We’re firm believers in Content Marketing and Blogging, and discuss them often on this site.   So a recent eMarketer survey study doesn’t come as much of a surprise – that corporate blogging keeps growing and growing.

According to the study, released August 17th 43% of US companies will be blogging by 2012.

“Companies are finding that blogs fill a specific niche that other forms of social media do not,” said eMarketer senior analyst Paul Verna.

Because of the apparent staying power of blogs in corporate settings, eMarketer forecasts continued growth in company use of blogs for marketing purposes. This year, eMarketer estimates just over one in three companies have a public-facing blog used for marketing, a proportion that will rise to 43% by 2012.

And companies are really starting to recognize the value of blogging:

“Studies have shown that marketers perceive blogs to have the highest value of any social media in driving site traffic, brand awareness, lead generation and sales—as well as improving customer service,” said Verna.

“There is evidence that smaller companies are embracing blogging at greater rates than larger firms,” said Verna. “This might be because larger, public companies—particularly in industries such as pharma and financial services—have more legal, logistical and regulatory constraints than smaller firms.”

So if your company has taken a summer break on your blog (or longer) or you are debating whether or not to start a blog for the first time here’s one more reason not to get left behind, and to walk the walk (thanks again Kevin).

What do you think?  Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments area below.

I was at a networking event last week, talking with a few folks, when I ran into someone who introduced himself as a “social media guru.”  I didn’t end up getting his card, but I’ll bet that’s probably even what his title says on it.  And hey, to a lot of folks this is a great time to be a social media guru.  I mean after all, there’s no test you have to pass and many people will even buy the idea that as long as you are out there promoting things it’s working.  For the last year or so there seems to be a gold rush, anyone and everyone is touting their social media expertise, and many companies are buying this as THE place to be.

Look, I’m not here to bash social media – despite what you may think after reading that last paragraph (OK, to be fair maybe the headline too).  Actually, chances are high you may initially come across this post through your own use of social media.  Where I think the problem lies is more in this idea of social media as a magic bullet rather than one of many arrows available in your quiver.  Mike talked about this before in You Don’t Need a Social Media Superhero.

At its core, social media is a tactic – a piece of the overall marketing puzzle to consider just like anything else.  And, as we discussed in the past that a tactic like SEO alone won’t solve all your problems (The Danger of Having A Hammer), it’s important to stay away from relying on only one tactic.

So, with that in mind, here are a few things to keep in mind before you run off, hire a “social media guru” to solve all your problems, and call it a day:

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“I hear you guys are the social media gurus in this area. Can you help us blow out our efforts on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook?”

These were seemingly innocent words from a prospective client, spoken just last week. As we dug a bit deeper, the red flags started flying. He wants help with social media only, and wants to address only those three properties. He doesn’t want us to worry about how the website, blog, search, email or other areas might impact social media. He is concerned about tracking the effort, but his tracking and measurement will focus on volume of followers, friends and connections.

Ummmm…no thanks.

He wants a Social Media Superhero. The superhero he wants doesn’t possess super human powers and is not dedicated to protecting the public. The superhero he is after is the type that can make his company look “hip” and “in the know”.  He is convinced this is what he needs because he read a book by a Social Media Superhero, a book that – not surprisingly – offered subtle plugs for the idea of hiring a Social Media Superhero.

He doesn’t need a Social Media Superhero. He needs a Marketing Superhero who possesses social media powers and skills, or who can access people with those powers and skills.

I’d say that over half the companies we talk to start with this Social Media Superhero mindset. They view social media as a set of properties that they need to address one-by-one, and they are focused on establishing a “presence” on each of those properties. If no one challenges that viewpoint successfully, they decide to hire a Twitter guy. Or a Facebook gal. Or my favorite – a LinkedIn optimization firm. With Spider-Man, Wonder Woman and Batman on board, how can this social media thing fail?

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Last week, we were excited and honored to be part of a group of presenters at a Greater Baltimore Technology Council event, Digital Media in Action: Engaging, Implementing & Creating Tangible Outcomes.

For our portion of the program, Mike and I discussed Why Blogging Should be the Hub of your Social Media Efforts.  While I’ve included our presentation below for those of you that want to dig in slide by slide, from a big picture perspective our focus was on the benefits of blogging as a component of your overall B2B marketing strategy.  And though many of the same approaches — and the results – do carry over in a B2C world, our presentation was primarily for the B2B audience.

The goal was to provide insights on how to use a blog for branding, communications and prospecting purposes.  Specifically, we covered:

• Building a blog strategy
• Options for creating a blog
• Benefits of corporate blogging
• Common blogging objections and appropriate responses
• Marketing a blog
• Writing blog posts to maximize readership
• How to get started on a post when you seem “stuck”
• How a blog drives the rest of your social media efforts
• Tracking the ROI of blogging
• Using your blog, and social media presence, to “Skip the First Meeting”

In particular, for B2B marketers it is nearly impossible to be involved in the vast amount of social media properties out there.  By using your blog as the hub, you are able to then use that content as the anchor for your social media efforts.  Mike made a great point during the presentation on why people read our blog: they know what we do, they want to know how we think (thanks to Will Burns for reminding me of this via Twitter).

Without great content – and the blog can serve as that content source of how you think – your social media presence is likely to be just a bunch of 140 character headlines with no story behind them.   It’s tough to really make an impact that way.

We thoroughly enjoyed our chance to speak at the event, to meet and do Q&A with so many people, and the feedback we received via Twitter.  We’re looking forward to the opportunity to do so again soon.

About the Author: Will Davis is Managing Partner of Right Source Marketing.  Don’t hesitate to drop Will a comment on this post.  If you liked this post, follow @willdavis on Twitter for more commentary like this.

I was speaking with a few colleagues the other day about the different benefits of social media as a whole, and blogging in particular.  The folks in the room had varying levels of social media involvement, from no involvement at all to heavy involvement.  Each of us discussed what we hope to get out of social media, why we blog or might consider it, and how businesses can benefit from blogging.  The discussion went on for some time, covering the wide ranging benefits from SEO opportunities to more frequent customer touch points and everything in between.  After a while, it quieted down a bit and somebody asked me if they had missed anything on the list.

Skip the First Meeting

While our blog serves many purposes, one of them I hadn’t heard mentioned by the group was one of the things that I find most useful.  Having a well planned blog and social media presence, with what we hope is interesting and insightful content, allows us to Skip the First Meeting.

So what do I mean when I say Skip the First Meeting?  Unfortunately, despite how well you may try to vet things ahead of time, inevitably in our business you run into an opportunity that 5 minutes into that first meeting, after you’ve sniffed each other and gotten a bit more of a sense of your businesses –  you both know isn’t a fit.  You don’t think alike, you don’t value the same things, really whatever those components may be.  Of course generally by this time somebody has ordered food, or driven out of their way, or fired up a PowerPoint or laser lights show, or something else entirely, and it’s too late to do anything but spend the next 45-60 minutes or more there despite you each knowing this isn’t going to work out.

Now, we often head this meeting off at the pass.  We’ll send a contact or prospect a link to our blog ahead of time, and also encourage them to connect with and follow us on social networks, and ask them to read through these pieces ahead of time before scheduling that first get together.  By doing this, we make much more efficient use of their time and ours.  We try to convey the idea here that we want to be involved in strategy and planning and believe in taking a holistic view of marketing, and that shines through in our posts.

When we discover the poor fit, we each save ourselves the time of an unproductive meeting where we just won’t be a fit for each other (although sometimes we do miss those laser light shows).  And just as importantly, for those that could be a fit, we’ve fast forwarded over the glossy part of the first meeting and are digging right into the important and meaningful parts that are usually saved for a second meeting.

So while there are probably 100s of reasons to blog and to get involved in social media, if it works for your business you may want to try to Skip the First Meeting.

About the Author: Will Davis is Managing Partner of Right Source Marketing.  Don’t hesitate to drop Will a comment on this post.  If you liked this post, follow @willdavis on Twitter for more commentary like this.