This morning, WIRED jumped on the “blogging is dead” bandwagon. Ironically, they wrote the article, well, in a blog post. The writer, Paul Boutin, makes some good points: too many mainstream publications to get heard, too many secret marketing campaigns and too much of a time suck to write. So, um, now what?
Social Media marketing and PR is not about the next shiny thing nor is it a checklist built to match competitors. It’s about combining the best tools and technology with the available resources to create a strategy that reaches your audience and meets your communications goals. Today, socialTNT shares alternatives to blogging that might actually improve the amount of content being created.
You just drafted a flawless strategy. The CEO will blog 4 times a month, CTO will blog 5 times a month and a VP of Marketing plans to blog 10 times a month. Your team brainstormed ideas and created an EdCal. You are sending relevant blog posts….but nothing seems to happen. No one blogs! Apparently no one seems to have the time or motivation.
Time is the resource we never seem to have enough of. It’s also one of the resources we need the most of when conducting a social media campaign. Don’t fret! You just have to reevaluate the tools to make sure you choose something that is most compatible with your spokesperson’s time crunch. Also by offering a range of media through which spokespeople can create, you give them more opportunities to find which media motivates them most to create (that is, are they more videographer, sharer, photographer, talker, etc.).
Quick and Dirty Blogging Alternatives
- Tumblr or Worpress’ PressThis
- No time to write a long-form blog post? No problem! Both add a bookmarklet to your browser to help you share a link, a quote, video or picture you have found online.
- Great way to share comments and opinion on posts and articles
- Twitter
- One of many micro-blogging sites, Twitter has become the fastest way to share thoughts or links.
- Lists are a great way to use this medium–text them in while on the go!
- Also, since Twitter is an active community, you should easily be able to find like-minded people or influencers
- Utterz
- Utterz is to podcasting what Twitter is to blogging. Phone in thoughts while driving in to the office, or conduct a quick interview on the showroom floor–it’s that simple!
- Qik or Flixwagon
- Spokesperson have a Nokia or an iPhone? Well, now you have the ability to do live streaming from wherever you like…AND it’s chatroom makes it fully interactive
- Seesmic
- Film a quick video blog post once a week to discuss industry news
- Flip Camera
- Flip video has become a mainstay in PR and marketing because it’s simple to use. Shoot shorter interviews and upload to YouTube in one step!
- Flickr
- Not a text person? Snap photos at events and let the captions explain the situation
The new social media plan will look like this: CEO phones in an Utterz once a week, Tweets on the morning commute, Qik’s once a week. CTO take photos at industry events. VP of Marketing Seesmics twice a week and Flip interviews at industry events.
Now where do you house all that content? That goes back to your target audience. Are they on Facebook? Build a page. But until Friendfeed becomes the number one content aggragating platform, we have a feeling it’s going to be on *ahem* a blog.
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[The above photo, "DSCF1443" by James Sant on Flickr, used under Creative Commons]
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Wait a second. I agree with everything here. Its an awesome post. But what about those things that are just, ya know, kinda important to flesh out. Those “statements of purpose or vision” that come at a moment’s notice. That blog should be part of the list, just like everything else. Not the end all and say all, but sitting there quietly.
While blogs have become passe, they are still the first thing that someone goes to when looking at your site.
Just my thoughts..
Hey Ezra:
Ageed. Blogs are still a key component, and to me, have replaced web pages as the main means of corporate communications. I don’t think they are going to up and die.
For small bits of not-completely fleshed out ideas, I love Twitter. Like a lot of bloggers, I have several partially written blog posts. Where do those go?
Chris,
Since I started using posterous – in my email “drafts” folder. But that’s just me.
While you can get to learn about the twitter me through twitter, I feel that my blog expresses an entirely different side of me. As a person, I am somewhat of both.
I have tried on my twitterstream to shorten some of my posts into tweets. Let me know what you think
Chris,
Great list! All of these tools are excellent complements to a blog. By leveraging what works best for the client’s schedule, you can help set realistic expectations and ensure that their blog (or entire social media strategy) doesn’t fall into the “no time to update” trap. That is a pain I have felt before… and don’t want to feel again anytime soon.
I’ll be sure to pass these around!