The basis of Social Media is the social interaction. There are several methods of socializing both online and offline.  However, when it comes to substantiating who the ‘real person’ is you are socializing with in either environment there really is not a better place to go than their blog.   If someone does not have a blog they run a risk of having limiting their reach into their markets.

The blog is the baseline for a business or an individual’s social media efforts.  The Blog allows social networking to make sense.  So why are there so many people who feel blogging is not important.

I run into people everyday asking me how to use Twitter or Facebook to gain advantage in their business development.  During my evaluation of the goals I find it interesting on how many are not interested in having a Blog Site.  The reasons range from being a spelling and grammar perfectionist who see people who blog as a ‘lesser beings’ on the journalistic scales to seeing blogs as something a Techie would only be interesting doing.

The misconception many have that Blogs are only about promoting gadgets is shocking and the battle over blogging being a too casual form of journalism to be taken seriously is ridiculous.  The basic form of blogging has improved since its beginnings years ago.  Blogs, and the people who blog, now provide another view or opinion on issues in fields they are experts.

Following are three ways Blogging has become the center of the Social Media universe.

1.    Validation

If there ever was a vehicle to use to validate a person’s existence it is ‘The Blog’.  Before there was ‘The Blog’ in order to be recognized as being ‘somebody’ you had to have a listing in the phone directory or at most the Yellow Pages.  Now the blog is the place people go to substantiate someone’s true existence.

Blogs are the number one source of personal or professional validation.  If you have a blog you have passed the very first test that validates your worthiness on someone’s planet.  How the blog looks and what it offered is secondary. However, the construction of the blog site is important since it needs to have the pertinent information people demand to know that tells them more about who the blogger really is.

Blogs are the first place everyone goes (or should go be) to get information on whatever it is they are looking for or have a question needing an answer.  The well crafted copy written slick web-site just does not cut it anymore.  Today’s consumers and individual web surfers are not going to fall for information that is sometimes crafted to paint a pretty picture.  Even if the info on a web site is accurate the question most people have is..Who is it I am dealing with here?

2.    Content

The blog content offers viewers more than the information provided.  The Blog’s content shows a person’s style and personality..or it should.  A viewer should be able to capture from the content the sense of humor or main character traits of the blogger.  More importantly, the blog content offers comfort to the viewer that there is really a person behind all of the Tweeting and Facebook pranks.

There is web site content that usually is written as part of copy for the site design.  Then there is content produced for the blog that sometimes can go into more detail than what is offered on a web-site.  Of course the main difference is the blog content is more casual and sometimes entertaining.

3.    Branding

One think that is guaranteed about blogging is it does work to brand the person or the subject that is being blogged about.  Even the blog site can become a brand.  Branding through blogging does not just cater to the marketing of a product.  Individuals who blog for the personal pleasure of expressing their thoughts can generate a brand of themselves simple form gathering a following of people who enjoy what that person is blogging.

Branding is very important in social media since consumers/web surfers are drawn to uniqueness and the buzz of a popular brand.  There really is no way to set a brand in concrete without a blog to supply the validation and content which completes the circle of why blogging is so important to Social media.

There are a number of other reasons why blogging has become the nucleus of social media.  Those reasons just add to the reason more people need to blog.  Let me know how I can help.