Many companies have realized the importance and value of incorporating social media buttons on webpages and on various marketing materials but some miss a huge potential market by overlooking the simpler places to highlight these valuable tools, the signature block. E-mail signatures have been providing email recipients with contact information for quite some time. With that said; what information are you including in your signature block? Does it provide your readers with ways to not only contact you, but also with a way to connect with you? Many companies will standardize their signature blocks or place rules on what can or cannot be posted in one. Some signature blocks include a favorite quote or a security statement, while others contain just the basic information such as name, company, title, phone number, etc.
If you haven’t figured it out by now social media is the present and future method of communication, both in business and in life. If you’re not including some way for your recipient to connect with you via social media you are missing out on countless potential relationships. There is no guarantee that people will click on the links you have provided, but if there are no links at all then you are making the connection process even harder.
There are different ways you can utilize social media in your signature block. One is to place an icon for each of the social media sites that you utilize. The benefit of this option is that it allows the reader the ability to choose which platform they would like to connect with. The downside of this is that you have limited control over what the reader’s first impression is. That’s not to say that any of your social media sites have information you don’t want share, but by having them go to your website or your Facebook page first they can see your story from the beginning rather than jumping in at the middle.
If you choose to utilize social media on your signature block by providing a link to your website or Facebook then you can utilize them as a portal to all of your other social media. The benefit of this option is that you have some control over what information your reader sees first. The home page of a website is designed to welcome new visitors and give them and overview of what your company is about without overwhelming them. Facebook can be used in the same way; custom landing pages can be designed to control what visitors see when they go to visit your Fan Page. Additionally, through the use of external apps, you can add links to other social media platforms and display them on the left side of your fan page.
Something as simple as an email signature can serve as a great marketing tool for your business if used properly. If you’re not already utilizing your email signature to its fullest potential, think about how many emails you and your company send out a day. In many cases there is a big market that may not have an opportunity to connect with you or your business on a daily basis. The best part is that once you have created your email signature it will automatically affix itself to the end of your email.
