I stumbled upon an engaging post by Jay Baer @ http://ow.ly/10GdQ
on whether blogs should be at the epicenter of your SM strategy. He argues yes, and makes some excellent points, but I have a slightly different view.
The real time web/mobile enabled, and various SM channels are exponential reach multipliers. It will be myopic to discard one over the other. Blogs, Twitter, Facebook, Corporate sites and microsites – all of them need to work in conjunction, but which is the most critical among them?
I say, Personal branding trumps everything else. Whether you are starting your blogging career, or are an established one, want to create the next big enterprise, or indeed lucky enough to work on a “national” brand, it all starts with Personal branding. Engagement, and Dialogue on a one to one basis is at the bottom end of the Influence propagation funnel. It culminates in Trust, and it is easier to trust people than a corporation!!
While personal branding without wide reach is ineffective, so is having a personal brand without influence. I think Brian Solis makes a great point when he says we are all “brand managers” in this new media. http://ow.ly/10FgL
So, here is how I would use the following SM channels:
Twitter: For Personal brand building, Influence Propagation, and Driving traffic to blog or web site. Here are the ten commandments of Twitter 🙂 http://johnantonios.com/
Blogs: For Personal brand building, Influence Reinforcement, Driving traffic to corporate sites, micro sites
Facebook – Good for retention initiatives. It is a closed system, with little scope for exponential influence propagation.
Home page – The moment of truth for a brand. This is where you have brought the “party” to your place (to quote Trey Pennington, in this article http://ow.ly/10FRB). It is your time to bring out the fine china, and impress them.You (homepage) should be so captivating that your audience does not want to leave, or wants to come back every chance they get. In my mind, it is very important to include some “game” or “competition” elements to engage your audience even more, once they are there. Easy navigation would be the other obvious element to have.
In summary, personal brand building is the foundation, and you have to use a combination of Blogs, Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, and Corporate or Brand site (if applicable) to reinforce and capitalize on the trust that your personal brand has built.
Agree? Disagree? Ambivalent? Would love to know what you think. If nothing else, just a thumbs up or a thumbs down would be appreciated.
Cheers,
Correlationist's Blog 