Everybody’s got their social media platform of preference, none necessarily better than the other. Ultimately, the success of your campaign rests less in your tools than in your use of those tools. So this week we tackle one of them–one that was around long before Facebook, Twitter, or what we now consider the big players in social media: blogs.

Blogs are particularly effective for establishing yourself as a thought leader in your field, but different types of blogs need to be managed in different ways. So below we offer you a variety of recent articles covering the advantages and techniques of the blog form. Enter the blogosphere!

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Why Your Self Hosted Blog Is More Valuable Than Your Facebook Page. The power of Facebook is quite near undeniable, but in the end might not be what you need. There are certain advantages blogs have, including the opportunity to be paid for ads (rather than pay for them), more effective SEO qualities, and more.

7 Ways Guest Posting Can Boost Your Reputation. You don’t have to do all your blogging yourself. In fact, having someone else take over the job for you every so often is one of the best ways to establish your position as among a group of thought leaders and expand your audience. This article focuses on reputation building through getting other bloggers in your field to guest post.

The PR Pro’s Guide To Blogging. This is a PR Pro’s guide to begin blogging. Most PR strategies these days even require a blog component, so if you’re not savvy where do you start and where do you go?

5 Techniques to Create Raving Loyal Fans. If social media is about community building, what better reward could you have than having a passionate, engaged community? These techniques are not for the conservative of mind–they urge you to step up, be overt and honest, to make the risk of offending people. This brand of blogging achieved a particular goal, so it will be up to you to decide if this is where you want to go with your blog campaign.

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