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There's a lot of buzz around social media marketing right now, but don't let all the excitement cause you to view it in isolation of your other channels. Integrating social media marketing into your email marketing programs can be an effective way to improve their performance and expand your reach.

To find out more information on how email marketers can leverage social media, I encourage you to read my recent article in 1to1 Media, "The Top 3 Social Media Strategies Every Email Marketer Should Know."

Do you recall your first few weeks at your current job? Or maybe the last time you were assigned a major project at the office? There seems to always be that “Honeymoon” period at the start of each new gig. Sometimes it’s a few days. Sometimes it’s as much as a month. But, eventually, it ends. There comes a time when the “ramp-up” period expires, and your boss, peers, customers, etc., expect results – tangible progress towards a clearly define goal.

Well, that time has come for social media marketing. Marketers have spent the last few years slowly integrating the social web into their programs. The majority of early investments went to “proof of concepts,” “trials,” and other “tests” of the potential impact for social channels to enhance program performance. As 2010 rolls on, the trials, tests and POC’s have come to a close, and the results are driving increased investment in social media marketing. But these investments come with increased expectations around accountability of social channels.

StrongMail understands the marketer’s need for transparency within social programs and is thrilled to introduce Social Studio, a first of its kind platform that brings accountability to social media by providing the social media marketer with tools that track all elements of a social campaign, from multi-generational sharing to conversions – all while helping to identify and assign value to influencers within a brand’s customer database.

We all love social media, but love is not enough. Social media has to show up every day and contribute to the bottom line. The honeymoon is over, and Social Studio is here to help marketers hold the channel accountable.

Visit our Social Studio page today and register for a free 14-day trial of Social Studio. Don’t let one of the most promising new channels in the marketer’s arsenal slack off on the job!

As the popular saying goes, there is no such thing as a free lunch. Someone is going to pay for all of this social computing... and whether privacy advocates like it or not, that payment is going to be made using people's data. However, the immense amount of rich data that's available on the social web would be squandered if it was simply used for targeted advertising.

Let's face it. People don't like advertising. They try and avoid it at all costs. They fast forward through commercials on their DVR and use pop-up blockers in their web browsers. The reason Facebook ads aren't living up to their potential is because people haven't opted-in to receive those messages... they don't want to see them!

So when Facebook shoves an ad in front of someone's face that says "35 Year Old Women in San Francisco Needed," they are trying to shoehorn relevant attributes about the visitor into an irrelevant ad. (Not to mention you are going to risk offending the woman by using her age in the ad. No woman wants to be reminded about how old she is, thank you very much.)

What’s even more disturbing are some of the more intrusive applications being created using Facebook Connect. No one wants to see what they thought was a private picture of their family staring back at them from a third party promotional application... whether it be for a video game or the Olympics. It's creepy.

Social Media is More Like Email Than You Realize
Conversely, by approaching social media as an opt-in channel, you are respecting the individuals that you're trying to target and are only communicating with those who are interested in hearing from you. This conforms with the spirit of social media and aligns with email marketing best practices. As any email marketer will tell you, opt-in marketing is significantly more effective than blasting a mass message to a rented list of names that someone claims has similar interests as what you're trying to market.

The social media marketing tools that emerge as effective will respect this and enable marketers to engage with brand influencers in a meaningful and effective way.  This effort will be fueled by personal referrals and genuine recommendations that ring true because the people recommending your product or service genuinely care about it. The future of social media marketing has more to learn from email than advertising. It's about respect. Not violating my privacy and creeping me out.