Just got back from Breakthrough, the 10th Annual PINC Show (now Visual Media Alliance). Their Super Hero theme this year was realized in the many colorful presenters’ booths — from a helpful Masked Zorro to a superhuman cut-out photo booth — and it was a great vehicle for dazzling the crowds with the latest and greatest in print technologies and beyond.

The champion crusader of the event was keynote speaker David Spark of Spark Media Solutions, whose presentation on the 14 Successful Techniques for Building Your Industry Voice with Social Media provided clear insight into social media’s prowess.

Some favorite tips:

Ride current hot news and cultural memes.
As sure as Crystal Bowersox is going to sweep American Idol, connecting your industry topic with buzzworthy news is sure to drive visits to your blog.

Own a phrase.
David Spark did an experiment here to see what it took to be the number one return on a google search of the phrase “making money with podcasting”. Over the course of a few months, he posted a series of 15 interviews with successful podcasters on the topic and tracked his google progress. Each part of the series included links between the blogs, a technique to drive traffic.  The result? By the end of the series his articles were returning the top hits in google when users typed in “making” “money” and “podcasting”. The trick is title your articles with a phrase that is common enough to be searched but not too common to reign in.

Take advantage of contests by using a social media layer.
Your company’s active online community is a resource. Boxee, an open source social media center, created a contest to staff their convention booths. The contest entrants submitted a video demonstrating their presenter ability. The 4 winners were flown to Las Vegas where they successfully represented the Boxee company. The best part is that the people who take the time to enter your contests are passionate enough to be stellar advocates for your product or service.

These are just the tips of the social media iceberg. Cleverly working known SEO triggers, engaging your company’s online community, and being active and consistent will ensure your social media plan packs a superhero punch.