For internet marketers, nothing compares in value to the house list. It’s gold. You know that you can blast an e-mail and count on a certain conversion rate, yielding a comfortable predictability to your revenue stream. Yet, there are limits to e-mail marketing. After a while, you have to limit your campaigns, for fear of winding up in a spam folder or seeing the unsubscribes tick up. You’re ability to interact with your most likely buyers, therefore, is inherently constrained. Social media platforms can cut the ties that bind, however, and bring new flexibility to your internet marketing efforts.

Doubtless, direct pitches to your fan base will eventually meet with the same malaise triggered by e-mail saturation. So, keep your blasts to a minimum. Instead, use other methods to attract the attention of your fans or followers — which is effectively your social media “house list” — and you can stimulate buying activity much more often.

Content is the tool you can use to inspire your fans and followers to action. Whether it’s a Twitter update or a Facebook wall post, you can provide information with an embedded call to action anytime you want. Rather than take an overt route — such as “BUY NOW AND SAVE!!!” — you can use product reviews, polls, questions contests to mobilize your fans. And since you’re informing rather than pitching, it looks like your adding value to the end-user experience. At the same time, you’re engaging a prospective buyer and starting a process that could naturally culminate in a transaction.

Your e-mail house list remains incredibly important, and the role of e-mail marketing remains substantial. But, you have another tool at your disposal. Maintain an ongoing connection with your fans and followers, and you can build hooks into the sales process into everything you do. The door to a transaction is thus kept perpetually open, and your social media ROI — even your overall marketing ROI — has more room to grow than ever before.