Building An Email List Through Social Media

Social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Periscope, Pinterest etc. are a great place to find your target audience and get in touch with them. Often we focus on building engagement with readers there and then work on getting them back to our blog. Social media sites however are also a great place to build your list. And with that it’s easy to get back in touch with them even when your favorite social media site changes its algorithm and your audience suddenly no longer sees all your posts.

The benefits of focusing on building your list first on social media don’t stop there. Growing your list and getting them on there first, then allows you to direct your readers wherever you want them to go. Got a blog post that could use some comments, interaction and social media love? Email a link to your blog post. Got a pin that could use an extra boost, send your readers there and encourage them to repin. Got a Facebook post that’s on the verge of going viral? Email your list about it and ask them to like, comment and share.

Now let’s talk about how you can go about growing your list from your social media activity. The first thing you want to do is set up a dedicated opt-in page. It’s a simple page on your blog or website that’s set up with the sole purpose of convincing readers to sign up for your list. If you want to get fancy, you could even set up a different opt-in page for each social media page and customize your content to those audiences. But let’s keep it simple for now and create just the one page you’ll use everywhere.

Next log into your social media profiles and either add or replace your regular website url with the new opt-in page url. That along will start to send a nice little stream of social media traffic to this page and grow your list. As readers check out your profile, the idea is that they click through to learn more about you and your blog and end up on your list.

Last but not least, make it a habit to regularly invite your social media followers to sign up for your list. Try various different approaches. One week, you may highlight a particular benefit of being a list subscriber. The next, you may give them a glimpse at an email that will go out the following day, inviting them to sign up so they don’t miss it. Or offer them an exclusive coupon or offer that will go out to newsletter subscribers only. Try a few different types of posts until you find what works well on each social media platform.