In January of 2010 we launched our current social sharing features with much fanfare and excitement. But even when this set of social features went live, we knew we'd soon revisit the concept of "sharing" and integrating with social media platforms. Well, friends, that day is here.
A little over a year after our initial social sharing features went live we're happy to announce that the next generation of VR's social media offerings are just around the corner. We took your feedback, coupled it with some new and exciting technologies, stirred in a little secret sauce, and came up with something we think you're really going to like.
Check Out the New Features! (drum roll, please...)
1) We're making it drop dead simple to include social sharing icons in your emails so your recipients can share your content with their Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn social networks:
We will offer two ways to do this in each editor. The first one is to toggle the feature on/off at the top of your email:
Or, if you want to get fancy, you can place the three icons wherever you want within your email (the merge tag automatically converts to the three sharing icons when you preview or launch the email):
2) On top of that we're making it even easier for you to share your email content automatically on both your personal Facebook profile and your business' Facebook Page(s), as well as on Twitter, when you launch your email. We're especially excited to use Facebook's new Open Graph API which allows us to connect to all the pages you control within Facebook with a given login. This means when you launch your email your content goes to all the places you select at once.
3) Now you'll be able to track the social activity of your content! You'll know when someone "Likes," "Shares," or "Tweets" your email content, and you'll be able to see how popular (or "viral") your content is once it is shared on the social networks. Nifty, right?
So you're probably saying, "yeah, that sounds great - WHEN CAN I USE IT?!?!" Currently we're targeting Q2 of this year for wide release of these new features. So, "soon!" is the answer. We'll let you know more as we get closer to the release.
This stuff is on its way, but to carry on the excitement we have even more in the works. A lot more. So stay tuned, VR friends. Your world is about to get even more social.
I'll need to know, in detail, how to incorporate this new feature with my email.
Posted by: Lyle Kelley | May 03, 2011 at 06:39 AM
Why do I not see/have these options? I am working on a draft and do not have the social media options...
Posted by: Monique DiCarlo | May 03, 2011 at 07:02 AM
Sound great, can't wait to try it !
Posted by: Philip | May 03, 2011 at 07:13 AM
These new features aren't all that important to us. I recognize VR is a broadcast-oriented marketing tool and we are trying to use, or mis-use, it as a community communications tool, so maybe it is our fault for using the wrong tool. But, I really wish it would allow better for community engagement. Specifically, we need user-managed subscription to multiple (topical) mailing lists and significant improvement in the bounced emails problem.
Our lists constitute members of a community who have signed up to receive information relevant to that community, yet a large chunk of the list is in a bounced state. I suspect much of this is because email originates from vresp.com, a well-known source of marketing email. (Is it possible to have the email appear to originate from our organization's domain?) Also, every auto-response, like an out-of-office email, causes the user to enter the bounced state and we are cut off from the member. It is just about impossible to manage members out of this state - if and when they finally notice that they aren't hearing from us.
Posted by: greg | May 03, 2011 at 07:35 AM
Thats look pretty awesome! looking forward to see that feature implement
Posted by: Octa Rendra | May 03, 2011 at 08:51 AM
Yay! Excellent! This will really enhance our email campaigns. Thanks for offering a great service.
Posted by: Raeus Cannon | May 03, 2011 at 09:34 AM
Looking forward to it, guys! Much needed in the modern marketing environment.
Posted by: Philip Brookes | May 03, 2011 at 05:26 PM
I'm looking forward to trying out these new features. We can't get enough help with our social media marketing.
Posted by: Ralph | May 04, 2011 at 05:19 AM
Hi Monique, this is just a preview of the new features. We will make another announcement as soon as they go live. Thanks!
Posted by: verticalresponse | May 04, 2011 at 10:17 AM
Hi Lyle, we'll have plenty of tutorials and how-to's up as soon as the new features go live.
Posted by: verticalresponse | May 04, 2011 at 10:18 AM