Social Media 365 , Day 16 Summary of #smchat on Blogging as the backbone of a social media strategy

Day 16/365 of the Social Media 365 Project : Summary of Social Media Chat #Smchat on Blogging as the backbone of a social media strategy

Host :Heidi Cool (@hacool)

Chat Transcript : (click on the logo to see the file )

Here is the summary folks:

Q-A: Social media campaigns are meant to serve measurable goals. Are blogs more appropriate to some goals than others? Examples?

Interesting Conversations:

• sm strategy has 2 be built on more than engagement Value adding content plays important part Blogs are 1 vehicle to drive that (ajmunn)
• Blogs are more easily measured and often serve as a “hub” for info + discussion + media source + links to other socnets (CreativeSage)
• I think a blog works well for groups using a content driven strategy guided by one person or team. (hacool)
• Certainly GoogleAnalytics makes it easier to tie blogs into measurable SM goals than other efforts (Gwen_Ishmael)
• As objectives, goals and business rules differ across orgs cannot say blogs are universally pivotal Fair to say generally important (ajmunn)
• Blogs do work better w/ mktg goals where we want to explore ideas & create measureable convos. Especially now w/ video (elhoust)
• SM/twitter is an opportunity to see a fragment of your personality, a blip on the radar screen. SM=blip; Blog=battleship. (Jugglenaut)
• Familiarity is a good thing when undertaking soc media activities, and blogs offer a familiar interface/experience (Gwen_Ishmael)
• Blogs should also be an intermediary between new users and your products/services. We use ours as an intro to our expertise (brandonchicago)
• “Go to my Twitter!” is a not-so-good landing. “Go to my blog!” gives more…solidity? Solidness? (MarkWSchumann)
• Blogs are also a way to tie all of the other trad’l & SocMe mktg tactics together in an ease to digest format. (elhoust)
• Blogs let your tribe contribute “content” via comments & guest posts. Makes your “brand” more inclusive maybe (MarkWSchumann)
• Important points, blogs help integrate social media w/other PR, mktg, fund-raising or other outreach & are more in-depth (CreativeSage)
• Concept of static website no longer valid Content needs to travel & be seen in context Blogs useful in allowing that to happen (ajmunn)

Q-B Are you successfully using a blog in conjunction with a social media strategy?

Interesting Conversations:

• Yes just having a blog does not cut it. Need a content strategy & align that to objectives (ajmunn)
• Not as successfully as other things. Blogging = content = time (which is scarce) FB, Twitter, etc. = less content = less time (Gwen_Ishmael)
• Good point, I’m not doing a newsletter, but for many the blog is a good place to gather subscribers for email proj
• yes,blogs R now standard in our mktg plans 2 introduce ideas, start convos, &integr8 other SocMe tactics more affectively (elhoust)
• without quality content a blog shows a lack of importance will drive folks away (gretchenaro)
• Content is as much a product/service as anything else you offer your customer. Quality content on a blog drives opportunity (blogbrevity)
• Your blog (if promotional) needs quality *and* relevance (MarkWSchumann)
• To me, blogs: drive ideas & emergent thinking .. web sites: share details & logistics, ‘what & how’ framing .. tweets: connect (sourcepov)
• best example we can give is @ev of Twitter they give such useful meaningful info through their blog (TheSM365Project)

Here are some Interesting tips to make blogs better:

• I dont think blogs are for every1 Better not to have 1 if you dont have the resources to keep it relevant & up to date (ajmunn)
• Yes org buy in and org driven is key to successful & honest blog (ajmunn)
• yes, I think one needs to establish an editorial policy, http://bit.ly/36M0bE but let the human side show through. (hacool)
• we feel being up to date is very important if some new feature is launched today blog abt it now not after a fortnight (TheSM365Project)
• A blog needs to deliver on the promise of its theme, that’s all. Harder to do than it seems (rustyspeidel)
• Key learning for me (the hard way) was to establish my voice. Props to @meredithgould @mackcollier & #blogchat for helping that (sourcepov)
• I link to specific posts here in chats and also when answering questions on LinkedIn, the posts help me elaborate my thoughts (hacool)
• I also publish some condensed blog posts to a bi-weekly ezine that goes to our opt-in list, then link to full article (duxdlux)
• If I could pick just one blog tip out of many, it is: keep posts short, focused and relevant. Oh wait, was that 3 tips? (sourcepov)
• I also found that splitting up blog posts into smaller posts, leading to next post helps w/ timing & relevance. (elhoust)
• Also consider using other peoples blogs to get yr point across through commenting or sending them out to yr network (ajmunn)

What should be the length of a blog post??

• I think the length depends on the topic/audience. People recommend short, but mine are long and folks read them. (hacool)
• As a good buddy always says: “as little as possible, but as much as necessary.” (rustyspeidel)
• I think you just use as many or few words as necessary to make your point. (hacool)
• I’ve heard 350-400 max. I agree. You want folks to read it ALL. Longer than that, they may not. Its the web! (sourcepov)
• True on length. If you’re posting something your audience finds relevant, they’ll take the time (duxdlux)
• It’s vital to use audience’s language in blog posts, not too technical (i.e. medical or tech jargon). Staff coaching + shorter posts (CreativeSage)

Q-C- Have you found any drawbacks to using blog w/your social media strategy? How can we help you solve these problems?

Interesting Conversations: (here we missed out everything last night it was too fast 😉 )

• Only drawback is time required on top of other tasks. (rustyspeidel)
• Trouble managing multiple thought streams; wordpress allows categories to show as ‘archives’ .. its not necessarily intuitive (sourcepov)

Which blogging platform is most comfortable :

• I’m using WordPress and also have used Movable 130. Type. WP is my preference (hacool)
• I use both WP and Drupal as CMS platforms for clients, Drupal’s taxonomy capabilities much more powerful than WP categories (deanmeistr)
• we are newbies but we feel wordpress.com dashboard is easy to use for non techies like us (TheSM365Project)

Hope you liked the summary. Btw folks there wont be any SMchat next week. Btw folks there is another chat scheduled for today afternoon THU 11/19 #innochat @annherrmann on Whole Brain Thinking & Innovation Teams http://bit.ly/2ioJCR & http://bit.ly/uIsSj

Thanks

Team @TheSM365Project

Lets Socialize here

PS: Folks who missed out  #smchat do shout out your opinion in comments.