Is Blogging Social Media?
I ask the fundamental question today, is Blogging considered Social Media? Is Blogging part of your Social Media strategy?
Ultimately we are looking for products and services on the web that will allow us to interact and engage with our target audience. Social Media sites do this well, but often using a Blog allows you to attract an even more niche audience whom want more information about your business.
In an effort to reach out and make your organisation ‘social’ having a business/company blog is a great way to invite open dialogue between all stakeholders. We all get a picture of how a person/business/ company operates, but a blog on the side gives us insights into the running/ people, strategy and basically the humanity behind that business.
Blogging should be transparent, do it for a particular reason and be upfront about it. If you are blogging to solely make more sales “Hi – buy my product” you may quickly realise people are not looking for this type of engagement.
If you want to increase sales through your website, blog about your products, why they are good, how they help customers then drop in a link for Purchase. You can use your blog as an open sales pitch to the internet world, but do it with some integrity and style – don’t act ‘selfish’, cheap or nasty.
What will using your Blog as a Social Media tool achieve?
1. Communication Avenue
You want to have a platform where you can invite discussion with your customers and prospects, and a place where they are invited to give their opinion/ thoughts as well.
2. Search Engine Traffic
We all know that having a regularly updated blog makes the search engines visit your site more often, and index your pages. If you want to rank higher in the search engines for your particular product/service/ keyword then having a blog and discussing this is certainly going to help.
3. Social Media distribution, using your Blogs RSS feed
If you are writing blog posts you want to maximise on the number of people reading them, simple. Using tools such as Hellotxt.com or Ping.fm you will be able to take your Blog RSS feed and distribute your new posts automatically to your Facebook Fan page, Twitter profile, LinkedIn account and many other social networking sites.
This is a great way to get more readers/ views on your blog posts.
4. Build your Reputation/ Credibility
You can use your blog as a customer service and information tool to your customers/ prospects and users.
If you regularly provide them free advice and helpful information, this will set you apart from your competition and acting as the ‘Customer Service type’ in the long run will bring benefits, such as Brand Loyalty.
Being open and honest will also allow you to ask your users their opinion on what you are doing as a business, and get constructive feedback.
Summary/ Conclusion
If you are blogging for your business or company, make sure your blog looks professional, updated frequently, and provide free information to your readers in an effort to spark interest in them to buy your product or service, OR to get your readers recommending you to their network.
If either of these 2 things start happening to you – you know that including blogging in your social media strategy has worked.