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.

Like what you read? Add our RSS feed! [what’s that?]. Or start your morning with socialTNT in your InBox! Or read Chris 24-7 on Twitter!

[The above photo, "DSCF1443" by James Sant on Flickr, used under Creative Commons]

Related posts:

1. “Don’t Talk About Shoes: How Zappos Creates Compelling Content to Reach Audiences Effectively”
2. “May I Have The Embed Code, Please? Evaluating the Oscars Social Media Strategy”
3. “2.0 Politik: Do Democratic Candidates Make the Grade?”

UPDATE: Thanks for joining us for socialTNT’s first live demo.  If you missed it, you can see the full, 3-minute video demo, below.

Let us know what you think! Have you tried PressThis? How do you think it compares to Tumblr?

Hi Everyone:

We will be conducting a live demo of PressThis, WordPress’ answer to Tumblr.  Always wanted to start a blog or looking to ease your idea sharing? Tune in and watch how you can easily add a quick link, some text, a quote, video or photo.

Come back to the page today, September 3rd, at 3PM PT/ 6 PM ET and watch as we demo PressThis LIVE.  The Qik channel should be live, below, or check out this link. We’ll be streaming direct from my iPhone.

I’m still getting the hang of this live broadcasting thing, so it should be fun!

Related posts:

1. “Video Sneak Peak of New WordPress ‘Crazyhorse’ at Wordcamp 2008″
2. “OMG!! Blogging Is Dead! Now What?: Quick & Dirty Alternatives”
3. “And…Cut! How Not To Pitch Video Content”