Social media marketing | Liz Hover's Diary of a Web Gal

Over at Mashable, writer Adam Ostrow asks if social media is making corporate websites irrelevant.

Remember the dotcom era?

Websites were the thing. And then it all went arse up.

Adam wonders if corporate websites are still useful today with the rapid growth of spaces such as Facebook and Twitter. More and more brands are using those sites to market their products and push their message. Should we even bother with a website?

Let’s look at it another way.

Corporate websites need to do much more to pull in functions from social media sites that add value to their own online space. A company always needs a home base. It’s where you can find all the bits. This is such an exciting time in website and marketing development. Companies should be clawing at API (application programming interface – that’s the thing that lets you and and me build stuff on our websites using bits of Facebook or Twitter or myriad other cool social media sites.)

One problem with the social web is the fragmentation of everything. At some future point we’re probably gonna want to reign things back in. Just a little. API and our corporate websites are where we’ll do it. Sure, corporate websites will go through some transformation along the way but ultimately we’ll want a tidy place where we can find all the parts without going all over to find them.

A website is still key to your brand and probably always will be. Your portfolio of online space will get bigger but ‘the website’ gives it all a home.

I love email. And so I religiously read everything that arrives in my inbox. This includes over 20 email subscriptions from technology, web design, blogging, social media and marketing websites.

I couldn’t do my job without a lot of the information that comes my way.

One of the requirements of website management is the need to continuously nuture your knowledge base. I find these email updates are one of the best ways to stay in the loop.

So I get some of these sent to my personal email address and others go to my work account. If you’re trying to absorb this much information you’ll need to be pretty organised about how and when you read the updates.

Of course email alerts don’t work for everyone. And most if not all of the sites I list below also offer other ways to subscribe. Or you could just regularly visit these sites. But that’s a heck of a job.

Here are my picks in no particular order:

• One Degree – the inside scoop on digital marketing and social media for Canadian marketers.
• ProBlogger – created by uber blogger Darren Rowse, the site is dedicated to helping other bloggers learn the skills of blogging, share their own experiences and promote the blogging medium. Includes well over 3,500 articles, tips, tutorials and case studies.
• TwiTip – also from Darren Rowse, a tips site for Twitter users who want to improve their use of Twitter.
• Skidzopedia – a blog offering updates about the latests gadgets, softwares, news and reviews.
• MediaShift - tracks how new media – from weblogs to podcasts to citizen journalism – are changing society and culture.
• VentureBeat – Silicon Valley news about tech money and innovation.
• Mashable – the world’s largest blog focused exclusively on web 2.0 and social networking news.
• MediaPost – resources for media, marketing and advertising professionals offering news coverage, event information, a social network, and industry jobs, directories and research. Folks can subscribe to updates from over 20 blogs.
• Media in Canada – the latest news keeping media and marketing execs up to speed on the Canadian media scene.
• Micro Persuasion – a blog exploring how emerging technologies are revolutionizing marketing and communications.
• Silicon Alley Insider – news, commentary, and discussion about digital publishing, entertainment, news, music, social networking, mobile, and gaming.
• All Facebook – the unofficial Facebook blog.
• Seth Godin – Seth has several sites. I currently subscribe to Seth Godin’s Blog which offers riffs on marketing, respect, and the ways ideas spread.
• John Battelle’s Searchblog – thoughs on the intersection of search, media, technology and more.
• MakeUseOf – news about cool websites, software, and how-to articles.
• NETTUTS – a site aimed at web developers and designers offering tutorials and articles on technologies, skills and techniques to improve how you design and build websites.
• Six Revisions – a blog that shares useful information about web development and design, dedicated to people who build websites.
• ZDNet – technology news and reviews.
• Blogging Me, Blogging You – marketing, blogging, social media, PR and technology news.
• TechCrunch – a weblog dedicated to obsessively profiling and reviewing new Internet products and companies.
• Daily Blog Tips – erm, I think the title speaks for itself.
• Web Design Ledger – written by web designers for web designers. Web design related knowledge and resources. Topics range from design inspiration to tips and tutorials.
• ReadWriteWeb – a blog that provides web technology news, reviews and analysis.
• Smashing Magazine – trends and techniques in web development. They don’t provide email updates so I follow them on Twitter.
• The Web Squeeze – web design articles on business and computers to web development tutorials on topics such as CSS, PHP and Javascript.
• PR 2.0 – Brian Solis’ blog covering marketing and technology.
• Blogsessive – blogging tips for bloggers.
• Six Pixels of Separation – fellow Canadian Mitch Joel blogs about marketing and communications. No email updates so I check this site manually when I remember.