Know 3 Easy & Free Ways to Tie Social to Your Traditional Marketing?

Social media marketing is often an afterthought or forgotten when it comes to it's roll in a campaign. Don't let that happen to your business or event! There are three easy ways to give additional value to your traditional advertising. Not only do these three ideas add value and extend the life of your advertising, but they also don't cost anything extra. You're already spending money on ad space or air time. Why not get the full twenty-first-century impact?

1. One of the easiest ways to tie social media into a campaign is with a #hashtag.

In the print ad shown from a unique jewelry company, you'll see the custom hashtag #whatsinmylocket. This is excellent!

First of all, it's predetermined and well thought out. Use the provided hashtag to search on different social media sites and learn more about the company, see more designs, or interact with them. When a business uses a hashtag, it can lead to more brand ambassadors and help people feel like a part of your brand family. It adds a bit more personality to the traditional ad.

People will create their own hashtag for a company or campaign if you don't give them one. For goodness' sake, give the people what they want!

Hashtags can even be incorporated into air time. I've seen people create a hashtag on Twitter from a jingle at the end of a TV commercial. The company embraced it, but think about how that could be done intentionally. Anyone still buying radio spots? Hello radio air time!

Hashtags are as free as the imagination! Just do a little homework. Make sure it doesn't spell something else unintended and that it isn't already tied to something else. A hashtag gives your paid advertisement more legs, puts it on roller-skates, widens the net. You get the point.

2. Another simple way to tie your social media sites to your campaign is to change your site headers to match.

Turbo Tax ran a television spot based on the Boston Tea Party. An unmistakable scene from the ad was used as their header on their Twitter page. Easy peasy lemon squeezy!

3. The third thing you can do to tie your marketing to your social sites is to include your site icons.

I like this example of a print ad for a cosmetic cream, because it shows how cleanly the icon addition can be done. It doesn't have to be huge. It doesn't have to take up a significant part of your ad space. The addition of the Facebook and Twitter icons don't disturb the layout design or feel of this ad at all.

While the three examples I show here are all advertising pieces, don't exclude other traditional marketing ideas. You could incorporate all of these ideas into labels/packaging, direct mail, menus, product placement, almost anywhere you'd put a logo.

Have I mentioned this carries no additional cost? This is great for smaller-than-Coke sized companies! You pay for your ad space and may have an agency or graphic designer and hopefully a social media marketer (if not, get in touch with me!), but those are expenses for which you've already budgeted. Adding in the little things to give your traditional advertising more personality via social media, doesn't cost a thing!

What creative ways have you tied your traditional marketing to your social sites? Have you seen a notable example?