How It’s Done: Effectively Blending Traditional Advertising with Social Media

According to a Nielsen Global Online Consumer Survey, consumers have greater trust in traditional media advertising than they do in online marketing. With the exception of brand websites (which are highly trusted), consumers trust ads on TV, print, radio and billboards more than they do emails, video, mobile and banner ads, and sponsored search links.

But here is something else to think about. In that same survey, the most trusted forms of advertising are personal recommendations, followed by online consumer opinions. And where do you find most personal recommendations and online consumer opinions these days?

In social media.

Ok, so now what do you do? Here are 5 tips for blending traditional advertising and social media:

1. Print Ads: Single message that is a driver to a landing page on your website. The landing page needs to contain the same message as well as the design of the print ad. The customer needs to instantly understand that this is the same offer as that they saw in the paper/magazine or online.

2. TV Commercials: Branding or offer message visually and verbally that once again drives to a landing page on the website. You have piqued their attention to visit the site – give them what they want … the offer.

3. Radio:  Single message that emotionally connects with the listener to create a mental idea of the offer, with either a phone number or website or landing page.

4. Outdoor: These by far have to have the simplest messages as you have a few seconds to grab their attention and the message has to be enticing enough for them enough to visit the site.

5. Real Life Networking: The opportunities are almost endless here. Business cards with social media profiles, ability to describe what you do in 60 seconds or less to pique interest (or move on). Bringing your offline community online helps, not only to grow your online community, but offers the opportunity to teach a newbie the ropes or interact with a local in a new way.

Bottom line: just as it doesn’t make sense to force your customers to connect with you only one way – you probably wouldn’t limit customers to just connecting over the phone for example, or just through a contact form on your website – effective communication in today’s world requires you to be where people are. The companies who are best able to reach out and connect are the ones who are seeing real results.

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