Integrating your email marketing with social media doesn’t have to be rocket science. Marigold Engage by Sailthru provides an easy way for social integration.

Here are five simple things you should be doing to integrate your email marketing and social media:

1 – Make your content something people will want to share. Give them ideas and inspiration that provide real value, and your readers will want to share with others.

2 – Place your social share buttons/links in your newsletter and site with each piece of content you are trying to get people to share. Right after the content seems to be the intuitive place for the links, but you can have them at the top too if it doesn’t impede your design.

3 – Use Twitter and Facebook to pre-promote your newsletter up to a week before it goes out. Tweet topic teasers and even post a short excerpt to Facebook from the upcoming newsletter.

4 – When the newsletter is deployed, tweet some subject lines/topics from it. You can tweet a link to the web version of the newsletter inviting non-subscribers to try it out.

5 – Invite people via social to participate! Ask people to post topic suggestions for your blog and newsletter to your Facebook page.

Again, social media and email marketing integration doesn’t have to be complicated. One thing I really like about integrating social media and email marketing is that anyone can start small and work their way up to the level of integration best suited to their customers. Of course, there is a balance here, first serving your subscribers and second managing your resources optimally. Hopefully the five tips above will help you find the balance you need right now with your email marketing.