Let’s face it, social media is about conversation. It is about spreading a message, an idea or a story. But at its foundation it is marketing, because what is marketing but spreading an idea, a story or a message.

Unfortunately, most people are spreading manure and pumping up their own egos. How many were not very good at traditional marketing? Ego doesn’t work well in marketing because it isn’t about YOU, it’s about THEM. The Client. The Customer. The Ratepayer. The Prospect.

Marketing is about getting attention. That’s why people talk about eyeballs and the number of followers or some other metric. It is about Engagement and Listeners. Jeffrey Gitomer asks, “Would you rather have a loyal wife or a satisfied one?”

The same with your followers. Sure, 10K people following you strokes your ego, but if no one is listening or responding or re-tweeting or commenting, what’s the point?

There is a story about 1000 customers being profitable. And 2000 customers makes you lots of profit.

There’s also the mental limit of about 250 – that’s about all the people we can effectively remember and engage with. People with a network of more than 5,000 will tell you it’s possible but I’m going to stick with you can have a Rolodex of thousands, but can only maintain a relationship with about 250.

That brings us around to sales: in sales, it’s about the relationship. They have to like you and trust you to buy from you in most cases.

We forget in this digital age that pre-Internet, PR, marketing, advertising and branding were not always done under one roof. There are still many firms that just handle publicity. Still others only handle branding; while others just do advertising. It’s all under the Marketing umbrella, but they are different arms of that octopus.

Remember too, that in traditional advertising, there was a media buy component and a creative piece. The creative piece was the charge to come up with the campaign – whether it was the story board for the commercial (TV or radio) or the billboard and newsprint ads. The firm created the story that would resonate with your target audience. (Unless it was just a cool ad to win an ADDY, which also happened. A lot.)

The firm would do the media buy for a commission to get your ad on the radio – on the right radio station that hit your demographics; or on the right TV channel, on the targeted TV show, aimed at a targeted demographic. Or the same with a newspaper or magazine ad: who is the target demographic and what do they read.

We seemed to have forgotten all that in the online marketing world. We don’t story board or check where the demographic is or target like a sharpshooter. Instead, we aim for numbers and noise and throwing spaghetti against the wall to see what sticks. If you are going to spend the time, the effort and the money, do it right. The Internet has a long memory.

Why blog?

A bunch of reasons including to demonstrate your subject matter expertise; for publicity (PR); to become a Trusted Advisor; for reputation; or to just be heard.

In general, you blog for marketing.

A side effect of blogging (and other social networking) is SEO (search engine optimization) – or at the very least, search engine results. If you create enough organic, genuine content around your subject or topic (or keyword), the search engines will ikely find it (eventually). The more content and the more frequent you create content, the better your search results. So blog often.

• Marketing is what gets people through the door, PR is what keeps them coming back.
• In my world? Marketing connects people to me as a service or brand. PR connects me to people as a person.
• Marketing gets people to the dance. In sales, you have to do your own dancing. PR makes sure there are people to keep dancing with.
• Marketing=first thing people see.  PR=showing what’s underneath
• On a cynical side, marketing is selling face – PR is saving face

Since I started in sales and moved to marketing, I wouldn’t agree with all of these answers, but I can see how PR people would.  To me: PR is media spin.  Marketing is messaging and buzz to your target audience. Sales is actually getting dirty to pay the marketing and PR people.

All too often, people in marketing, social media, PR, lead generation (SEO and SEM), and advertising have espoused how they deliver. I have to tell you: until the salesperson closes the deal, nothing happened.

Brand Autopsy has visual representation of the differences among marketing, PR, advertising and branding. It boils down to: Advertising is when you tell people how great you are. PR is when someone else says how great you are. But in PR the person saying it is usually a paid spokesperson. Referrals, testimonials, and customer reviews are truly the best sales tool.

• The first is titled: SEO and PR for Digital Public Relations.
• The second is titled: SEO Copywriting: Submitting SEO Press Releases

Your press releases should be optimized for your keywords, just like your web content (whether that is on website page or blogging platforms). There are free wire services like PRlog.org but th epaid wire services get better traction on the most often viewed sites like MSN and Yahoo.

This isn’t a quick fix. This is a slow way to build a reputation using a combination of tools: website, blog, newsroom, PR, and others. Combined it makes you look like an expert — and easy to find.  [thanks to PRsarahevans for pointing them out]

In Website Magazine, Milind Mody of eBrandz, writes an article that is actually 4 posts:

1. Top 5 Reasons to Write a PR (organic traffic, link building, reputation mgmt, bloggers, traffic)
2. PR Basics
3. 7 Tips for Writing a PR (UVP, avoid bull, optimize for search, online PR archive, decide your objective)
4. PR Distribution Services (PR Newswire, Business wire, Marketwire, PRWeb, OpenPR, PRLog)

The article is a good starting point for newbies. There are at least 30 Reasons to write a press release.

Blogging is about having a conversation about your industry, marketplace, customers, products and services. It needs to be Authentic.

It does not need to be 2-way. Most of my conversations happen off the blog in email or phone calls. (Rarely do people want to “go on record”).

Marketing is about Story-telling. Blogs and New Media are just another way to tell the story to a different audience.

Deana’s suggestion was a book, The Corporate Blogging Book by Debbie Weil. I went searching for the top corporate blogs and found this list for 2007, 2006, and 2005. (I could not find the top 10 list on Technorati, but then I did not spend much time looking either, since Google is my best friend ever!)

I found a couple of resources for the PR and Corporate people:

1. Top 10 Risks for Corporate Blogs
2. New ROI of blogging report from Forrester

We ended the night discussing whether blogging was over. My opinion is that companies that do not reach out to their community / customers / marketplace will have to compete on price alone. Consumers want to hear authentic stories about how their purchase is helping the world or makes them smarter or high-class (plainly, the purchase needs to be justified). Traditional Media doesn’t work as well in our changing and fragmented culture, so New Media will have to be incorporated.