Starting or Improving a Blog

Every year we're inundated with statistics from sources like Technorati, Forrester and others that the number of blogs continues to grow. Whether you are an administrator of multiple blogs or looking to create your first one we can all rally around the idea that we want to make a blog the best it can be. There are a number of factors that go into making a blog great:

• Content
• Personality
• Engagement with the community
• Interaction points
• Design

Before getting into all of this, the creation of the blog has to take place. The vast majority of people create their blogs on platforms that center around blogs, which include Blogger, Word Press, TypePad and others. Other people create their blogs on platforms that may not necessarily be 100% blog-centric, like Weebly or Wix. Still others, who are more experienced will code their blogs from scratch and use a separate hosting service.

Since this blog is hosted on Google's Blogger platform, as are millions of others, I will be talking about some of my favorite Blogger templates, widgets and plug-ins.

Google offers some basic templates for a blog upon its creation. These are standard templates that can get the job done, but can easily be replaced if you are looking for something a little more unique or aesthetically pleasing.

There are a number of fantastic resources out there that have pre-made Blogger templates and directions in how to apply them to your blog:

• BTemplates
• Blogger Templates Blog
• Deluxe Templates
• Blog Crowds

To help narrow down the the amount of templates you will be browsing through, you should first think about how many columns you would like on your blog. The post section of the blog counts as one column, each column after that is a side bar. Having only two columns will give you more room for larger widgets in the sidebar and potentially a cleaner look, but if you want to incorporate a number of widgets it means that most will be below the scroll. Three and four column widgets allow for more widgets to be above the scroll, but can limit the width of any widget you would want to include. You will have to weigh these factors and others when deciding what layout you want.

Keep in mind that you can try a template out and if you don't like it after uploading the code to your blog can always change to another.

The conversation about columns brings us to widgets, gadgets and plug-ins. Blogger offers some standard widgets that can be applied to your blog with a single click. These might include:

• Post archive
• Tags/Labels
• Basic Text
• HTML box
• Slideshow
• RSS feed
• Followers
  

These are all very important to the success of a blog, but you should look beyond the Blogger offerings to find other extremely helpful options. Maybe you want a tag cloud instead of a list, or a video slide show, or box displaying your LinkedIn updates, or a stream of headlines from the New York Times. Without question, you should add "share" icons to your blog so readers can proliferate the posts on their social networks, as well as through e-mail and bookmarking tools.


Again, there are great sites and posts dedicated to showing you the best widgets and plug-ins for your blog:

• Widgets for free
• Mashable's 25 Best
• BanBosh
• Mint Blogger
• Tips Box
  

Hopefully this will help provide some links to resources that can help you create or improve your blog. If you're having trouble installing a theme, widget, plug-in or anything else just shoot me a note and I'll see if I can help. I know there is a tremendous amount more we could talk about with regards to improving a blog so if you have notes that you would like to share with everybody please leave a comment.

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Don't Forget About Blogs

With the meteoric rise of social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, many corporate communications professionals tend to forget about the power of a blog. Blogging started well before Facebook and Twitter were present in the social media landscape so they aren't as flashy or fun these days. Blogs and even blog networks are more dispersed so the traffic numbers don't seem as impressive as social networks.

Facebook can publicly state that it has over 400 million users worldwide and Twitter can claim over 75 million users, but blogs typically define their traffic individually. Gizmodo, a very popular technology and gadget blog can very impressively make the case that they had 1,981,394 unique visitors last month. Though this is amazingly impressive, some markets don't grasp the importance of this number compared to the 400 million total users on Facebook.


A blog offers a concentrated, focused audience. Outreach performed to a blog, or the creation of a blog, can be much more effective than creating a Facebook fan page or Twitter account. A blog has more potential to become a conversation hub, a lasting community and a trusted source than social networking platforms. Blogs allow for more in-depth content because there is greater freedom to write lengthy posts or post a variety of content (text, video, slideshows, streaming video, live blogging plug-ins).

Don't get me wrong, there is immense value in social networks, especially when done well. I just want to make sure that blogs are forgotten in the equation because they may be a brands best option to meet their communications goals.

I know I can think of examples in my professional life where I have suggested a blog to a client, but it was shot down because it didn't have the "potential growth" that Facebook offered.

Do any of you have any examples of blogs being passed over or dismissed as a viable option?

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Getting a job with social media is about relationships, not content

One of my primary points on this blog and to clients is that relationship building should be a primary tenant while entering into and building out social media communications. Social media and the tools used to operate in the landscape are a means to building relationships, but that is often forgotten.

Social media presents a platform to build relationships with clients, consumers, influencers, competitors, recruits and more. The preamble to developing relationships is content. The content has to draw people in, but ultimately content won't deliver on new business or new partnerships.

There is a common phrase in the communications world, "content is king." I respectfully disagree with that adage no matter how entrenched it is in our industries mindset. Content is clearly important, but relationships are much more important. The time it takes to produce an abundance of content can be better spent developing meaningful relationships with people attracted to slightly more sparse content.

I know this to be true with brands and businesses, but it might be even more true when marketing oneself on the job market. Content alone may initially attract a would be employer, but he or she won't stick around long if their isn't a line of communication opened and harvested. Experts say that over 75% of jobs are filled when the employer has a personal connection of some kind to the applicant. Social media can be your tool to developing that personal connection, but content won't do it for you. A relationship has to be built in order for you to leave a lasting, meaningful impression on a person.

This means you have to cultivate conversations, reply to comments on a post, respond to @replies on Twitter, send a message back to people on LinkedIn or whatever other platform you use.

In the ever-growing world of social media, the way to get noticed will increasingly be going above and beyond in building relationships. It will be an exception to the rule when a person is noticed and benefits greatly just from their content.

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The Seven Best Social Media Blogs Going Into 2010

There are number of very good blogs across the blogosphere that discuss social media in a variety of ways. The following seven blogs have done a particularly good job of talking about the ins and outs of social media throughout the last year and have brought real, unique insight to their readers. I expect big things out of these bloggers over the next year.

The Brand Builder Blog

The Brand Builder Blog is an amazing resource for marketers, especially if looking into ROI and how it relates to social media. Olivier Blanchard, the voice behind The Brand Build Blog is a leader in the conversation about ROI, which becomes immediately obvious after reading one of his posts or watching one of his videos. What I really enjoy about Olivier is that he isn't afraid to call out the snake oil marketers who call themselves "social media gurus" and offer misguided notions of ROI.

Social Media Explorer

Jason Falls writes Social Media Explorer and does a great job of educating his readers about the newest trends in social media. Jason is always in the know when it comes to the important social media technologies and the important figures across the industry. The best part of Social Media Explorer is that when a reader comments on a post he/she is more than likely going to get a response from Jason. He truly embraces the social aspect of social media and makes sure his readers get his attention.

Logic + Emotion

This is a blog that had tremendous insight into the social media landscape. Logic + Emotion is David Armano's personal blog. David is a great teacher and incorporates some of the better social media visuals you can find. My favorite part of the blog is David's willingness to share his personal story and business evolution. Over the last few months, readers have been taken through the journey from Dachis Group to Edelman, but all while learning about social media.

Marketing Pilgrim

Though not all posts are about social media, many of the posts at Marketing Pilgrim either focus on or have elements of social media. The stories often stretch beyond to all internet marketing and advertising. The market insights and trends that are discussed on Marketing Pilgrim are unparalleled. I can always count on them to keep me informed of the demographic information for various platforms.

PR 2.0

Brian Solis, the voice of PR 2.0 and principle at FutureWorks does an amazing job at providing readers with real wisdom about the social media landscape and how it applies to marketing or PR. Its clear after reading one of Brian's posts that he has amazingly experience and knowledge of the industry. He can speak about small business, large brands, b2b, b2c and much more. The best part about the blog is its willingness to predict the future trends of social media. Brian isn't afraid to go out on a limb and state what he believes is the wave of the future.

Instigator Blog

You'll find more than just discussion about social media at the Instigator Blog. Ben Yoskovitz talks about start-ups, general business and of coarse social media. He is always on top of the newest technologies and practices.

Britopian

Michael Brito is one of the more experience social media professionals out there. He has an impressive resume and brings that experience to his posting. What I enjoy most about Britopian is the ability to not only discuss social media technologies, but the culture of social media and digital marketing.

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How to evaluate a blog

Being able to evaluate the influence and reach of a blog is an important skill for a communications professional. It is beneficial to know the possible affect of a blog publishing a mention about a brand, sharing a promotion or how many people can legitimately be reached through advertising on that blog.

Evaluating a blog can be broken down to three primary areas:

• Traffic/Reach
• Community Culture
• Content

Traffic/Reach

The traffic and potential reach for a blog centers around metrics of unique visitors, visits and page views. Some blogs make this very easy by coding in a public site meter of some sort. Gathering metrics for blogs that don’t have this is a little bit more difficult, but there are tools than can give a fairly accurate estimate.

Site meter or stat counter icons on a blog will usually be in a side bar or bottom task bar and will look like this:


They offer all the cursory information needed, as well as the ability to dive deeper into who is visiting the blog. Site meter allows for analysis of visitors by:

• geographic location
• specific IP address
• referring URLs
• entry pages
• out-clicks

If a blog doesn’t have a site meter of some kind, universal tracking tools will need to be employed to estimate traffic and reach:

Alexa Ranking:

The Alexa Ranking is derived from the millions upon millions of people using a toolbar with an Alexa component. Alexa tracks which sites these people visit and produces a ranking of all websites. This is one of the only universal ranking systems for sites. It is important to note that the lower the Alexa ranking the better. #1 would be the absolute best Alexa ranking.

Compete:

Compete uses a panel of over 2 million people across the United States. They combine internet activity and survey responses from the population used in their data. The population is comprised of a cross-section of Americans that represent the greatest variety of people possible. Compete uses this group to estimate site traffic using methodology that normalizes for lurking variables. Most sites, but not all register with Compete. If a site doesn’t register it simply means that it is not statistically relevant enough and therefore probably doesn’t generate a significant amount of traffic.

You can measure domains without creating an account, but in order to measure subdomains like xxxxx.blogspot.com, you will have to create a user name and password. Compete provides metrics for unique visitors, visits, an overall ranking and a graph that charts visitors by month.

Community Culture

Engagement numbers are integral to understanding community culture. In most industries, it is these numbers that are the true indicators of the power of a blog to influence its readers. Tools like Post Rank can show the number of engagement points for a site, including number of comments, number of times a link is shared on a social bookmarking site and link sharing on Twitter. This is a great tool to demonstrate the engagement on a blog’s community, but not all blogs register.

If the blog you are interested in measuring doesn’t register with Post Rank, you will have to collect this information manually. It is easy to gain an understanding of the average number of comments per post by averaging the number of comments per post for the last 10-20 posts, but be sure to look at the comment section to weed out comments by the blogger. In many cases you will find the blogger is actually the most active commenter and including their comments will skew the engagement numbers.

You can search a domain name or subdomain name within each social bookmarking site’s search box. The most pertinent social bookmarking sites include:

• Digg
• Delicious
• Reddit

Content

Evaluating content is completely subjective. You will need to review the content based on your own criteria and goals. It is important to align yourself with blogs that publish content you would be willing to share and direct people towards, since you will likely link share with them on a semi-regular basis.

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My wedding is keeping me from social media

I got engaged a couple months ago. I had been dating my then girlfriend for over six years and knew that it was the right time, right place and absolutely right girl. What I didn't fully grasp was how much time and energy planning the wedding would take.

With the time it takes to select a band, narrow down catering options, pick invitations and all the other components I have to cut time spent elsewhere. For me it was a difficult, but also simple choice.

I wasn't going to be able to cut time from work. Social media growth and brand adoption of social media strategies means more work. I can't cut time with family, dogs and friends because they are simply too important to me. I don't want to cut exercise time because it is important for me to be healthy and I have a marathon scheduled for several weeks from now.

This ultimately means that I have to reduce the amount of time I spend with my personal social networks. I spend less time tweeting, on Facebook, writing blog posts, joining in on discussion boards and posting video/photos.

It got me thinking what additional things happen in people's lives would keep them from participating in online communities as much as they would like? Are other people willing to sacrifice time spent doing other activities for the sake of social media?

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Issues with starting social media in a reluctant company

I spoke with a client this morning who is the primary advocate for building a corporate social media presence and the only one with any authority in his department. The conversation about strategy and execution turned into an airing of greivances and frustrations with the corporate infrastructure.

This client is a true believer in creating a corporate blog or blog network that can promote thought leadership, share white papers, engage potential consumers and really just generate conversation.

There are two primary issues within his company:

• Time constraints


• Executive support

He wants to include other experts in his company in the blogging process. He would love to see guest posts, comments and proliferation of messaging by his valued team members. Unfortunately, they all claim a lack of time as to why they don't want to contribute in any way. He is having a very difficult time convincing them that social media is beneficial for the promotion of the company services, as well as the individual's expertise. These people want immediate rewards, which he can't deliver yet because there isn't enough traffic.

The other issue is a lack of executive support. This client thinks that the experts would be more likely to participate if the other executives pushed them to do so and were vocal about the value of social media.

These are both real issues that people face while trying to start a social media endeavor in a company that has been otherwise reluctant to undetake one. Often times a truly compelling argument isn't enough because people want immediate dividends. Unfortunately if you are out alone on a limb, you may have to stay there until you can deliver the slightest of measuable, positive results. Don't give up on the compelling argument idea though. There are great case studies and results out there for all industries so look for proof of concept before taking on a company.

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Breaking Down Technorati's 'State of the Blogosphere'

This year Technorati has rolled out their "State of the Blogosphere" in a five-part series. They'll be posting one part every day throughout this week. Thus far, they have posted "Who Are the Bloggers?" and "The What and Why of Blogging."

These two parts alone have a host of information to digest, critically analyze and apply to your social media knowledge. In an effort to highlight the most important stuff, I'll be breaking down the info and asking a few questions along the way.

Methodology:

Technorati collected data from Penn, Schoen and Berland Associates who conducted a survey of 2,828 bloggers nationwide. They also gathered data from 11,000 active Lijit publishers (bloggers using the Lijit search widget) and 2.5 million blogs connected by link to these Ligit bloggers. This data collection method is somewhat biased because it takes a certain type of blogger to decide to download a Lijit widget. It becomes immediately less likely that casual bloggers or bloggers who see no value in Lijit can contribute their input to the survey. The correction for this of adding blogs who are linked to Lijit users helps a fair amount but still isn't an entirely valid and random representation of the blogoshpere.

Realisticially, it would be an enormous undertaking to get a representative and random sampling of blogs so I can't complain too much about their choice of blogs.

Major Points:

1. The state of the blogosphere is strong

2. There are 4 types of bloggers

• Hobbyists: 72%- This group blogs for fun and don't make any money from blogging
• Part-Timers: 15%- They blog to supplement their income, but don't use blogging as a full-time job
• Self Employeds: 9%- People who blog full-time for their company or organization
• Pros: 4%- Also listed as blogging full-time for their company or organization, but apparently don't blog as many hours per week

3. Bloggers are educated and in good standing financially:

• 1/3 of respondents has a household income of over $75K
• 75% of bloggers have a college degrees
• 40% have graduate degrees

4. People who have worked in traditional media are migrating towards blogs. 35% of all respondents have worked within the traditional media as a writer, reporter, producer or something else

5. Bloggers are beginning to use mobile devices to blog, but it is still not a common practice:

6. There is a significant increase in professional blogging. This means blogging for the purpose of gaining income, business connections and increased revenue is on the rise.

7. Blogging has been beneficial to individuals careers and work goals. 58% of respondents said they are better-known in their industry solely because of the blog.

8. The volume of blogging is on the rise. 57% said they plan to blog even more moving forward, which included 74% of 18-24 year olds.

My Observations:

1. The growing number of "professional" bloggers is changing the face of blogging as we have known it for the last 10 years. Technorati asserted that only 36% of of professional bloggers discuss the political and social implications of their topics. The topical and neutral stances of professional bloggers have created a trend of less emotional, opinionated posts, which is what blogging was founded upon. I'm a professional in the social media world so I understand the idea of professional blogging, but I would hate to lose the passion and opinions that blogging is synonymous with.

2. Technorati tried to play to the dichotomy between traditional and social media with survey questions lke "are blogs better written then traditional media?" Bloggers didn't fall into the trap. Based on Technorati's data, bloggers were resistant to the notion that trditional media is either failing or decreasing it's content quality. Its important that a mutual respect remains present between the two parties because as each day passes the lines become more blurred.

3. Technorati found that "30% of those who are blogging less say it's because they are devoting more time to microblogging and social networks." In other words, bloggers are writing less because they are networking and having fun on sites like Twitter and Facebook. This is a very important trend. Does this mean that blogging is on the decline? Are other platforms rising up to destroy the blogosphere? I'm pretty sure the answer is "No." Other platforms are actually being tied into the blogosphere to help promote individual blogs. Twitter and Facebook updates are riddled with links to blog posts. Still, the next wave of technology could make blogging a pastime much in the way of chat rooms.

Technorati has been struggling to regain some of the prominence it once had. This report provides great data for all those marketers and social media junkies out there, but is it enough to bring Technorati to the top again? I guess we will have to wait and see what the next three parts of the report have to say.

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Top 10 Social Media Blogs

Friends, clients, strangers and other interested parties often ask me where they should go if they want to learn about social media. There is no single answer to this question because there are so many good minds out there and the landscape changes so quickly. In an effort to organize the places to go and learn from the best, I wanted to share the best social media spots on several different platforms. This will come in a series of posts, but I'll start with my top 10 social media blogs.

I came to these numbers factoring in both quantitative data like page rank, alexa rank, compete unique visitors and others, as well as qualitative data like quality of posts and activity level of communities.

1. Mashable : Simply the powerhouse of social media news. Mashable attracts more visitors in one day than some blogs can even dream of getting in their active life. Great writers, great ease of use. It is simply the best right now.
2. Seth Godin's Blog: If you want some great insight into life while learning social media both directly and through osmosis than Seth is your man. Don't let his shiny scalp scare you away. He truly knows what hes talking about and has been the mentor to many social media minds.
3. ChrisBrogan: Chris is an expert in social media and isn't afraid to show it. That doesn't mean that he isn't humble because he most certainly is. He lives and breathes social media, which is evident in every post about his daily experiences or his major insights.
4. Marketing Pilgrim: There are a few primary bloggers whose primary goal is to flood you with industry news that can be of help to you. Go, read, download and emerge a smarter person.
5. Web Strategy by Jeremiah Owyang: Up until a couple of days ago Jeremiah was working with and providing intensely helpful information from the comfort of the Forrester offices. He has now teamed with Charlene Li, which should make for a powerful force in the social media world.
6. Scobleizer: Robert made his name while working at Microsoft, but his innovation and expertise goes beyond the world of Microsoft.
7. Duct Tape Marketing: Focused mostly on small businesses and small budgets. DTM is a great source for those just getting into social media marketing as a part of overall marketing strategies.
8. How To Change The World: Guy Kawasaki is a name that most if not all social media people know. He is really pushing Alltop, but continues to guide us through his blog. You can also find Guy's thought leadership at his other home on OPEN Forum.
9. PR 2.0: Brian Solis writes PR 2.0, while contributing at TechCrunch and Brandweek. He's a great strategist that knows the best technologies to use along the way.10. Logic + Emotion: David Armano is stretched a little thin these days because he is in such high demand though his work with Dachis Group, but he still manages to write posts about the contemporary issues and industry-specific news for social media.

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Why is monitoring important?

There are more and more companies sprouting up every year dedicated solely to monitoring online media. These companies are improving their products as the digital media world evolves.

Nowadays the best tools will capture all online mentions, both social and traditional media, which in effect replaces a clipping service while adding new services. After harvesting the data from traditional media outlets with an online presence, social networks, blogs, discussion boards and video and photo sharing sites the monitoring tools will analyze the posts/articles.

Not every monitoring product will capture posts from all these locations, so make sure you ask the salesperson or analyst that is demoing their product for you what sources they monitor.

The top products will provide trends in conversation, sentiment breakdowns, tag clouds, gleaned insights for marketing and public relations purposes, opportunities for engagement and much more.


These products can range from $1,000 at the low end to $100,000 at the high end. Even if you don't have any money for monitoring services, you should be manually monitoring your brand. There are plenty of free tools to search by tag/key term. Google alerts, Google News, Google Blogs, Twitter search, Ice Rocket, Twendz, Technorati, etc. are a good place to start.

No matter what, make sure you are listening.

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Harry Potter is like Social Media

After some thought and admittedly a marathon of Harry Potter movies, I came to the conclusion that there are quite a few parallels between the social media realm and the world of Hogwarts.

For starters, there are four major houses at Hogwarts and each has their own unique identity. Griffyndor, Slytherin, Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff compete throughout the school year to determine which school is the best.

The Gryffindor house is the home of Harry Potter, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger so it is without question the most prolific house in the series. With that said, it is only logical that this house is representative of social networking sites. Facebook is the Harry Potter of this storry, MySpace is Ron and Twitter (yes, I lumped a microblogging site into social networking) is Hermione.

Hufflepuff's house values are "hard work, loyalty, tolerance, and fair play." When thinking about what these values represent, I can't stop thinking about the blogosphere. Blogs work together, develop networks and ensure a proper "hat-tipping" of shared content.

Ravenclaw is the least discussed of the four houses. For this reason, it seems most like photo sharing sites in the social media landscape. Photo sharing sites like Flickr, Snapfish, PhotoBucket and others are certainly power houses in social media, but are often left out of the conversation as a valuable marketing tool.

Finally, we are left with Slytherin, which is the house of Malfoy, Severus Snape and ofcoarse Valdemort. Given the crafty nature of these characters and the constant struggle for power that they endure, I can think of no better comparison than video sharing sites. Going to YouTube is like entering into a steele cage match for viewers. You can find the exact same video posted by five different people because they all want the viewers to visit their profile. There is no common courtesy of "hat-tipping" and no request to share content that isn't proprietary.

Just to recap, in my uber-nerdy mind I have drawn strong parallels between the social media world and Hogwarts--a mythical wizard school created by J.K. Rowling. The parallels are as follows:

• Gryffindor--social networks
  
• Hufflepuff--blogs
• Ravenclaw--photo sharing sites
  
• Slytherin--video sharing sites

There will certainly be more thoughts to come, but what do you think about all this nonsense?

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Social Media Is About Individuality

When trying to market your brand and increase communications through social media, you have to remember that each person and each community is unique.

Social media communications can't be mass produced. Every social media technology has a plethora communities within it. All of these communities have their own interests, ways of sharing opinions, languages and code of ethics. Within that, the individuals of the communities have to be treated as such. Sure, you can send a message to a blog, discussion board, Facebook group and get some pick-up or engagement, but your brand with grow much stronger and with greater affinity if you seek out individuals or go through the community administrators who are trusted by the community. The notion that your brand is connecting on a one-one level with consumers will hopefully spread like wildfire.

The key in social media is to be human, show some personality and ultimately so your brand is tangible rather than mechanical. You have to remember that no matter how easy it is, mass communication techniques are often tabbed as spam in the social media world.

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You Forgot Blogs, Discussion Boards, Video Sharing and Others

I just came across an article on the Examiner.com asserting that Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn is the holy trinity of social media. There is no doubt that these these tools are immensely popular and extremely effective marketing tools, but it is terribly shortsighted to call them the holy trinity.

The first segment of social media that was forgotten would be blogs. I know I've lumped hundreds of millions of sites in together here, but that is what blogging is all about. It is having a singular source to share your thoughts, while connecting with others blogs to network and converse. The power of blogs is amazing. Lets look at Gawker Media Groups blogs in particular:

• Gizmodo averages over 2 million visits per day
• Lifehacker averages over 1 million visits per day
• Deadspin averages just under .5 million visits per day

Those are astounding numbers that cannot be discounted when weighing the value and influence of a social media tool.

Discussion boards are still wildly popular. They are most prevalent when talking about consumer products or college athletics, but lets not forgot about the passion that is shown on these forums. The fervor people display in these forums is greater than you will ever see on a social network or a comment section of a blog.

Video and photo sharing sites also can't be forgotten. The Youtubes and Flickrs of the world have immense influence and often touch the peripheral social media users more than other sites will. These are also rapidly growing platforms and will continue to gain strength moving forward.

I don't want to call out the writer of this original statement, but I think he jumped the gun on declaring the existence of a holy trinity of social media.

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Can Social Media Do It Alone?

Social media as been proven to be a great marketing tool, but can it be relied upon as a stand alone marketing strategy? Clearly with a question like this, I'm going to have to start with the obligatory "it depends." The size of the company/individual/brand, the scope of their campaign and the target audience are all variables that need to be weighed.

With that said, I think the most common answer is NO. Social media should not be used as a solo marketing strategy. It is best used when integrated into a multi-platform marketing plan. This means incorporating traditional media and advertising, maybe including a mass e-mail push and other common components used by corporate America over the years.

Don't get me wrong, there are certainly examples of social media being successful on its own. One of the most commonly used examples comes from Hewlett Packard and Buzz Corps:

• In early 2008 HP launched a new laptop they dubbed 'The Dragon'
• HP employed traditional advertising methods initially
• Sales fell flat
• With Buzz Corps, they created a competition administered through 31 specially identified techie blogs
• Sales of the Dragon subsequently increase 84%
• HPShopping.com experience a traffic increase of 14%
• Google searches for "31 Days of the Dragon" exceeded 380,000
• Estimated reach/impressions from the campaign approached 49 million
• Check here for more
  

Though these success stories do exists, they are often the exception to the norm. Even companies built around social media like Zappos have a major traditional media and advertising component to their marketing strategy.

Even though there are 200 million plus people on Facebook, over 100 million blogs and Twitter is growing at an amazingly rapid rate, a large segment of the population still visits social media sites in light doses if at all. In order to truly reach the bulk of your target audience, you should actively market on as many platforms as make sense for you particular campaign.

Don't rely on social media to be your lighting in a bottle.

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