Add them to your calendar now and start looking for budget. Susan Mernit published her calendar of the most important social media events for 2009 . In addition, JD Lascia created a similar list of social media events with a quick blurb about each.

There are so many good opportunities to extend the relationships you've established online, and these are among the best. For communicators interested in bleeding edge social media conversations, I highly recommend Austin's South by Southwest Interactive Festival in March and Maine's Pop Tech conference in October. Bloggers shouldn't miss the Web 2.0 Conference or Pop Tech conference in October. Bloggers shouldn't miss the Web 2.0 Conference or Supernova in San Francisco, or BlogHer in Chicago/New York.

If you don't have budget to travel, check for meetings of Social Media Club , Social Media Breakfast or PodCamp in your area.

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