Your Blog As Your Social Media Hub
Let’s kick this July Blog Party with discussing why having a blog as part of your social media strategy is so important.. I know, I know, no one really likes to do this planning stage of anything, but it really is important. Your decisions here will help you make decisions later when it comes to design, content, promotion and measurement. Taking time now to do some planning will pay off later.
I tend to view social media as a combination of hub and spoke activities. Your blog serves as your hub while all of your different social networking accounts serve as your spokes inviting readers to visit your hub. Many customers that I work with start using Facebook and Twitter accounts, but not a blog. Let’s spend a few minutes talking about what a hub is and why it is important.
To make the most out of your hub, it should be easy to update on a regular basis without contacting your website developer, and this is what makes it so attractive to use a blog as your hub. Once set-up, a blog is simple to update and keep organized because the software is a content management system. This ease of use means that you will be more likely to stay on track with regular updates, while the built-in functionality makes it easy for readers to navigate and interact with the site.
Because the hub is set-up and managed by you, you have more control over what happens on the site than you do on your spokes. Later this week, we will discuss free vs. hosted blogs, when I will really reveal my control freak side, but no matter which you choose you still are in control. You can control who has access to make updates and moderate comments which allows you to keep the message more on track. This isn’t to say you will delete every negative comment before it sees the light of day, at least you better not be doing that, but it is easier to keep things on topic with a blog.
An added benefit to the hub is the ability to express yourself in a longer format and with visuals inline with the text. Twitter limits you to 140 characters which can make it difficult to express your position. While you don’t want to recreate “War and Peace” in a post, you do want to have the flexibility to tell your story the way you intend it to be told. Your spokes allow you to link to images and videos, but it is difficult to input them directly into the text which helps to extend your story.
For those of you that don’t have a blog, I hope you this gets you thinking about starting one. For those of you that have a blog, are you using it as your hub?
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Comments
[...] addition to being a great hub, a blog can help you achieve one or more business goals. Setting goals for your blog is an [...]
[...] dedicated to Better Biz Blogging, I talked about the concept of your blog being your social media hub. In order to gain readership your hub needs spokes that help to promote its existence. The spokes [...]
Good info Beth! Thanks