1.) Start small: You have to start somewhere. Don’t get overwhelmed by all the social profiles. The best ones to get your feet wet are Linkedin, FaceBook and Myspace. Upload your logo, write a company description and other information relevant to your business.

2.) Knock yourself out: Have fun personalizing your page! You get to say whatever you want about yourself and your business. Who better to talk about you…than you?

3.) Invite friends: Each website has services to easily find people you already know with a profile. If they don’t have a profile you  can invite them to create their own. They might benefit from a little social marketing as well.

4.) Join groups: Find out where your audience chats, hangs out or looks for information. By joining  the conversation you can peak your audiences interest or just get your name out there. Groups can have hundreds or thousands of members.

5.) Updates: Daily, weekly, monthly; this is really about how much you put into it. And with anything worthwhile this isn’t an automatic source of income. Spend a little time everyday to update your status, search for people you know and for people you’d like to know.

You have the opportunity to put positive information on the web about your company through social sites, discussion forums and blogs. This information is not necessarily posed as selling. Ask some of the people at your next meeting or conference where they spend their time online. Use a RegOnline survey. If you give your customers good information, then they will come back and read more and remember you. Maybe even bookmark your site. And in the web world, that’s a great compliment.

Unlike a few years ago, websites such as FaceBook and MySpace have become more than a social toy for teens. Now using these tools are a way for businesses to stay connected to their base, market to new customers, manage online reputation and learn from peers. When you break it down, social networking is just like going back to basic word-of-mouth-marketing, with a digital twist, of course.

Becoming Common Place
It has become common for businesses and individuals to link to each other through social media such as: LinkedIn, Twitter, FaceBook, MySpace, and Squidoo, just to name a few. Even sharing videos on Youtube.com and sharing presentations on Google Docs has become routine.

Event Marketing is a Little Easier
Social networking sites are a great resource for event planners to market and manage upcoming meetings, trade shows or events to a target audience. Zvents and UpcomingYahoo are two popular services that can be used alone, or you can integrate with social profiles on websites such as FaceBook so you only have to enter event information once.

The Wise Social Networker
Today business people are looking to make connections and socialize through the internet, and then looking for ways to make these connections profitable. Social media can be profitable, but not always in the traditional sense.

“The mistakes they [businesses] sometimes make are trying to fit their business into social media instead of adapting their business to social media. Look to find where your audience spends their time and work to get your name there. Another pitfall that some people fall into is that you have to be genuine in social media. Be an actual participant in the market, instead of a passive one, because this is a more personal way of marketing,” says Ryan Bell of Untouchable Marketing, a local marketing company in Denver.

Making friends, reading status messages and getting your name out there is all part of the fun. You can join groups that talk about topics of interest or the industry you work in. This is just another way to keep on top of what is going on in your field of business.

Getting Started
Building a successful social networking and marketing campaign won’t happen overnight. It should be considered a long term strategy. The trick is to learn how your customers use social media and how you can adapt.

RegOnline has started a group on FaceBook to give event planners a place to meet, gather information and grow their own network. Check out our page here: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/group.php?gid=128756320005

RegOnline also has a blog that gives event planners tips on marketing their events as well as useful information specific to using RegOnline’s software. http://www.planning-directory.com/

You can do the same for your customers. By becoming a resource, you create value to your customers and add to the conversation with other businesses as well.

Please join one of our profiles or groups to start building your network today!

Interested in marketing your event? Check out our list of the best event listing services.

Join or follow us on any of the following social networks.

Follow us on FriendFeed

Follow us on Twitter

Join Our Event Planning Group on MySpace

Check out our Event Planning Lens on Squidoo

See our Event Listings on Zvents

See our Event Listings on Eventful

See our Events Listings on Upcoming.Yahoo