This week Amplify hosted a free “lunch and learn” session on social media, plus how to integrate traditional and new media. The presentation offered participants new to social media a background on the major players, like Facebook, Twitter and Flickr and some tips for success in utilizing each of them. One universal rule? Go where your audience is. Companies and organizations can easily get swept up in wanting to take advantage of the latest tool or technology before analyzing whether that platform actually reaches their target audience or helps them achieve their organization’s goals.
The second half of the presentation discussed how to integrate new media and traditional media – more specifically, how to use new media to generate press coverage. An example from Amplify’s own work was an online video we created for the International Fund for Animal Welfare’s Gift for Animals program. We used archived footage from IFAW’s field work to create a video commercial that we posted on IFAW’s YouTube channel and then sent out through a digital news release. The unique approach generated media attention for the alternative gift program, including a feature on Oprah.com. Our advice to any company or organization is to explore opportunities to repurpose existing materials and get more mileage from them through social media. Think about what you’ve done recently and how it might be adapted for a new media application – but only if it reaches your target audience of course!
