Thursday, March 06, 2008 Toral: Marketing via social networks By Janette Toral Digital Filipino
MY column last week tackled the question how one can market through social networks. To best illustrate this concept, let me tell you how I promoted iBlog4: The 4th Philippine Blogging Summit that will be held on April 26, 2008 at University of the Philippines in Diliman, Quezon City.
One must have, at least, a website or blog where the event is posted. For iBlog, a blog was created at http://www.iblogph.org.
Once the website or blog is up, it is important to inform as many people as possible about it. This includes utilization of various mediums such as:
Blogs. Post the event in your personal blog and encourage people to do the same. Free events are promoted easily and others are more than willing to spread the word, especially if they are attending. In addition to readers, blogs are well-loved by search engines and can help drive traffic to your site.
Friendship and social sites. Be a member of sites like Friendster, Multiply, MySpace and Facebook, among others. These site have bulletin boards, events page and calendars where you can post your event. These allow your friends to find out and share the same to others. Some of these services even allow members to confirm their attendance and have an online registration system.
Fora. You can also post your event in relevant groups and spread the word. Check out if there are inquiries that are related to what you do and answer them.
Video. Even if you can’t afford to make a TV commercial, nothing can stop you from making a video and share it through revver.com or youtube.com and talk about your event. This even allows interested parties to embed the video in their blogs. There are also video aggregator sites that collate videos found online.
Virtual world. If you are into gaming and virtual worlds, you can also promote your event in these communities by just announcing it or posting an ad.
Mobile text messaging. This is one of my favorite. Whenever I meet a person who hands me a business card that has a mobile number, I add it to my phone right away. Whenever the opportunity arises, although extremely rare, I send a text message announcing our event and encourage people to check it out.
Instant messaging and chat. If you like using Yahoo Messenger and Google Talk, the most subtle way to promote an event is by posting details of your event in your current status. The other is by simply announcing it and encouraging people to check out your blog or website for more info.
Promoting products, services or event is now possible through numerous media. Explore it and enjoy. Just remember, be sociable!
