Christian retailers were urged to tap into the benefits of social media at last month's International Christian Retail Show (ICRS).

Though actual attendance was down for the July 12-15 event at the Denver Convention Center, the CBA show found a broader audience through participants' use of digital services like Twitter and Facebook.

Suppliers, retailers and the Christian Retailing editorial team used Twitter—a micro-blogging text service—to send short news updates and observations from the show. Weeks later, Twitter posts related to ICRS were still circulating—with users discussing issues and following up on connections.

Aaron Linne, executive producer of digital media marketing for B&H Publishing Group, said that social media had "definitely" affected ICRS, adding a "whole new dimension to the marketing opportunities to any trade show."

Gunnar Simonsen—general manager of Christian Supply Centers in the Pacific Northwest, who spoke of the importance of social media in an ICRS presentation—noted that he had "met more new people this year because of Twitter than all of the years I have attended this event."

Simonsen took part in a "Tweet Up"—an informal gathering of Twitter users—on the exhibit floor, organized by Isaac Fineman of Bridge Media Group.

Collin Peterson, regional sales manager for Vicks printing company, attended the Twitter meeting to find out more information on using social media for his business and making connections with contacts.

"Not only has Twitter helped to quickly connect with my contacts online, but it also has provided a unique experience for business-related conversations," he said.

Peterson has used Twitter to help with his "branding, both personally and professionally." Like others, he has used the service to direct viewers to his Web site and other social media pages, noticing a "substantial increase" in unique visitors.

Phil Burgess—executive director of CrossBooks, the new self-publishing division of B&H Publishing Group—also attended the Tweet Up. To help with promotions, he encouraged his company's authors to sign up for both Twitter and Facebook.

Social media was also officially the topic during some of the scheduled retail events. Simonsen exposed retailers to social media techniques in a variety of settings, including a music marketing workshop and the Retailer Idea Exchange—when store representatives met to swap ideas.

In groups of retailers ranging from 10 to 100, he was surprised to find a low number—2%-3% in his estimation—of stores using social media for business.

"It's always fun when I tell people that the average age of the person using Facebook is 36," he said. "Facebook is free. It's the biggest social marketing in the world, and the average time a person spends on it is three hours. We need to be looking into it."

On Facebook, retailers can set up fan pages and create groups or "tribes," Simonsen said, even adding video book and music previews of authors and artists. "It's phenomenal what you can do," he said.

He also repeated a suggestion from EMI CMG's David Crace, who said that every store has an employee who could easily set up the store on the social networking site.

"(Social media) is there, it's zero cost, and there are great resources," Simonsen said. "We must not lose sight of our relationships to our customers. There’s so much data that we can collect and learn from."

The social media focus also continued after ICRS. In the week following the event, the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association presented a social media Webinar led by B&H's Linne for publishers.

He detailed the paradigm shifts taking place in promotion, also spotlighting those having the greatest success. "We are changing to an industrial age from information age to a relational age," Linne said.

Meanwhile, Barbour Publishing was recently cited in a social media report for successfully promoting its fiction authors through both general market and Christian market online networks.

FrontGate Media launched a campaign for nine Barbour authors of interest to women, creating content for Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, Friendfeed and Shoutlife.