Blogging plus articles are still relevant and useful. Social media caters a different area. You can try all these 3 to optimize your marketing.

Social media response always faster than blogs. Blogging still good for relation.

Hi Rich.
I think using both is the way to go.

A blog has the added advantage that you can write a lengthy post to address questions or concerns your prospects/target audience may have. You then use social media to draw their attention to your blog post.

Plus your blog post (if it's original & has good content) will definitely be picked up by search engines bringing you extra traffic. Once you have visitors commenting on the blog post, you can go in and answer them, maintaining a two way communication.

With a tweets for example, you are limited by the number of characters and hence what you can write, so will not be able provide detailed responses to prospects' questions/concerns.

Also with a Facebook although you can write as much as you like, I don't think people will necessarily want to read a lenghthy post on your Facebook wall.

So my strategy usually is; write a good informative blog post (300 - 500 words) then use social media (Facebook, tweeter, digg, delicious, stumbleupon, etc) to alert people to the blog post.

Definitely social media is the best way to make good relationship with your customers. SM is already having more utilities which makes your interaction as much as effective with customers.

Blogging is a really nice platform for your social media contents, you can have your contect on your blog, and then just link to it from your social media.

wait ..social media is not required by every organisation that is setting up pages and accounts..no one going to follow chemical factories on facebook or any other network .. user for chemical factories are entirely differnt. you need to have blog to make them understand better and for the SE ranking too.. hope it helps....

I think blogging is very important, especially if you are building your own personal brand. While social media sites are good for getting followers/friends, Google still likes content, which blogs provide. Sites like Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin let you embed your personal blog. If these sites recognise the importance of blogs, so should marketers.

A sale begins with a relationship with a customer. What is the fastest way to establish that relationship. With social media or a blog? Blogs are relatively static and rely on the user to visit the Blog. Social media is immediate. Update alerts are pushed to the customer when they log onto the site.

What do you think?

-Rich Fairfull

Blogging is useful for telling your customers what you are selling for example. Blogging is not a way to bring people to your blog. The how to bring the customers to your blog depends on the socail media. That's where facebook and twitter comes into play. You should make a fan page on facebook and get people to like it so that whenever you have new products, they are instantly aware of it. Social media is for entertaining a relation with your future customers whereas blogging is given them the information about what you are selling.
Social media should be done wise to do customer baiting. This is the most difficult part of it, i.e Bringing the customer to visit your blog. Once you have done that, you should ensure yourself that the customer remains on the blog and comes back. That second part is done by ensuring you have relevant and a reasonable amount of content on your blog.

Hope my reply has been of some help.

blogging and social media both are most important for sale purpose

Blogging keep your visitors updated to new updates...

social media provides you with a real social experience so the deals can be made easily in social media as compared to blogging. This is why SMO is very important for a website...

Blog vs. Social is to equate apples and oranges.

Blogging is and will remain relevant. It is content marketing and nothing replaces good information.

Social media are communications models; facebook, twitter, etc. are models for sharing information.

You are talking in a language that is mostly gone now. Internet marketing is not about sales. In my opinion social media is fine for introducing yourself to people and getting to know each other. Developing trust is important because YOU are the key in the equation. A blog is for content rich interaction which cements that trust.

And things like chat on social media are OK but you can't chat to 500 people at the one time. 500 visits to a blog can easily be accommodated and a video to greet them makes for personal interaction. It's all about giving. Just look at the successful marketers.

A successful marketing campaign does not rely on the product, it is about building relationships with the people before they use that product. As long as the product is both useful and beneficial it is just what keeps you connected.

I started one blog less than a year ago and another is in development. I have never used it to invite people into a business opportunity. Same for social media because I just talk about things that are important to marketers. At some time people usually ask me questions.

SNIP

Blogging is quite relevant because people read blogs with so much interest. They find them extremely interactive and interesting.

A sale begins with a relationship with a customer. What is the fastest way to establish that relationship. With social media or a blog? Blogs are relatively static and rely on the user to visit the Blog. Social media is immediate. Update alerts are pushed to the customer when they log onto the site.

What do you think?

-Rich Fairfull

I dont think most people approve push alerts on twitter or Facebook where only direct responses on link/text/image by the user wool lead to a push alert....

Blogging on the other hand and especially your blog is your very own stage where you publish news and tell about changes... No doubt it takes more time and energy but i think is well worth it

I think social media is great for quick communications. Its usefull for when you want to get short term news across to your client.

But a Blog is a place to show case your knowledge. And is a perfect place to procide more details about things happening in your company.

So why not combine the 2 and Use social media to alert clients about news and the drive them to the blog so that they can find out more about the news.

Blogging ans social media has it's own advantages. You can't compare both of them.

But If you are focusing on backlinks and PR more than Blogging is better

And if you are focusing on traffic then SMO is better than blogging.

Dude, social media and blogging are one and the same. Without sm links and synergy with fb, twitter, etc, the blog might not get much viral traffic. BUT it will get relevant traffic according to its content because blogs have a great potential to rank well via googles algorithm. If you just have sm, without any customer service or communicative blog, that sm will actually HURT your business because you will get negative feedback, and bad reputation.

Both have benefits and can't comparison each other. A trust create with quality products and engagement with customers. With Social media you can interact direct with customer but in blog interested customers subscribe your blog post.