Photo by rgarwood

“That rug really tied the room together.” – The Big Lebowski

I often find myself returning to that particular quote from The Big Lebowski because when I’m referencing the importance of a blog in your social media strategy, it just, well, works. Let me explain. Let’s replace the world “rug” with the word “blog” and “the room” with “your social media strategy.” (Hopefully you’re still with me here…) While, that botches up the quote in its entirety, the end result is what matters.

“That blog really tied your social media strategy together.” That’s more like it!

Having a blog for your client or company can help to tie your entire social media efforts together. One reason being character limitation on both Facebook and Twitter. If you have a blog, that’s a great place to expand on your ideas further, especially if you can’t fit them all into 140 characters. (And, honestly, who can?) Your ideas won’t get cut short on your blog. I get so irritated when I see those red, negative numbers on Twitter or get the pop-up box from Facebook saying I’m over 420 characters. With a blog, your room to write is endless. You have space to fully express your ideas, not to mention in a more organized fashion, because there really isn’t a limitation to how much you can write. (Although, enough can be enough…) Once written, you can summarize your post to fit Twitter and Facebook and include a link to the post so readers can revert back to your blog.

Another way a blog can tie everything social together is the blog itself can host links, videos, pictures and more. You can embed videos from your YouTube channel directly into a post and upload images that link back to your photostream on Flickr. In a further effort of tying everything together, you can design your blog to accompany your social sites. Include a Facebook box where readers can like your page directly from the blog, include images in the blog’s side bar that link to Flickr, have a stagnant video embedded on the side bar for users to watch, include your Twitter feed, etc. Everything that you’re doing socially can be compiled onto your blog, initially tying everything together.

Despite having the ability to host your social sites, blogs also make for a great place to get creative with your social efforts because it’s practically a blank canvas for your ideas. You control what’s written and you control what images, videos, etc. will be included. Perhaps today’s post could be a How-To with 10 bullet points and images, tomorrow’s post could be a mini-interview or Q&A session with an employee/customer, Thursday’s post could be your top 3 favorite viral videos on YouTube embedded and an explanation underneath and Friday’s post could be screenshots of your top 10 celebrity tweets of the week. Who knows, it’s your blog, but all I’m saying is that you can truly do a lot with a blog and, ultimately, tie everything together within.

My last reason behind using this quote (and spreading it almost too thin, I believe) is the use of share buttons on your blog. Share buttons help others disperse your blog posts online (not to mention they’re one of my absolute favorite things to have come about from social media). I feel a blog isn’t complete until you’ve added share buttons. It just makes it that much easier for readers to share your posts, get them in front of as many pairs of eyes as possible and, hopefully, attract new readers.

Although Jeff Bridges, urm, The Dude may not appreciate me messing up his memorable quote, I’ll admit that it’s a good way to describe how helpful a blog can be to your social media strategy. Don’t be afraid to get creative with your blog, that is what it’s there for, especially because you have plenty of room on the rug to do so.

So, do you dudes abide? Do you feel blogging helps to tie your social media efforts together?