Social Marketing Revolution

Blogging and Social Media
Asking if blogging matters to social media is to ask the wrong question in the wrong way. Social media, like blogging, is a marketing tactic. Like all marketing tactics blogging and social media should come wrapped in a blanket of strategy.

Like all marketing strategy the tactical and strategic blanket that wraps blogging and social media should start with a brand's why - the raison d'être for a product, company, brand or service to exist. 

Every communication should flow from the spring of what Simon Sinek so well defined in his must read book Start With Why (use that link to buy the book on Amazon to make a small donation to cure cancer).  Sharing is what is happening. 
 
The "sharing economy" may be part hyperbole, but sharing is a form of communication and a tactic and a strategy few can afford to not embrace. Our Curagami post notes the importance of content curation in support of blogging.

We mention @Scoop.it as the best content curation tool we know and use. Curation is important to form community and so your voice doesn't begin to sound shrill and demanding. Better to curate the relevant (to your branding) communication of others than attempting to create (write or blog) you way to submission these days. 

Blogging, done right, is a conversation between a company, brand or product's WHY and customer reactions, ideas and desire to join the movement. Movements are bigger ideas than brands, but smart brands have harnessed the power of bigger ideas.

Nike's Just Do It, North Face's "Never Stop Exploring" and Apple's Think Different are all brilliant examples of connecting brands to bigger ideas (read Jim Stengel's excellent Grow for more on Brand Ideals). Blogging is a share and so a natural extension of harnessing brands to movements and bigger ideas.

Goes blogging matter? Yes and in more ways than we know or fully appreciate. Is blogging critical to social media? Yes since blogging confirms a company, brand or products digital listening skills while reaffirming the brand, company or website's presence in the game / conversation.  

Truth In Advertising
Social media needs an interpreter. I've never read a more true statement than, "fans and followers have not value as a stand alone number". That statement is correct in particular and in general.

Web metrics are best used as part of a modeled system of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). KPIs should inform actions. If you are monitoring something and NOT changing your Internet marketing based on what it says (in some way and don't forget numbers that make up your ecosystem and so inform action) then stop measuring it.

The distance between your KPIs and action should be short. The time it takes to take action can be long, depending on the KPI, but creating informed action is why you measure and this post explains HOW to measure social media.

No article can tell you exactly how to measure SMM for your business since how you segment and group is usually highly individual, but this post can help you get started. Metrics are magical and can keep the financial gatekeeper bears at the door, but only measure what has meaning and create that meaning from your modeled ecosystem.