There are billions of social media accounts around the world.
When it comes to marketing, social media is a big opportunity. In fact, one finding found that, when it comes to delivering content and securing audience engagement, LinkedIn is the most effective social media platform. (LinkedIn, 2017)
But what about blogging?
One finding was this: Over ¾ of internet users say they read blogs regularly. (Quoracreative, 2019)
Another: And 55% of marketers say blog content creation is their top inbound marketing priority. (HubSpot, 2018)
So blogging is an opportunity as well for businesses.
There are a lot of opportunities available to marketers today. That’s a great thing, but it can lead to frustration. If you choose one it feels like you’re giving up on another. Then you question if you’re really choosing the right one.
Because there is only so much time it can feel impossible and paralyzing to make a choice and stick with it. That’s why many struggle no matter what they choose.
Let’s dive in a little bit so you can make the best decision possible…
Social Media Marketing
Social media marketing is usually a bigger investment, in time and money, than most realize. It’s more than just hiring a young person to take photos and “use Facebook all day”. Although, that’s not a bad strategy. But for effective social media marketing to occur, there needs to be some direction from the business owner or manager. There also needs to be a focus on quantity.
First, the business needs to hire someone that understands the business and its values. If you hire someone that shares similar values, you won’t need to worry about what they’re posting as much. You won’t need to micromanage, which slows down and usually kills the entire process.
Second, you have to be okay with quantity. You have to embrace quantity. It’s easy to think that someone should just know what content will go viral. But the reality is that not even the best social media marketers know what content will go viral. You learn over time what works and what doesn’t. You create lots of content and once in awhile something goes viral and lifts everything up.
Another key aspect of social media marketing is creating native content. This means content that lives right in the platform. It’s not meant to lead people away from the platform. That’s not what the social media sites want. They want people on their platforms as long as possible. So their algorithms choose and showcase native content. Not links to your blogs or to other social sites.
Another key factor is that platforms come and go. Popularity increases and decreases. What is popular today may disappear tomorrow and that can be frustrating. But the thing to remember is that there are basically three types of social media content: Video, Audio and Text. The platform may change, but the type of content remains the same. So if you dive into video, you will have those video skills and experiences even if today’s hot platform changes to another hot video platform tomorrow.
Is social media for you?
No matter what you choose, there is a time investment. There is a monetary investment. If you’re doing the marketing yourself, you’ll want to see if there are clues that you’re interested and challenged by social media. Do you post on your own? Do you post often? Do you like learning more about social media platforms? If yes, then social might be the place for you.
Are a lot of your customers using a certain platform? Or multiple social platforms? These are other indicators that social media is the place to invest. You want to go where your audience already is and then attract their attention with content that educates and entertains.
Blog Marketing
Blog marketing is creating educational and entertaining text content on your business website. Usually you’re looking for at least one new post each week. And those posts should be around 1,000 words each. You’re looking for questions that your target audience is asking and you’re doing the best you can to provide the best answer.
It’s a simple concept, but not always easy to implement.
For one, there is usually more involved than most realize. You might have a handful of ideas for blog posts. You might even write those out. But after that it can be difficult to come up with more ideas and consistently write those ideas.
For two, many people find that they don’t like writing as much as they imagine. People like the idea of having written something, but not the actual research and writing part. But the appeal is there because so many people are reading blog posts and marketers want that attention.
Compared to social media, blogging offers a typically longer lifespan for the content. That’s most because of search engines like Google. You may write one post a week. After a year or a few years, the authority of your business grows. Google begins to trust you. You begin to rank for various terms and your new and old content begins to bring in traffic.
Social media is a little different in that your most popular content is usually your most recent. Then it typically fades away as people’s feeds fill with new content. That’s not good or bad. It’s just different.
If you like writing content, blog marketing may be for you. If you like researching, blog marketing may be right for you. If you’ve been good with maintaining a schedule, you might be a fit for blogging. You might also have someone on the team that you can pay, perhaps half-time, to maintain a regular blog for you.
As with social media, it’s about quantity. The more you write, the more you learn. The more you write, the more opportunities there will be for popular content. And the more you have the more your authority will grow. It’s about consistently publishing new content while also going back and updating content, just as Wikipedia does with their website.
What About Both…
For many businesses, blogging and social media work together. One strategy many business do is to create the blog content on a regular schedule. Then from that blog content they create snippets and use those snippets on social media. So you might create a 1,000-word blog post and from that you get 3-5 snippets that are ~100 words each that you share on social media.
Both social and blogging are typically more time consuming than anticipated. But a seemingly contradictory thing about it is that when businesses invest and believe in one they quickly see that they can make time for another. And when you’re doing two you can double the returns from the effort. And if one is working better than the other you can invest more in the one that’s working.
So consider putting time into both. They can feed into each other and provide a good comparison case for which works better for your individual business.
Final Thought
You really can’t go wrong if you choose social media or blog marketing. The opportunities are great with both. And you can always choose to invest in both. The biggest takeaway is that you have to really invest in them. It’s going to be more than you anticipate. With both, there will be a need to emphasize quantity. Like most things in life, the more you do, the more you learn and the better you become. Quantity leads to quality.
So choose the one you feel you’re most likely to do even when the returns seem initially small. Choose the one you feel that your audience is spending the most time with. But don’t fret over it too much. You can always pick the other one up in a year if things aren’t working out.