The Messaging Times

Let’s face it, Twitter and Facebook are making it much easier for people to share information with their network of friends and followers. Of course, marketers around the globe are wondering how they can leverage this ability to easily share content and get their content to go viral – or at least spread a bit more in a secondary push by social media.

Interestingly, a recent study shows that email is still the most widely used platform to share content with just under 50% of email users actively sharing (or forwarding) content to others.

Source: ShareThis – The Value of Sharing; Social Engagment

Of course, the impact of someone sharing (or retweeting) a link on Twitter has the potential to be far greater. Each retweet could mean a thousand new click-throughs.With email FTAF, content is more likely to be distributed in much smaller groups.

So how do email marketers get their recipients to share their content on Twitter?

There is a discussion on Mark Brownlow’s Email Marketing Reports today that sheds some light on the questions that email marketers are asking themselves (or should be) about how best to leverage social media in their email campaigns.

“…It’s very easy to add a “tweet this” link, either through an automated feature provided by your software or ESP or simply by using a link like this:

<a href=”http://twitter.com/home?status=See%20this:%20URL”>Share on Twitter</a>

So easy, in fact, it barely takes thinking about.

But should we consider the wider consequences? Are there, in fact, any wider consequences beyond the possibility of some kind of viral spread (however limited)?..” continue reading and participate in the discussion

Do you have a “Share This” link in your email campaigns? If not, why not?