One breakout session that a few of the members of the RPM Interactive Team were fortunate enough to sit in on was Email + Social: Relationships Amplified. It was a packed room as one can imagine. Social Media is hot right now, there is no way around it and leveraging a cohesive social strategy with an Email Marketing solution can help brands achieve one-to-one marketing success. Panelists for this session included Bill McCloskey of Email Data Source, Tim Schigel of ShareThis, and Jay Baer of Convince & Convert. All panelists were excellent but for this post we’ll look at Tim Schigel’s presentation on Sharing.
Sharing is of great importance to email and social media marketers. Unfortunately, sharing doesn’t get the glamourous attention that it deserves. Sharing is no longer about just copy and pasting links. It is posting to Facebook, Forward to a Friend, ReTweeting, or Posting to Digg. Sharing is of great value to marketers.
Everyone shares.
But it is important to note that People only share what matters. Tim said, “69% of adults say that email is top for finding new content.” Also, “81% share to help someone that could benefit from the info.” How can we as marketers leverage this?
- Know Your Audience
- Make content worthy of sharing
- Use the appropriate medium for them to share
Maybe most important quote from Tim Schigel was equating a value to what sharing traffic is worth. He acknowledged that sharing traffic is 2 to 5 times more valuable than those that come in from search links. And it does make sense, people are sharing content with those they know and trust so people are more likely to view the shared content as trustworthy and valuable.
One panelist noted that – “Sharing Knowledge is Power.” So true.