprout Social

Sprout Social is a social media integration tool that has some very interesting and unique features. For example, Sprout Social will log into your Twitter and Facebook analytics accounts for you and extract data about your demographics. This will give you a very good sense of who your audience is, all in one place.

Sprout Social can also make recommendations about new people to follow. If you don’t want to have to spend hours discovering new potential partners and sources of information, let Sprout Social do it for you.

Of course, Sprout Social also has all the standard features, like message scheduling and feed aggregation.

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Tool #4: Social Oomph

Social Oomph is a bit of an anomaly in the world of social media integration tools. Unlike tools like Tweet Deck or Hootsuite that have a very slick Web 2.0 kind of design, Social Oomph is very minimalistic. Their design is simple, text-based and to the point.

Don’t let that fool you however. Social Oomph has a lot of very powerful features and is very up to date, despite the basic looking design.

Social Oomph has perhaps the most advanced automated friend finder on the planet. This was how the service was first built; it’s what gave it its reputation to begin with.

Social Oomph also gives you the ability to delete all your tweets with the click of a button, but not delete your followers. In other words, if you want to start from scratch, Social Oomph lets you do that.

The list of unique features Social Oomph offers is quite long. It’s important to note that some of them do require a paid subscription. All Facebook interactions require a subscription, though if you’re just using Twitter there’s a lot that you can do for free.

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Tool #5: Nutshell Mail

Nutshell Mail solves one of the big problems with social media: It takes a lot of time to monitor. If you’re a full time staff member dedicated to social media management, that’s not a problem. However, if you’re a business businessperson with a lot on your plate, then chances are you don’t have the time or energy to log into your social media account all throughout the day.

Nutshell mail simplifies this by sending you email updates. You can receive updates on your social media activities directly in your inbox, so you never have to worry about logging in and checking up on your profiles.

Nutshell mail supports LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, FourSquare and Yelp.

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Tool #6: Netvibes

Netvibes is a social media integration platform that has a suite of free features, as well as a host of paid features. Their basic features work a lot like most other integration platforms, but their paid features have a lot of unique functionality to offer.

Netvibes integrates online reputation monitoring into their social media tools. You can see what people are saying about you, your company and your brand all in one screen.

You can create product micro-sites using Netvibes. This makes it easy for people to interact with a new product launch.

You can also create online communities using Netvibes and give people a unique home page.

Netvibes is essentially a social media integration tool as well as a community and brand building tool all wrapped up into one neat package.

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Tool #7: Yoono

Yoono’s unique position in the market is its breadth. Not only does Yoono cover media that many tools ignore, such as FourSquare or FriendFeed, but Yoono also incorporates instant messengers in its arsenal.

That’s right: With Yoono, you can sync up your AIM, Google Talk and Yahoo Messenger accounts all in one place.

Of course, you can also use it to manage your Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn accounts. You can manage multiple feeds across different accounts and do everything you’d expect from a social media management tool.

If you’re only managing Twitter or Facebook, then you’ll probably want to stick with one of the tools mentioned earlier. However, if you manage a range of other networks as well and especially if you use instant messengers to communicate, then Yoono could be a great time saver.

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Tool #8: Postling

Postling makes monitoring your social networks and posting to them a cinch. Postling gives you a simple and easy to use “social inbox” where everything people say about you is contained. You can easily respond to each of their comments from a variety of social networks all in one feed.

Postling also monitors review websites, like Yelp or Citysearch for you. If you’re an offline business, this is critically important. Just about no other social media integration tool will monitor these services for you.

With Postling, you can post directly to your blog while keeping your social media in the look. Postling has its own WYSIWYG editor built in for writing blog posts.

You can respond to messages and tweets all by email using Postling’s “reply by email” feature. You can also get a daily email about all the new activities that occurred across your various social media accounts.

Postling offers a lot of unique features. They’re especially powerful if you run an offline business and need to monitory reviews.

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Tool #9: Cadence9

For those dealing with multiple accounts and brands, Cadence9 is a social marketing automation software that allows to automate your social media and content marketing team workflow and content posting. It allows to have multiple users, assign tasks and track followers engagement.

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Tool #10: Widgets

One of the best ways to integrate your social media into your blog or website is through widgets. Widgets are little bits of code you can install that add social media functionality to an otherwise static page.

By using widgets, you can take feeds from your Twitter account or your Facebook account and put them all on your website.

People will be able to see all your recent posts, as well as posts on your feed, depending on how your feed is setup.

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Remember that integration goes both ways – You want to integrate your social media profile, but you also want to integrate your blog.

These are the most powerful social media integration tools available at your disposal. Using these tools, you’ll be able to manage your social media quickly, integrate your social media profiles, post quickly, manage your reputation, build communities and more.

 

 

 

 

10 Tips on How to Avoid Looking Like a Robot on Social Media

social_mediaOne of the big risks to using social media integration is looking impersonal or robot-like. After all, if you’re regularly posting updates from your blog to your social media, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out it’s automated. If people start feeling like you’re not interacting with them personally, they’ll disconnect.

Social media integration can be a very powerful way to speed up your social media strategy and get more done in less time. However, it’s crucial that you’re also aware of whether or not you appear automated.

Here are the top 10 ways you can integrate your social media without looking like a robot.

#1: Respond to Personal Messages En Mass

Social media integration tools will allow you to check all your messages in one easy to access location.

For example, sign into Hootsuite and you can see all your Twitter DMs and Facebook PMs in two different columns. You can quickly and easily identify new messages that you need to respond to.

One of the best ways to make sure you don’t come across as a robot is to respond to every single private message or direct message that gets sent your way.

Build personal connections with the people in your network. Social media integration tools can help you save time when you’re responding to these messages. If people can’t get a hold of you, chances are they’ll feel like you’re not being authentic. If you’re regularly dialoguing with your audience however, it’s very hard to come across as a robot.

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#2: Add Personal Comments to Cross-Posts

Whenever you do a cross-post, add personal comments. Don’t just use an automated system to do all the work.

For example, let’s say you have a system that lets you cross post from your blog to your Twitter. Whenever you write a new blog post, it’ll create a shortened link for you and post it to your Twitter.

Instead of using an automated tool to do it, add a personal touch. Share the blog post with a brief one-liner from you about what the post is or why people should read it.

Just this one personal touch can change the perception of the post from “automated” to “highly personal” and “added value.”

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#3: Reach Out to People Who Regularly Interact With You

One fantastic way to appear more personal is to be more, well, personal.

Use your social media integration tools to follow a variety of different feeds, including feeds from all your Twitter accounts and Facebook pages.

Look for people who’re regularly participating in your feeds. Look for people who’re retweeting your content, commenting on your content or sharing your content.

Whenever you spot someone who you think appreciates your work, reach out to them directly. Send them a quick thank you note. Begin building a personal relationship.

In reality, there’s no such thing as what your “social media” thinks about you. Your social media is just the collection of all your one on one relationships. Deepen your relationships with the people who matter most and you’ll have zero risk of coming across as a robot.

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#4: Look at the Birds Eye View of Your Posts

Do you sound repetitive? Do your posts have soul? Are you connecting with your audience, or are you merely putting out “clinically good” content that doesn’t have any personality?

When you look at your social media on a post by post basis, it’s very hard to gauge what the overall “vibe” of your social media messages is. However, when you take a step back and really look at your posts from a bird’s eye view, you can learn a lot about your own voice.

Using your social media integration tools, load up all the feeds of your previous posts in one screen.

Then read through your last 10 to 20 updates on each of your various accounts. What would someone who only saw these updates think? Were they warm and inviting, or did they seem corporate and stiff?

Use social media integration tools to get a bird’s eye view of your current strategy. This will allow you to see your brand the way your audience sees it. Then make chances accordingly.

#5: Retweet and Share More Often

If you’re only posting content, blog updates and tweets about yourself or your company, you won’t look like an authentic social media user. Real Twitter users also read other people’s feeds, follow other people they’re interested in, retweet great posts and share on Facebook.

Unfortunately, if you’re managing multiple Twitter accounts and multiple Facebook pages, it can be very difficult to do this in a personal yet systematic way.

Social media integration allows you to do this, without looking like it’s automated. You’ll be able to load up feeds from all your different accounts in one place, then quickly identify posts that you find valuable. You can then retweet or share those posts all from one screen.

This won’t appear robotic because you’ll only be retweeting or sharing things you genuinely like. People will get more of a sense for the kinds of content that you value.

It’ll help you appear more like a real person, rather than someone who just posts updates.

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#6: Write and Rewrite Your Posts to Increase Expressiveness

One of the best things about using social media integration tools is the ability to schedule posts in advance. Instead of writing a post once and having it be final, you have all your future posts laid out in one place.

While this saves a lot of time and makes things a lot more efficient, it also has one side benefit: You get to change your posts after you’ve written them, as long as they haven’t gone live yet.

The best writers in the world often spend hours writing and re-writing paragraphs. Stephen King was once said to have spent a whole day writing and rewriting just one sentence.

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Assuming that you can write a status update or tweet and have it land just right on the first go simply isn’t realistic. Instead, why not write your tweets, then rewrite them, then rewrite them, then rewrite them until they’re maximally expressive and impactful?

The scheduling features of social media integration will allow you to do just that. Use these tools to refine your posts until your personality really comes out. Don’t let your posts come out stale or impersonal. Scheduling gives you the time you need to really perfect how your voice comes across.

#7: Do Something Spontaneous

Sometimes you want to meticulously plan out each and every one of your social media messages. On the other hand, sometimes you just want to be completely spontaneous.

Spontaneity is a great way to let your personality shine through. It’s a great way to let people get to know you. It’s also the only way you can respond to extremely fast current events.

Social media integration tools will allow you to be spontaneous in a big way. Instead of having to post one message, then log out of your Twitter account and back into another, you can just post your spontaneous message to all your accounts at once.

There’s nothing quite as ironic or vibe-killing as posting a “spontaneous” message across multiple networks over 30 minutes because you had to keep logging out and logging in. Instead, use social media integration tools to post spontaneous thoughts and events as they happen to all your networks.

#8: Post Different Content to Different Profiles

One thing that screams “automation!” is when you just constantly post the same content from one network to another. While not all of your social media followers will notice, enough of them will that it’ll seriously hurt your brand and reputation.

Yes, if you write a great blog post you’ll probably want to share it on Twitter and Facebook. Yes, if there’s something important going on at your company, you may very well want to share it on both networks.

But go out of your way to shift things up and make things a little different for each network. For example, re-word the way you introduce your blog posts. Or wait a week between posting the same content to each network.

That way, anyone who’s subscribed to both networks won’t get the sense that you’re mechanically posting across the board. Instead, they’ll get the sense that you’re personalizing your message to each network – Because you are.

#9: Respond to Questions Publically

When someone asks you a question in public, try to answer it in public. Use integration tools to scan all your networks regularly to see what kinds of topics people are talking and asking about.

If people see a lot of questions getting asked without an answer, they’ll be discouraged from asking questions of their own. They’ll get the sense that you’re not really looking out for them or trying to connect with them.

On the other hand, when people see that you take the time to answer questions in public, they’ll feel valued. They’ll feel more involved in your community and want to participate. You’ll appear more real and less robotic.

Watch for @replies and mentions. Talk to people who talk to you. Whenever a question is asked on your Facebook page or in a hashtag you created, try to answer it as quickly as possible.

Social media integration tools can help you get to these questions quickly and efficiently.

#10: Make Your Branding Personal

Don’t want to look like a robot? Make your branding personal.

Start with your Facebook cover and your Twitter profile picture. Pick a color scheme and graphic scheme that makes sense for your brand and make it as personal as possible.

Use your social media tools to create posts that go along with that brand. For example, if you have a vibrant brand, post fun and lively messages. On the other hand, if you’re branding yourself as an expert on a topic, make it a habit to answer questions in deep details.

Social media integration tools can make posting, answering questions and disseminating a core brand message much easier.

Your core brand should in some way be tied to your voice. It’s okay if you have a company whose image needs to be extremely personal. You can still add your voice to it. Even Google often uses phrases like “Don’t be evil” and “We made it suck less.” Figure out your brand internally, then use the tools available to you to proliferate that brand.
These are ten different ways you can make sure that you don’t come across robotic, monotonous or automatic when you’re integrating your social media. Social media integration can be a huge blessing when used properly. Just make sure you don’t tarnish your reputation by coming off as using computer generated content.