Blogging and Social Media: Which should you invest more time in?

photo ant carrying large leaf

Should you invest more time into blogging or social media? The answer is both!

Blogging and social media work together to create a well-rounded platform for the collaboration, exchange, and spread of your message or story.  The two marketing “platforms” of social media and blogging are one in the same in many respects.

What is the most important thing to remember?

Have fun with blogging and social media! You do business with people not the business. Although many of the interactions that happen in business are primarily transactional, one of the elements of business that isn’t very transactional is communications.  Employees with customers, internally with colleagues, partners, and directors and more, each communicate with each other. It is social.

On the web it can be awkward at times trying to relay and convey a thorough and informational message to potential and current customers, without sounding boring, bland, and robotic.  Just look at Seth Godin’s five rules for your about page, to get an idea of what not to do. Be human.

You say be human, does that mean our brand has to be “human”?

Your brand takes on its own persona in a sense and doesn’t have to be literally human but indeed should relate to actual humans. (Unless your market is for pet treats, which of course needs the human owner to buy, but pets like being marketed to! free treats!)

Blogging is an awesome way to put a human element to your business communications.  One of the best ways to do this is to show off the authors of the blog.  At the end of the post put a little bio of them and what they do, what interests them, and how to contact them.  There is an instant connection between reader and author.

In your social media efforts, you can put a human face on your brand and still succeed. In fact, there is a chance people will be more likely to connect with your company via social media when a human face is on the brand. This takes some thought, and sometimes can have negative effects, so use where you think it’s best.

How to invest more time into blogging and social media

How can you put more time into social media, blogging and networking without breaking your back?  This is a common question I get asked.  I simply answer, do what you think will have the greatest impact.

It is simple. Do the math. Take the time you have invested in past efforts, categorize it by social media and blogging, then look at the number of interactions, leads, and sales, you can correlate to it.  It isn’t fair to say that every tweet you send has a dollar value, although social media economists would beg to differ, there are some interactions on X (formerly Twitter) that could be deemed more valuable than others.

Example: You search for questions, concerns, sentiments about your brand and industry and come across someone who is looking for help with services you offer. You reach out to them, offer a little help, they respond, a lead is generated, and eventually they become a customer.  That has value. Count it.  The same thing should be happening with website visitors, particularly if you are using call to actions.

Spend less time doing, and just be

I like the “just be” mentality.  Over analyzing can lead to analysis paralysis, which can hinder brand development.  Be active in the social media sphere, christen those in your organization, or consider outsourcing social media for portions of your overall strategy.

Create an editorial calendar and try to stick with it as much as you can, but don’t break your back if you can’t.  There are several SEO copywriting opportunities out there, and focusing on necessary elements like keywords and high-quality original content will be much more valuable overall than re-publishing news from across the web.

(photo credit: ccrismp)