3 Easy Peasy Free Ways to Strongly Promote Links

I am all about the personal user experience. That's why I'm the Chief Experience Officer CEO in these Tin Shingle parts. In my guidance in how to effectively use social media, rarely will you hear me advocate for setting up automated things. Rarely. And if you do, it's because it's super special.

However, these are three very easy strategies to employ. While they take some initial thought in copywriting, they take no effort in producing:

USE YOUR EMAIL SIGNATURE
The email signature is a little used, little considered piece of very valuable real-estate. All of your friends see it. People you've never met see it. Someone for a reason you will never think of may be interested in what you are essentially advertising in your email signature.

Thoughtful uses include:
- Promoting a class: include the link on where to find details about the class.
- Promoting your Twitter name. I do go back to people's emails because I assume they include this in their email signature, as well as their physical address.
- A more startling and original use I've seen of the email signature is from Tin Shingle member Rachel Franco of Jala Designs. Not only did I learn about the service she was offering, but it inspired this post, which gave her a new link from our blog, and is about to share with you her skill. Rachel responded to an email I sent to the Tin Shingle Google Group. My email was about if anyone knew about a yoga or dance studio because my husband was looking for a space for the film he is working on. She replied that while she didn't know of a space, it sure was an interesting/fun job he had. At the end of her email was her signature:

"Need writing or editing help? I write/edit too! Visit http://sites.google.com/site/writing4results/ for a list of services and writing samples. Please help spread the word!"

That small line clearly told me, without being pushy, that she was offering writing services. And now I will include her in my recommendations for writers.

USE YOUR CONFIRMATION PAGE
A commonly overlooked space for promotion to people who clearly like your brand and buy from you. In fact, I need to update the confirmation page on my own online boutique. Product or service, if you sell something, and if you are able to have a unique message that either shows up to the customer right after they purchased from you, and/or in their confirmation email, you can add information about your brand.

Thoughtful uses include:
- Add links to your Facebook business Page and your Twitter name.
- Offer a coupon on their next purchase.
- Did you just get press that you are proud of? Link to your press page.

ASK FOR A RT (retweets in Twitter)
Again, inspired by a Tin Shingle member thanks to our Google Group, Jill Frechtman of Fretzels inspired this suggestion: When you email a group about a coupon code, or other offering that you have, you know that not everyone can purchase your product (be it a class or a chocolate covered pretzel). However, those people may want to support you in some way. Give them that way. Spell it out for them. Jill shared a coupon code with the group. Then she suggested that we RT (retweet it) in Twitter (RT basically means that you will pass along the information to your followers in Twitter). Here is how Jill gave us her request:

***If you are on Twitter, Please fee free to RT the following to your followers (just copy and paste):
RT @fretzels FREE Fretzels! Sweet Spcl this wk: Buy any 2doz, get 6 Watermelon fretzels http://tinyurl.com/lstcvc USE CODE: FREEWATERMELON

Perfect. Jill gave us the exact message to put into our Twitter accounts. And she included her Twitter name so that she could see who did it (clever). It was the correct character count, no brain power was needed by us to tweet this to our followers. We tweeted it on Tin Shingle's twitter handle, @collectivee, as we tweet lots of member coupons.

Have you done anything you're particularly proud of? Tell us!