We’ve talked about email marketing before, particularly in relation to how to make your email social and integrate the two toolsets. This week we talk about email marketing strictly. Yep, it’s open rates, it’s subscriptions, it’s smart content. Everyone’s got an email address, and everybody’s got their own inbox. So this is a privileged place to be. What’s the best way to encourage people to want you in that space? This question and more addressed below.

As always, we’re taking your questions. Did we not hit on the exact thing you wanted to know about? Get at us.

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2 Email Marketing Strategies That Work. This article offers the Short Course Strategy and the Further Interaction Strategy, which are designed to increase open rates, build relationships, and help involve the reader in your multitude of web content.

Humanize Your Email With A Well Timed Thank You. This one gets straight to the point. In all of these articles you’re going to see some constant advice: people don’t like feeling that they’re being sold something. It’s important, as always, to be honest, genuine and human. Thank you notes certainly help–see this article for the proper timing.

Emails Are Content Too. For whatever reason, many organizations are a bit hesitant when it comes to what to put in their emails. What’s the proper content? Can I put this, can I put that? This article encourages you to treat your emails just as you would with any other content venue. Likewise, and perhaps moreso, look at the emails your sending as potential blog posts. Take nuggets from them and you have tweets and fan page updates. Your emails are worth it. Be bold, be original–do your thing.

Email: Option vs. obligation. This raises some interesting questions not only about outward emails but internal email as well–primarily concerning email flood. The article claims that, when we send an email, we feel the recipient is obligated to respond in some way. But what are the implications of viewing it as an option? Keep this in mind when for internal purposes as well as for external purposes.

5 Proven Ways To Increase Email Subscriptions. This is the start of a really solid article suggesting some useful and creative tips for getting more people to subscribe to your email. To read the whole thing you’ll need a MarketingProfs subscription, which is free.

image courtesy emarketing-strategies.blogspot.com

Are your fans this passionate? Well…that may be a good thing…

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Most days you’ll go into work, talk to some customers or clients, and, if you’re reading this, you probably spend a reasonable amount of time talking with online fans, followers, etc. Sometimes you see them, but, especially if your organization is web-centered, often you don’t. This might not always your top priority, but in today’s post, we encourage you to, for the next few months, bump it up a notch or two or six.

There’s something about face to face interaction to which, despite the efficacy and revolutionary grandeur of the web’s new marketing tools, social media has always conceded. And we defy you to consider a handful of times that you’ve had a more riveting interaction on the web than you did in real life. There’s something mysteriously complex and fascinating about talking to someone. Human beings are social. And if social media is all about building relationships, then there’s no replacement for a good handshake, good eye contact, and a welcoming, comforting attitude–really talking. In the small business world, people follow people, not entities.

We’re asking your business, for your sake and ours, to be something to do.

So this week, as the Summer rolls itself in and the city gets its itch to go out and play, we’ve got a handful of articles talking about how to set up and promote live events, how to integrate them with your existing social media strategy, and what kinds of things you can get out of them. Enjoy!

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8 Ways to Improve Events With Social Media. This Mashable article goes through the strong fundamentals of live events–establish social networks, incentivize invites, new tools, live streaming, and a lot more. This is key.

5 Quick Tactics for Supercharging Your Events Marketing. If Mashable covers the fundamental strategy, the logic of it all, then MarketingProfs covers the pathos, the attitude of it all, giving you a smart “how” to guide you through your event marketing.

3 Reasons Live Events Are Good Content Marketing. Another smart one from the Profs. Live events allows you to get your content to an audience in a way that’s fun and engaging for both parties. What would you rather go to? A webinar or a half day summit with lunch and cookies! See, it’s not even a question.

How To Market Your Events With Social Media. From Technsare, we see a very backend-heavy approach to event marketing with a large focus on monitoring and preparation. Great considerations and advice.

Spring Brings Fans Out, Marketers Calling, “It’s Event Season”. Now while this post focuses on sports events, there’s a lot to take into account for your own purposes. With beautiful weather around, maybe your business could be one of those “things to do” in your city.

The Royal Wedding Was The Sixth Largest Web Event In History. So you could plan a royal wedding. That’s one option. But if that’s not within your means, take this article as fun and helpful for seeing the history of web events.

Last Sunday, President Obama officially announced (on TV and via a live stream online) the news that people had been tweeting about for over an hour: Osama Bin Laden had been located and killed by U.S. Military forces. Whatever your politics, the event was the single biggest landmark for social media to date, and everyone responded. Below we’ve collected the absolute best coverage of the event from a social media standpoint. If you have anything to glean from this response (other than that if you’re not on Twitter, you probably should be), we’d love to get the conversation going.

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How Social Media Reacted On Osama Bin Laden Death. We’ve been keeping up pretty darn well with these stories, and this has the best sum-up of how a variety of platforms were affected by the news, from Flickr to Youtube to search engines.

Timeline: How News of Osama Bin Laden’s Death Unfolded on Twitter. Everyone knows Twitter is where it started. Mashable recounts how, piece by piece, second by second, the world came to know and respond to the monumental event.

One Twitter User Reports Live From Osama Bin Laden Raid. And apparently he didn’t even know what he was in the middle of.

“Osama Bin Laden is DEAD” Facebook Page Goes Viral. Over 150,000 likes in two hours.

Foursquare Users Check Into Post-Osama Bin Laden World. You might be thinking, how could people check in to a thing like this? Well, they did.

Google Maps Shows Where Osama Bin Laden Died. Even Google Maps is in on it! Quickly after the news was revealed, Google Maps was updated with an “Osama Bin Laden’s Compound” in norther Pakistan.

Other Related Stories

Osama/Obama Gaffes. And next-to-lastly, how not to do social media in a time of crisis. Lesson #1–do not report, under any circumstances, that the President has been killed.

Players learning that social media needs to be used responsibly. You tweeted, she tweeted, we all tweeted. Let’s face it, not all of it was appropriate and you’d be a lucky one if you managed to squeeze by a Facebook political conversation unnoticed. But if you’re an NFL player, it’s hard to hide in the crowd. And Rashard Mendenhall of the Pittsburgh Steelers learned the hard way.

Photo by ZUMA Press via Mother Nature Network (MNN).