How to Use Social Media to Boost Email Subscribers in WordPress

Across our 16+ years of blogging and doing email marketing, we’ve learned a few tricks of the trade. One of them is using social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram to get more email subscribers, fast.

Growing your email list can feel like an uphill battle. Convincing visitors to share their email addresses requires trust, compelling content, and effective strategies.

Luckily, using social media can help you attract new subscribers and make a significant impact. With social media marketing, you can reach a wider audience, engage with potential subscribers in real time, and create enticing content that encourages users to join your email list.

This marketing approach not only broadens your reach but also builds stronger connections with your audience. So it’s easier to convert followers into subscribers.

In this article, we’ll explain why integrating email and social media is crucial for every business. We’ll also show you how to use social media to boost your WordPress site email subscribers.

Why Use Social Media to Grow Your Email List?

Social media offers a great opportunity to increase brand awareness and interact with your users. The problem is that platforms like Facebook tightly control your reach to your followers.

Studies show that only 5.9% of your Facebook followers will see your updates. And even your tweets are visible for just a short time before newer tweets push them down.

On the other hand, nothing beats email marketing when it comes to engagement.

Email gives you direct access to your subscribers and generates a high return on investment. Each dollar spent on email marketing generates $44 in return, while social media marketing returns are just $2 for every dollar spent.

Now, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t use social media to promote your site. But it does mean that your focus should be on building an email list for higher ROI and long-term marketing goals.

With that in mind, let’s take a look at how you can leverage your social media profiles to get even more email subscribers.

What Do You Need to Start Building Your Email List?

You need three things to start building your email list:

• A website or blog
• An email marketing service
• Lead generation software

All three of them are quite easy to set up without learning any technical skills. If you don’t have a website or blog yet, then see our step-by-step guide on how to start a blog.

An email marketing service helps you collect email addresses, manage your email lists, and send out emails. Most importantly, it will help you comply with email spam laws so your emails won’t end up in the spam folder.

We recommend Constant Contact, one of the largest and most popular email marketing services. For more recommendations, see our list of the best email marketing services for small businesses.

Lastly, using lead generation software like OptinMonster is the most effective way to convert website visitors and social media followers into email subscribers.

See our case study of how we increased our email subscribers by 600% with OptinMonster.

Once you have your website, email newsletter platform, and lead generation software set up, you can start using social media to build your email list using these techniques:

Let’s jump right in.

1. Collect Email Addresses From Your Facebook Page

If you have a successful Facebook page, you may have a lot of fans who have never visited your website before. An easy way to convert those fans into subscribers is by adding a prominent link right to an email signup form.

Luckily, Facebook lets you easily add action buttons for business pages. These buttons are prominently displayed on top of your cover image and are visible without scrolling.

To add a signup button, visit your Facebook page and select ‘Add an Action Button’ from the sidebar or three-dot drop-down menu near the top of the page.

You will be shown a list of action button options. Simply select the ‘Sign up’ option and then click the ‘Next’ button.

Finally, you need to provide a link to your website where users will be taken when they click signup. This should be the URL to the email signup form on your website.

Make sure you click the ‘Save’ button to add the new button. Visitors to your Facebook page will now see a prominent call to action button leading them to sign up for your email list.

2. Use Facebook Retargeting/Remarketing Pixel

Have you noticed that after you visit a website, you often start seeing their ads on Facebook? This is called retargeting or remarketing.

Those websites use Facebook’s retargeting technology, commonly known as Facebook Pixel.

The retargeting pixel does not add anything visible to your website visitors. It simply sends a browser cookie to your visitors so that Facebook can recognize them. After they leave your site and go on Facebook, they’ll see your ads targeted only at them.

You can follow our step-by-step guide on how to add a Facebook pixel in WordPress to get started with Facebook ads.

Then, check out these tips for optimizing your Facebook ads for conversions.

3. Use Facebook Ads to Promote Pages With Special Offers

People are often hesitant to give out their email addresses. However, they may become much more willing to share when you offer them something of value in exchange.

These special offers in exchange for email addresses are also called lead magnets.

Common lead magnets include eBooks, cheat sheets, templates, reports, coupons, and more. The more targeted your offer is towards a specific audience, the more email addresses you’ll get.

You can easily create professional lead magnets using a tool like Beacon. Beacon is one of the best lead magnet tools on the market. It comes with ready-made templates and a drag-and-drop builder for quickly creating eBooks, checklists, workbooks, and more.

After that, you can create a landing page or blog post on your website that features your lead magnet and use an OptinMonster campaign to capture email addresses.

Here’s a guide on how to create your first OptinMonster campaign to build your email list.

Then, just create a Facebook ad for your free special offer that links to your landing page. This technique is even more powerful when combined with Facebook retargeting because you’re advertising to people who have already shown interest in your offer.

4. Promote Old Posts With Targeted Optins

If you have been blogging for a while, then you already have plenty of content that your new followers may not have seen.

Sharing old posts allows you to share more content with your users on social media platforms. This boosts user engagement on your social profiles and brings more traffic to your website.

You can use the ClickSocial plugin to automatically share your old posts on social media websites. For detailed instructions, see our guide on how to automatically share your old WordPress posts.

Then, you can use targeted optins that only display to visitors who click on those older posts. You can use content upgrades, special offers, free downloads, and more.

5. Use Pinterest Boards for Lead Generation

Pinterest is another powerful social media platform that you can use to boost email subscriptions. Similar to Facebook and Twitter, you can offer your Pinterest followers content upgrades, coupons, and discounts.

You can also offer free downloads like eBooks, PDFs, audio, or video content and display a welcome gate to entice visitors to subscribe as soon as they visit your site.

6. Ask Influencers to Share Links to Your Special Offers

Don’t just share your special offers on your own social profiles. Ask your friends, family, and followers to share them too.

You can also reach out to influential users you are connected with and ask if they can help you spread the word. People often love to help; all you need to do is ask.

Your offer seems more valuable when influencers recommend it. Users will feel they can trust you with their information. In fact, 61% of users say they trust reviews from reputable influencers just as much as a recommendation from friends and family.

7. Run a Giveaway or Competition

Giveaways are the perfect way to generate buzz and interest. Promoting contests and giveaways on social media lets you reach a wider audience and get more people to visit your website.

You can even require participants to subscribe to your email newsletter as one of the conditions for joining the giveaway.

The good news is that it’s easy to create a social media giveaway using RafflePress. It’s the best WordPress giveaway plugin and comes with ready-made giveaway templates for Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, and more.

You can learn how by following our guide on running a social media contest to grow your site.

You can also read how we ran a birthday giveaway on WPBeginner to increase subscribers and double our traffic and conversions.

8. Host X (Twitter) Chats

You can host discussions on X (formerly Twitter) centered around particular topics in your niche. For instance, chatting about an app can attract potential customers seeking answers or support.

These chats can potentially reach a wider audience beyond your current followers. People interested in a chat topic might discover your profile and engage with your content.

You can use a unique hashtag to identify your chats. For example, Semrush uses #SEMRUSHCHAT to categorize their discussions.

Semrush invites industry experts to answer audience questions during their Twitter chats. This attracts a knowledgeable audience and positions them as a thought leader, encouraging participants to subscribe to their email list for more expert content.

9. Run Lead Generation Ads

With most brands actively using social media, it can be tough to stand out. But if you want to convert followers into email subscribers, then running lead-generation ads is an easy way to start growing your list.

Notice how this company runs ads to promote Python classes. Users who click the ‘Sign up’ button are directed to a landing page that collects email addresses.

Whether you use Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram, social media retargeting can help encourage users to share their email addresses. You can use retargeting ads to reach users who have shown interest in your brand but haven’t subscribed yet.

10. Create CTA Cards on YouTube

If your YouTube channel gets lots of views, then you can convert viewers into email subscribers by adding hyperlinked end cards to your videos. These are clickable elements that appear during the last few seconds of your video.

These CTA cards can direct viewers to a new destination, like a sign-up page for your email list. This is an easy way to capture interested viewers right when they’re most engaged.

You will be able to add cards and other information to your YouTube video as part of the upload process.

Plus, with a plugin like Smash Balloon’s Feed for YouTube Pro, you can easily embed your YouTube feed directly on your website. This will broaden your video’s reach.

11. Share Newsletter Previews on Your Profile

Another great way to convince people to subscribe to your newsletter is to give them a preview. Simply post a highlight from your newsletter on social media and direct them to your sign-up page.

The Laudes Foundation uses video teasers on Facebook every month to generate buzz about their newsletter.

By giving users a taste of your content, you’ll entice visitors to sign up and come back for more.

12. Use Virtual Events to Collect Emails

Does your business host virtual events such as webinars, workshops, and product demonstrations? Then, you can ask participants to give you their email addresses to join these events, making it easy to build your email list.

Facebook allows you to promote events and get found in local searches. When creating an event, just make sure to collect sign-ups on your website rather than using Facebook RSVP. This allows you to stay in control of the data collected.

Notice that when Alicia Keys promotes her events, she encourages followers to ‘tag a friend’ to boost engagement. Then, after the event had finished, her landing page changed to a sign-up page where people could register to rewatch the session.

This is a good example for any small business that hosts webinars, virtual classes, or meetups.

13. Write Strong Calls to Action

Many businesses struggle with turning social media followers into email subscribers. They share great content but fail to guide their audience to the next step. This is where a strong call to action (CTA) can make all the difference.

Here are a few tips for writing strong CTAs:

• Keep it short and sweet
• Use power words like ‘sign up’ or ‘join’
• Highlight the benefits of subscribing

Let’s take a look at this post by Gustwines. They clearly explain how to sign up for the email list while promoting the incentive that subscribers get early access.

14. Provide Social Media Customer Service

People spend countless hours on social media and use these platforms to reach out to brands, share experiences, and seek support. Providing excellent customer service over social media is crucial for increasing brand loyalty and trust.

That’s why you should include action buttons like ‘Send Email’ on your social media profiles. This will make contacting you simple and ensure that your customers don’t miss any important messages.

Quick and empathetic responses show that you care about your customers. This builds loyalty and can turn casual followers into loyal customers and brand advocates.

15. Create a Customer Loyalty Program

Not every brand can afford to work with influencers, and you may not need to. You can turn your loyal customers into brand ambassadors with a customer loyalty program that rewards them for spreading the word about your mailing list.

To keep the process fun and engaging, you can use gamified leaderboards and monthly contests. Offering perks like discounts, exclusive content, and early access to new products can also encourage your customers to share their unique referral links on social media and with friends.

Here’s a great example from La Croix. They maintain a branded look and host branded merchandise giveaways in exchange for the best user-generated content.

There you have it! We hope this article helped you learn how to use social media to increase email subscribers in WordPress. Next, you may also want to see our list of the best social media plugins for WordPress and our beginner’s guide on how to build an email list in WordPress for more tips.

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