Blogging vs social media: Which is best for your business?
Business owners often wonder which option is better for their business: blogging vs social media.
Blogging and social media can both help you market your business, grow your audience, and attract potential clients. But they serve different purposes. This means you can’t choose between them like pizza toppings:
- Blogging is the jalapeño that brings fresh hot leads into your world via Google. These are the people you help when they turn to their phones to search their problems and find… your blog posts.
- Social media is the BBQ base on which you can build a shopfront and community. By sending streams of voice notes in DMs. Engaging every day. And getting your face out there.
In an ideal world, you want both of these things working for your business. That said, many entrepreneurs don’t yet have the time or resources to blog and manage their social media. If this is you, we recommend starting with your blog and introducing social media later.
Here’s why.
Why blogs beat social media
Blogging has changed over time. It’s no longer about writing an online journal.
Unlike in the early days of the internet, people don’t sit down with a hot cup of tea to read an entire blog post.
However, most of us Google our problems. And when we do, we find solutions in blog posts. Those solutions can lead us to work with or hire the business behind the blog post.
Many businesses have become savvy about this. Sure, 77% of businesses use social media to connect with their customers. But 80% have a blog as part of their marketing strategy.
These businesses have blogs that hand out VIP invites to dream clients in Google search results. Meanwhile, making social media work requires constant engagements and DMs to weed out randomers and find the people you can really help.
Whether you’re new to blogging or your blog needs reviving, these juicy tips can help you work some magic. Let’s dive into:
Blogging vs social media: content length
Blogging typically involves longer-form written content. Social media often involves shorter-form content. As a result, blogging is better for getting across more detailed information.
For instance, if you wanted to write an in-depth guide to email marketing, you’d be better off sharing it on your blog than on social media.
Some social media platforms impose character limits, so you’d struggle to convey the depth needed for a comprehensive guide.
Longer-form content like blog posts are fantastic for showcasing your expertise. They can also help you stand out amongst industry competitors.
Plus, the more wisdom you share with readers, the more likely they are to see you as their go-to source for knowledge and advice.
Blogging vs social media: content lifespan
You put a lot of effort into creating your content. Ideally, you want that content to reap rewards for as long as possible.
Social media posts have a relatively short lifespan. You’ve got:
- 48 hours for followers to see your Instagram posts.
- 24 hours for followers to see your LinkedIn posts.
- 5–6 hours for followers to see your Facebook posts.
- 15–18 minutes for followers to see your Tweets.
This means you’ll have to update your social media more frequently to stay visible.
Blog posts have a longer lifespan, making blogging more suitable for long-term growth. Each blog post can appear in Google search results for years, staying relevant and driving traffic over time.
Some top-ranking blog posts have sat at the top of Google results since 2001. That’s more than 20 years of lead generation from one blog post. Talk about a great return on investment (ROI).
Blogging vs social media: posting frequency
We recommend blogging weekly unless your industry has virtually zero competition. This is an easy way to increase web traffic and attract ideal clients.
Blogging infrequently will give you minimal ranking opportunities amongst the businesses that are sharing a constant stream of high-quality info.
Google won’t consider your blog a source of consistent, high-quality content compared to your competitors’ unless you prove your worth. (And you’re 100% worth it.)
While we appreciate that blogging every week can feel a lot, social media best practice is also to post often. According to Hootsuite, the ideal number of times to post on:
- Twitter is between two and three times per day.
- Facebook is between one to two times per day.
- LinkedIn is between one to two times per day.
- Instagram is between three and five times per week (and twice a day on Instagram Stories).
Blogging vs social media: time investment
While we love blogging, we’ll be the first to admit that it can take quite a bit of time and effort.
When you factor in the time spent researching a topic and writing, editing, and uploading each blog post, it can add up to several hours.
That’s a good chunk of your valuable time, especially if you’re blogging once a week. (On average, we spend around three to four hours creating our weekly posts.)
Social media posts can be quicker to produce (but not always). The amount of time you spend per post will vary hugely depending on the type of post and platform.
For example, you might dash off a Tweet in under five minutes. But it could take you hours to film, edit, and upload an Instagram reel or YouTube video. And it can be disheartening when that video only gets a few views, likes, or comments.
It’s also worth considering how posting frequency impacts the overall time you put into blogging vs social media. Social media requires consistent, frequent updates and engagement, whereas you only need to blog once a week.
When you add it all up, you might spend much less time on blogging than you would on social media.
Blogging vs social media: seeing results
Lots of business owners want to know how quickly they’ll get results from blogging vs social media. But it really depends on a whole host of factors.
Let’s say you’re regularly posting on social media. You might create engaging content. But it won’t automatically reach the right people or generate tangible results for your business.
It could take many months to organically grow a social media audience of primed leads.
Likewise, blogging won’t bring instant results. It will take time for Google to discover and rank your blog posts after you publish them.
Most blogs enjoy steady progress followed by larger growth in 12 months. If you plan on still being in business in a year’s time, blogging is a no-brainer for long-term success.
Unlike social media, each of your blog posts will continue working for you at this point. On the flip side, once your social media posts are no longer visible in the feed, few people are going to see them. Poof.
Blogging vs social media: search engine optimisation
Search engine optimisation is the practice of making your website more visible and appealing to search engines like Google. SEO can help you show up higher in search results when people Google topics related to your business.
Blogging and SEO go hand-in-hand. Search engines tend to favor longer, informative content (like blog posts!). A well-optimised blog is a must if you want more people to find your business online. You can also tell Google exactly which phrases you want to show up for in your metadata.
Your SEO options are more limited with social media posts. While some social media content may appear in search results, you don’t have as much control over SEO compared to blogging.
Blogging vs social media: targeting audiences
Blogging and social media can both help your business reach a larger audience.
Social media marketing tends to involve more of a scattered approach, whereas blogging is more targeted. (That’s if you’re creating organic social media content. Paid-for advertising on platforms like Facebook can let you target niche demographics.)
Posting organically on social media can help you reach a wide, diverse audience. That might be useful if you’re looking to increase your brand awareness or promote your business to many different types of people.
On the other hand, blogging lets you target more niche audiences interested in distinct topics. If you’ve done your SEO right, you’ll have included specific phrases in each blog post that resonate with what your ideal clients are Googling, helping you appear in their search results.
For example, let’s say you write a blog post about business coaching for women entrepreneurs. You include the search term (or keyword) ‘business coaching for women’ at a density of 1–3%. You’ve just increased your chances of that post appearing in search results whenever someone Googles something like ‘business coaching for women.’
Blogging vs social media: content control
Another key difference between blogging vs social media is the level of control you have over your content.
If you’re blogging on your website, you have quite a bit of content control. This is your platform that you run.
In contrast, the guidelines of the social media platform you’re using often govern the content you share.
Plus, you never know when your social media platform of choice will go under. Think of all the hours you could spend building followers and engagement, only for Facebook to become a thing of the past.
Blogging vs social media: the key takeaways
In summary, many businesses blog to share detailed information, increase their online visibility, and attract new clients. Meanwhile, social media is useful for building and connecting with a diverse online community.
Although blogging and social media have different goals, they can complement one another.
For instance, you can promote your blog posts on social media. You can also repurpose your blog posts into content for your social media platforms. This saves oodles of time on your marketing.
Choosing blogging vs social media
You might have the time and resources to run a blog and social media accounts. If you don’t, we suggest pursuing one type of content marketing for now. You’re more likely to see results if you market on one channel consistently than on several channels inconsistently.
We recommend starting with a blog. As we’ve seen, blogging for business is important because:
- No one will see your social media posts after a few hours (at best), whereas blog posts can attract leads for years.
- Blogging lends itself to long-form content, which can help you appear in Google.
- Social media usually involves a higher posting frequency than blogging. Myth busted: It often isn’t the quicker marketing approach.
- You have more control over your content with a blog. No one can take your platform down.
- Blogging allows you to target more specific audiences. Your dream audience.
A blog can also give your business visibility while encouraging prospects to join your email list. Plus, blogging could be an easier option if you don’t have the video or design skills to create social media posts.
Get more blogging insights with our fortnightly email tips.
About Finer Things Editorial
Finer Things Editorial writes for businesses that help others achieve abundance, whether in the form of profit, self-love, or physical health. Our content helps these businesses attract their dream clients, so they don’t have to chase them. Having taken businesses from 0 to 1,000+ primed-to-buy website visitors per day, we take businesses from unknown to really known.