Blogging vs. Social Media: Here’s the difference

Last week my husband and I both had conversations with clients about the difference between blogging and social media. My client with was dead set against blogging because she thought that it would mean that she would have to share her private life via social media. I explained that instead of sharing what she ate for dinner, she could help her business by blogging about topics that would benefit her clients. My husband’s conversation was with someone who hadn’t thought about the difference was between blogging and social media. Here’s why blogging is not considered social media – and why you need to do both to be successful:

Blogging creates content that lives on your website. Social media engages with people about content.

If you write a short article and only post it to social media, it will get buried as you posted more. It is unprofessional to suggest someone go to your Facebook page and scroll through a river of posts to find a specific article. A blog makes it easy to find past posts, so you can easily refer people to them and link to them from other parts of your website or from social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn. The easier you make it for your clients to find valuable information, the more they will value you, trust you and HIRE you!

What is a post and what is a blog?

Thinking about what a “post” is was part of what tripped up my client. She thought that posting an article on Facebook was blogging and because she doesn’t like social media, she was opposed to blogging. So let’s clear things up. “Post” is both a verb and a noun. When it’s a noun, a post refers to the specific content you posted on either a blog or on social media. As a verb it can be used to describe the act to adding content to a blog or social media. Here are some examples of the words being used in today’s vernacular:

“I wrote a blog post yesterday.”

“I try to post to my blog on a weekly basis.”

“I blogged about marketing yesterday.”

“My blog focuses on how small businesses should market themselves.”

“I posted on Facebook about next week’s open house.”

“After I write a post and post it to my blog, I will post a link to it on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter.”

A post is analogous to an article written for a journal by a journalist. Therefore, a post is written for a blog by a blogger. I am a blogger, not a poster. Unless I’m Justin Bieber.

Which I’m not.