I have a friend – we'll call him Mr. Maple Bacon, who thinks that blogs are simply a vehicle for self-promotion. In the interest of full disclosure, this friend is not a self-promoter – which is one of many reasons I consider him a friend. And, he may tell me this just to get a rise out of me. Yet, if even a small part of him believes this, I don't think he's the only one.

Sure, some people use a blog for the sole purpose of promoting themselves in order to win business, making themselves feel important, or ranting about their personal issues. Blogs that focus on the above are often very successful, by the way. But, there are lots of other reasons to write a blog. Here are a few that come to mind for both business and personal use:

You have a Facebook fan page, you tweet with ferocity, your blog has loyal visitors...now what? How do you measure all of your online (non-website) activities? With social media ever present in 2010, this post discusses the most popular social media monitoring tools organized by the main three options: plug-ins for your existing analytics package, free social media tools, and paid social media monitoring companies.