Where do blogs fit into your web strategy?

The web has grown up very quickly. From using blogs as a marketing communication tool, SEO to boost awareness to now, social media as your reach to the masses. But among all this talk now, I wonder where  and how does the blog fit into your online strategy?

Let’s have a look at some popular platforms online and how they’re used right now.

Telling it in 140 characters with Twitter

As much as some still question its feasibility, it’s here to stay – for now. It’s addictive because no long grandmother stories but simple, shortened personal thoughts. In addition, it gets the word out very quickly and this is important for live reporting or public announcements. Many Twitter applications have made retweeting easier and faster.

And Twitter is a micro-blogging platform. Similar to Plurk and others.

Facebook isn’t only about friends anymore

What the bunch of college kids thought as a communication platform, has grown into a fan worship and brand evangelist platform. My friends on Facebook are demanding more than friendship today. They invite me to like their fan pages. Some of which are blogs, businesses, brands and well, attractive ladies.

Similarly but more viral than Twitter, this platform uses your 6-degrees of separation. You’re more likely to support a friend whom you know than an avatar on Twitter.

In short, Facebook is a social networking site.

Check-in to Foursquare for your reward

Though relatively new, it’s growing quickly from friend to friend. Plus, it was thought with a commercial offer in mind. A platform to help physical businesses boost their traffic and sales. Simply checking into a venue is but an introduction to this tool.

Its benefit lie inside its reward system from mayorships to other promotional specials. At the same time, it builds community and team effort between users. For example, you need the help of 50 people to achieve a Swarm badge.

By the way, what’s great about Foursquare, Twitter and Facebook is they can be interlinked.

• Updates on Foursquare can be channeled to Twitter and Facebook.
• Updates on Twitter can be published to your Facebook wall, not your status anymore.
• And Facebook, well, it becomes the platform to consolidate all your personal activity.

So, are blogs still a marketing communication tool?

When the wave came, it was regarded as nothing but an online journal to now, a platform for advertising and self-fulfillment. Besides the SEO benefit, what objectives can businesses achieve by publishing a blog now? How does it fit into their web strategy?

Service oriented companies who write blogs may still use it as a marketing communication tool. Like this blog is used for me to share my insight in relation to my industry and services offered under Simpleet.

But what is to become of product related companies who publish blogs? Will it be used more as a feedback tool than a marketing communications tool?

This was a thought I’ve been pondering past few days.

The Future of Web at WebCamp KL 7th Edition

It’s really nostalgic (yet freaky) to remember the times of blinking text and graphics. Then there was the time, Flash introductions in splash pages were the big ‘wow’ factor. But right now, where are we heading with the web? How does website design move forward or most importantly, what’s the next step besides improved user experience?

All in the 7th edition

This’ll be one of the topic of discussion at the upcoming WebCamp KL series. Which will be in it’s 7th edition while hard to believe, it’s now in its 7th month since it started. Kudos to Wu Han who’s seriously driving this, including the speakers and attendees who’s supported this event.

Some of the presentations in this edition:

• Mike Reining, MindValley Founder
  The Future of Affiliate Marketing
• Hilmy, Producer & Game Designer at Titoonic A/S
  Social Gaming and How the Web Media Has Advantages in Games over Consoles
• Aizat Faiz, Software Engineer at Facebook
  Facebook Open Graph (tbc)
• Wu Han
  What’s Next for Web Design? (time permitin’)

WebCamp KL event details

Date: August 26, 2010 (Thursday)

Time: 7:00pm – 11:00pm

Venue: Hall of Awesomeness; MindValley HQ, A-23A-13A Menara UOA Bangsar, Jalan Bangsar Utama 1, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Lately there’s been a lot of web related events happening, SMCKL, Tweetups, Foursquare meetups, WebCamp and others. So it’s unavoidable to find a clash at times.

But if you can’t make it to the event, you can always follow the updates with the Twitter hashtag #wckl later. We’ve a couple of live reporters normally at the event.

Or, if you’d like to know when the 8th edition will happen, join the WebCamp KL Facebook group.