This is a classic case for why we started Jenn Mathews Consulting. While typically blogs are recommended for search engine optimization because of their keyword rich, content abundant, frequently updated nature because of commenting and the ability to interact with a brand’s community they are falling under social media.
But really, who ultimately owns the content on the blog?
A company’s blog can serve many aspects of marketing. A blog can allow a brand to communicate to existing customers about product updates, promotions, and so on. Brand’s can ask questions and get feedback from it’s community (market research). A blog can post press releases or share any news about the brand (Public Relations). A blog can even manage any issues that might arise with a product or service (customer management). At Jenn Mathews Consulting we don’t believe any marketing strategy should be silo’d into one specific role. Rather the SEO, Social Media, Public Relations, Market Research, and Customer Service teams should all work together to define what a blog should focus on. When and what updates should be made, and by who – together…
When looking outside of the company an using external blogs to help promote the brand should definitely fall under the social media marketer’s role. Typically SEO’s have used commenting on blogs as a way to build links that point back to a website or page within a website that had relevant key terms within the content. While this has worked in the past, search engines are focusing more on social media channels and less on blog links. In fact, in some cases we have even seen sites that have been penalized for having links coming from blogs pointing to their websites.
So if your SEO is stressing that you comment on blogs to get links pointing to the website, you might want to have a good talk with him/her. Of course, that’s where we come in… A lot of our clients have asked Jenn to work with SEO’s and Social Media Managers to devise a solid plan to utilize blogs for SEO credit and keep the community vibrant around the brand. More often than not, we have actually had to devise a strategy to evaluate links in blog comments that point to the brand’s website and remove ones that were harming SEO.
So – to answer the abominable question – is a blog social media?
Within the website, no – it does not solely fall under social media.
Outside the website, yes – the person responsible for social media should manage any interactions that exist on other blogs (with the understanding of what SEO should be addressed while doing so).