Soapbox Engage Blog

There's a lot of blah blah blah these days about social media this and that. We get it. It's cool. We're down with the Twitters and the Facebookery.

But what does it all really add up to? If you share something, how to know if it means squat?

Or, more to the point of this little missive, it's all cool to be able to give recipients of your email newsletter easy little links to click and share the online version of said newsletter with the Twittersphere and The Facebook. Soapbox Mailer for Salesforce offers that. Check out the eye candy below with the links at the top of the email.

But how do you know if that means squat? Does putting those links there actually lead to more shares and, more importantly, lead to more eyeballs on your email newsletter of people you never even sent it to who might be encouraged to support your work?

Enter Amp.

What's amp, you say? Amp is short for amplification and it is the metric in Soapbox Mailer for Salesforce that measures squat. Too technical? Amp measures what happens when your email recipients share your email newsletter on Facebook or Twitter; namely, how much your message is amplified by the power of your supporters' social networks.

Let's say you send an email newsletter with Soapbox Mailer. I'm on your list and I receive your email. I love your email and I click Share on Facebook. That shares the love with my Facebook friends. My cousin in South Carolina sees that post that I shared. She loves the love and clicks the link. She views the online version of your newsletter.

That's method. Here's the metric. My cousin's view is attributed to my Campaign Member record for the email newsletter Campaign. So my record now shows one Facebook Open.

My cousin's view is also added to the total Facebook Opens for the entire Campaign. And that total number of Facebook Opens is divided by the number of Campaign Members who opened your original email.

So, let's say you send your email to 10,000 people. 5,000 people open it. A bunch of folks share it on Facebook. It's super popular on Facebook and 15,000 people click on the shares in their friends' timelines. That makes your Facebook Amp:

15,000 views from Facebook / 5,000 recipients who opened the email = 3.0 Facebook Amp.

As goes Facebook, so goes Twitter with a separate Amp calculated for that social network.

"So", you say?

Excellent question!  You're so very erudite and perceptive with your query! Here are five ways that Amp can amp up your email newsletter Campaigns:

1. Quantify the total reach of your email newsletter through your targeted recipients' social networks so you know how many people are actually viewing your message
2. Compare Twitter Amp and Facebook Amp for an email to see which network is most effective for your audience - and devote a greater percentage of your limited time to do social media outreach to that network
3. Compare Twitter Amp and Facebook Amp across email newsletter Campaigns to see which type of messages are best tailored for which social network
4. Reward your email recipients who most effectively share your emails. Got someone with over 50 Facebook Opens? Send them a t-shirt! Got someone with 100 Twitter Opens, create a virtuous cycle by praising them over Twitter to keep the love growing.
5. Gamify the whole crazy thing! Take the reward idea in the previous bullet - and tell people that's exactly what you're doing to turn the whole thing into a social media sharing contest.

Hmm...come to think of it, we may just use that last idea ourselves. You better sign up to receive our newsletter if you want to get in on the fun.

Want to have a little fun yourself by getting Soapbox Mailer for Salesforce? Well, what are you waiting for?