This article by VerticalResponse CEO and founder Janine Popick originally appeared on Inc.com.

At VerticalResponse, we truly believe that email and social media go together hand in hand. Why? Because your messages need to be where your prospects and customers are reading them, no matter what channel they like to pay attention to. And, if the stats are right, Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn alone will reach over 1.5 billion consumers in 2012.

So I came up with four little tidbits you can do with your email marketing campaign to get more friends, followers, fans and fervor:

1. Be Proactive

Send a “like me” or “recommend me” email campaign to drive people to your Facebook page. Use a template like the one you see below. (This is just one of more than 700 free email templates that VerticalResponse offers.) It’s important to have a presence on Facebook since it’s the No. 1 social media network that your customers and prospects are using on a daily basis.

Give your followers and fans a reason to “Like” you by giving them a coupon or special offer. A few other ideas to get people to visit your page:

• Ask a question. You’ll show up in the feeds of anyone who responds.
• Run a contest. We ran the Next Teen Tycoon video contest and had really amazing results. You might want to use a third-party app like Wildfire Interactive to help you manage it.
• Post photos. Research suggests that people comment on and like photos the most.
• Post your blog content to your Facebook page. You spend a lot of time creating the content, so why not publish it in as many places as possible.

2. Incentivize Your Twitter Followers

Similarly, send a “follow me on Twitter” email campaign with one solo message: Get special deals if you follow us. Using a template like this one here makes designing it a snap.

3. Button Up

In every email campaign you send, include “follow me” buttons that link to your social media profiles. It has become as common as including your phone number, URL and address. Side note: Include the buttons in your customer service emails that you send out when a customer has a question.

 4. Pin Your Emails

If you’re on Pinterest (like we are!), post the hosted version link of your email to a board. Choose the offer or article you want to show, and in the pin description make sure you use your keywords so that if someone is searching Pinterest for your products just like they’d search Google, they’ll find your products or business.

Integrating your email marketing and your social media efforts is the smartest and easiest thing to do to maximize the time you spend setting up your marketing. Do you have any ideas to share? Love to hear them!

© 2012 – 2018, Contributing Author. All rights reserved.