I recently listened to Matrix Group CEO Joana Pineda’s webinar “Integrating Social Networking Into Your Traditional Marketing Campaigns,” which covered some of the major social media tools and how they can be used to complement and extend traditional marketing activities.

There is a place for traditional marketing such as advertising, direct mail, email, newsletters, and press releases. However, social media tools such as Facebook, LinkedIn, blogs, Twitter, Flickr, and YouTube offer an inexpensive way to exponentially extend your reach by leveraging the social networks of your staff, members, and friends. As Pineda shared with us, the top 10 social networks are reaching close to 50% of all active web users according to Nielsen/Net Ratings—so not being active in those spaces is certainly a missed opportunity!

One of the examples given involved marketing a conference, which is traditionally done with direct marketing, emails, press releases, and a website. A social media strategy that includes a conference blog, tweets during the sessions, pre- and/or post-conference discussions by speakers on your Facebook fan page, and photos and video from the event on your Flickr account and YouTube channel can easily and inexpensively extend awareness of your conference far beyond your organization’s mailing list. If you ask your leadership, staff, and conference speakers to post information about the conference on their Facebook pages, LinkedIn profiles and groups, blogs, and other tools, you extend your reach that much further.

Upcoming webinars in the series include Tips & Techniques for Managing Your Social Networking So It’s Not a Time Suck (Nov. 11), Understanding the Art of Tweeting (Dec. 2), and Measuring the Return on Investment of Social Media for Business (Dec. 16). See the Matrix Group International, Inc. website for details.

Photo courtesy jam343