Build a following with email

So many people trying to build a following behind their blogs, Facebook profiles, Successful Thinkers profiles, and even their tweets, often forget about the power of email. I thought that this would be a good time to mention a few different formats for getting your message out.

Social Networking
Social networking is an amazing opportunity to stay connected with your friends or business associates. It provides a convenient place to check up on the things they are working on. You are able to make a one click stop to stay up to date on all of their activities and they can do the same. This value is only realized if you maintain your profile, announcements, and comments.

Blogs
Blogs are an even stronger platform for you to tell the world what you are about. You can post updates on projects, new releases, or even just state your opinion on current events. It is important to stay consistent with your theme, as your following will want to depend on your information. It provides a one click stop for your associates to stay up to date on you, just as a social network profile does. However, they will want to get something out of it, so don’t just make it a daily sales pitch.

Twitter
Twitter is a little bit harder to leverage. The 140 character limit prevents you from rambling on. You need to keep your posts short and to the point. Some people post updates as to where they are and what they are doing; but if you are just bouncing from one meeting to another, this isn’t that exciting to follow. Instead you need to tweet short descriptions about things that you have found interesting, and then post a link to the full run down. The power behind this is your short links won’t show the reader where they are going, until they get there. Now you can promote anything, or anyone you want, with a short link. I don’t tweet very often, but am more along the lines of only tweeting VERY interesting things.

Back to Email
All of the above internet mediums require your reader to come to you. If you are anything like me, you don’t publish fresh content daily. Sometimes it is weekly or even monthly. Your followers will not want to continually check your site for fresh content, just to be disappointed with the same old stale text. This is where the power of email can come in. Email allows you to push content out to your readers. Often I have heard of people’s newsletter lists referred to as ATM’s. A strong mailing list can provide you with an abundance of resources, if done correctly.

While it is extremely important to keep all of these different areas up to date with fresh content, it is just as important to let people know when there is fresh content for them to find. There are several different ways to accomplish this.

- Setup an opt-in email list with one of thousands of providers. (iContant, Constant Contact, aWeber)
- Leverage FeedBurner’s email opt-in. This is a great option, as it also allows you to maintain your syndication.
-Maintain a contact list within your email program (Outlook, Gmail, yahoo, hotmail, etc.)

I personally prefer FeedBurner, as it is a free solution and helps with your syndication. Until your list gets really large, this is a viable solution; but then you’ll need to leverage a stronger list management system. iContact has a really strong API, allowing you to integrate other software with it, and has a very simple interface to create and track emails.

Originally Posted on Successful Thinkers Meetup

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