What is Social Media, and why does it matter to professional bloggers?

Bloggers must evolve in order to remain competitive in their chosen niche. "Adapt or die" is a famous reference to Darwin's "natural selection" theory, which I also think has relevancy in both business and professional blogging. One way bloggers can differentiate themselves these days is to adopt a social media strategy. 

Wikipedia states that Social media “is media designed to be disseminated through social interaction, created using highly accessible and scalable publishing techniques.". It goes on to point out that Social Media "uses Internet and web-based technologies to transform broadcast media monologues (one to many) into social media dialogues (many to many).” 

The key point is that traditional advertising is a broadcast medium (i.e. radio waves, newspapers, and TV), where single organizations broadcast a single message to many people. Whereas social media is the conversation that takes place between everyone, and is therefore a "many to many" communication. 

A simple example for bloggers to focus on, is having a "Share" button at the bottom of each blog post. This encourages your readers to let their "online friends" quickly share information from your blog. Examples include the "Share This" button, or the "Add this" button, that are becoming very popular. If you look at the bottom of my blog, you can see the "Meebo Bar" - be sure to sign up for this and include it on YOUR blog!

Here are some ways that I think social media will evolve in 2010: 

Social Media in 2010 is changing

• Social media is becoming increasingly mobile.
• Social media measurement will be increasingly important if people want to prove ROI
• Real-time search is inextricably linked to the "statusphere."
• Forms of content consumption will continue to be fractured; the nimble marketer will need to be in as many places as possible.

How do we measure Social Media Campaigns?
 
I have always thought that the beauty of internet marketing is the very measurable ROI. For example, you can easily see how many people visit your blog or how many people click on one of your banner ads.

For social media, this type of detailed analytics is just as  important, however at this stage in the game it might be difficult to measure the levels of communication taking place between individuals. Therefore, there are a new bread of analytics companies that are starting to emerge, and I will be watching this space very carefully.

Check out this video from a Toronto based company that is really at the forefront of measuring the impact of social media. 

So if you have not included some form of social media on your blog - then it's time! Good luck and go blog!