Social Media vs SEO
Digital marketing’s end goal is simple - get more sales. Yet before a sale is made, you need people to notice your brand first. The challenge though is how do you get people to notice you when your competitors are drowning out your marketing efforts with their fancier marketing strategies.
A bevy of techniques and hacks exist to aid you in achieving the abovementioned goal, all of which falls primarily into two categories: search engine optimization (SEO) and social media. While the former has been around a while over the latter, both have proven to deliver desired results, which is drive traffic to your tiny nook in the internet and get people to purchase a product or avail of one of your services.
SEO vs Social Media: There’s More Than One Way to Skin a Cat
Comparing SEO and social media is akin to debating whether a cat or a dog is the best pet ever. Or pitting the vegan diet to a paleo lifestyle. The real issue here is not whether one is better than the other but rather doing an honest reflection on your business goals, your existing budget, your priorities, and your willingness to experiment. After all, digital marketing is a dynamic, fast-paced industry requiring more than just in-depth knowledge of what works (and what doesn’t) but also a strong test-as-you-go mentality.
For the sake of a good argument though, we present two sides of the which-is-better-in-digital-marketing-story below!
Simply put, search engine optimization is a collective term for techniques that will help your website rank higher than your competitors in an online search query. Specific details on the beginnings of SEO is difficult to pinpoint. While the first prototype of what we know as a search engine today was introduced in 1990 as a school project, utilizing techniques to alter the search results came in later, yet the exact date is difficult to pin down. And so does the credits to the first person who coined search engine optimization.
Without a doubt, SEO has been around longer than social media. It has gone through a lot of changes for two decades, alongside the evolving search algorithms. SEO has proven itself to be a powerhouse of online marketing through the following:
People looking for information will go to search engines first
Think about the customer who is looking for an HVAC contractor in his area. Most likely, he will google his way to finding a reliable contractor by going through online reviews and comparing prices amongst several contractors.
A 2014 report by Brightedge, a digital marketing company, reveal that organic search trumps social media in driving traffic to their website. Here’s a summary of the report:
- 51% of all website traffic comes from organic search
- Rich media flattens the click distribution curve on SERPs
- Over 40% of revenue is captured by organic traffic
Bright Edge’s findings is also supported by another report generated by Monetate. In a quarterly report released February of last year, Monetate found out that 32.61 percent of their sales were driven by online searches, a far cry from the 1.14 percent generated by social media.
The bottomline is that people will turn to search engines first rather than log in to Facebook when they’re looking for a chiropractor, mold specialist, or a health food store. Google calls this the Zero Moment of Truth (ZMOT) and has referred to it as the new battleground for brands.
You can read minds with SEO.
Remember back when you’re a kid and you wholeheartedly believe that you can read minds like Professor X of X-men? SEO grants you this superpower! By using keyword analysis tools such as Google’s AdWords Tool, you get to analyze your target customer’s behaviour and generate more content which correlates to the top search terms in your industry.Likes and followers may mean nothing.
Google’s Matt Cutts made it clear in a video last year that social signals such as Facebook likes and number of Twitter followers do not affect Google’s search rankings. This statement, however, doesn’t necessarily mean that digital marketers should throw their social media tricks out of the window. By and large, it’s a reminder for online marketers to not focus solely on social media and find more ways instead to broaden their online marketing efforts.
Social Media and the Butterfly Effect
Like SEO, it is unclear as to who was the first person to coin the term social media. While its etymology may still be debated for bragging rights, there is no arguing that social media is also a necessity for an online marketing plan to work. A single tweet, like a butterfly’s flap, can have a cascading effect that will bring you either more fans or haters. Below are social media’s bragging rights!
Social media engagement is the new link building.
Employing black-hat SEO techniques via keyword stuffing and creating fake websites to link back to the website you were trying to optimize used to work but algorithm adjustments fortunately saved the day, that is the day of honest online marketers. These days, social media shares and engagement is the new link building. The more people talk about your brand in Twitter, Facebook or Instagram, the greater the likelihood of users checking out your web pages.
Social media humanizes your brand.
Did you know that auto-posting in Facebook decreases your likes and comments by 70 percent? And today’s online audiences are smart enough to figure out if it’s an auto-post or a real person behind a tweet or a status. The takeaway from such sobering statistic is to be genuinely engaged with your social media community. Authenticity will always trump whatever automating trick you have in your sleeve.
Do not underestimate the power of social media search.
Anyone interested in your company or brand will most likely dig deeper by looking for you on Facebook or Instagram. Moreover, hashtags have also revolutionize the way people search online. Therefore, keeping your social media profiles updated is crucial to maintain that image of professionalism and reliability. These numbers will convince you: Twitter had 19 billion search queries in 2010 (how much more 5 years later?) while Facebook had 1 billion search queries a day in 2012.
Responding in real-time is possible via social media.
Gone are the days of crafting a press release or a blog post to respond to a negative online review. Social media has made it possible to comment real-time to criticisms or answer customer queries. Real-time responses is not only a damage-control strategy but also implies that you prioritize client/customer satisfaction in your business.
Social media is a necessary tool in sharing content.
You’ve heard it before and we’ll say it again - content is king! So how do you announce such royalty when you have no trumpeters and heralds in your toolbox? Social media platforms are the reliable folks you can count on to announce that His Highness content has arrived!
There is No Social Media versus SEO
In conclusion, SEO and social media are two valuable tools that should not be set against each other. If you have to choose one over the other, say due to budget constraints, a careful assessment of your target niche and business goals should be done.
Are you a social media fan or an SEO evangelist? Share your thoughts with us!
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About the Author
About Kyjean Tomboc
Kyjean likes to think of herself as an online content machine but her love for all things feline makes her human after all! She writes mainly about health, science, social media, and online content marketing. If she’s not writing, she’s either scaling mountains or taming tardigrades. Follow her tardigrade taming attempts at Twitter - @autodidactikai
