A year ago, Debbie Weil asked the rhetorical question on her blog, Is Corporate Blogging the Hub of Social Media Marketing? She now has a free ebook available with the answers coming from a wide spectrum of social media gurus and organizations: Why Your Blog Is Your Social Media Hub.

After reading the answers, my beliefs are confirmed:

• The pages on your organization’s website should tell visitors the basics about your people, products, and services.
• Your organization blog should include ongoing stories related to your people, products, and services. 
• Your social media outposts (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc) should then be used to help distribute your site and blog content, as well to engage with others.
• If you’re a leader, your blog can include your thinking about the important issues your organization faces, as well as a place where, at least some of the time, people can interact with you.

Weil’s introduction: 

I was asking whether Twitter supplants a corporate or organizational blog because it’s so much easier and faster. I was asking whether you need a corporate blog if you have a Facebook fan page. I was asking whether it’s worth the effort for organizations large and small to devote the time and resources to maintaining an effective blog.

In fact I’m asking whether the word blog isn’t outdated. A blog can be defined as a next-generation, interactive Web site. Maybe we’re just talking about seo in tampa bay and a new kind of social corporate site. I asked everyone to be as contrarian as he or she wished in answering the question. I received many provocative answers. Following are some of the most useful.