Prospective clients often ask me if they should invest in SEO (search engine optimization) or social media. Their company only has so many marketing dollars to spend, and they want to spend them as wisely as possible. They have heard a lot about both SEO and social media marketing, and know they should probably be doing at least one of them, but they do not understand either one enough to make the decision on their own. So they ask me.
SEO or Social Media: Which is the Wisest Investment?
I answer this question by turning it into an analogy.
Should you put two front wheels on your car, or two rear wheels?
Just as a car needs both front wheels and rear wheels, your company needs both SEO and social media. [Tweet This]
SEO and social are more interdependent than ever. Search engines are using social “signals”, such as “likes”, retweets, and “plus ones” as votes of confidence, similar to the way they look at relevant inbound links.
On the flip side, it is extremely beneficial to have carefully-selected key phrases in your social content, since more and more social media posts are being indexed by search engines. It also helps to have those phrases prevalent in your social posts when users run searches within a social network.
Additionally, by having a presence on each major social network, you can easily dominate the first page of Google for “branded” searches. Branded searches are searches for your company name, or variations thereof. A Google search for a company name often produces profile results from Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Google Plus, Pinterest, Quora and SlideShare. If your company has profiles on all of these networks, then you will nearly dominate the first page results for your branded terms. This is especially beneficial when there are other companies with names similar to yours.
Blogging is the Fuel that Drives it All
There’s a second part to my automotive analogy of SEO and social media.
Blogging is the fuel that drives the car.
If SEO gives you two wheels, and social media gives you the other two, then blogging is the fuel that drives the car. Blogging frequently with carefully-selected key phrases will boost both your social media presence and your SEO rankings. Search engines like to see consistently-expanding sites with fresh keyword-rich content. Social media fans love to see genuinely useful articles that help them solve their most pressing issues.
The social signals (likes, shares, retweets, etc.) generated by the social interest help boost the search engine rankings for the articles. And the carefully-chosen key phrases in the freshly-pressed blog articles bring your company more visibility in Google. These two factors play off of each other for an exponential “snowball” type of effect. Or, to stick with the automotive analogy:
Keyword-rich blog articles rev up your marketing’s RPMs.
Are You Running on Empty?
What kind of shape is your internet marketing vehicle in? Are you running on all cylinders? Or are you running on empty? Leave your comments in the box below.
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Check out my Facebook Marketing Plan Template and LinkedIn Marketing Plan Template.
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Thank you so much Ann for this Article I really liked it
I know that Blogging is the fuel of the SEO, but what it has to do with Social Media ??
Hi Mostafa,
Thanks for the feedback. The answer to your question is explained in the paragraph above that begins with “SEO and social are more interdependent than ever” and the two paragraphs that follow that one.
Perfect analogy and an evergreen post. Sharing.
Thanks for the feedback, Sheila!
It’s not social media…it’s just media at this point.
@jasontdiller:disqus Some firms treat social media as a broadcast channel, thereby removing the social component Those are the firms that claim that social media “doesn’t work” and get no return on their investment. However, the firms (like mine) that take advantage of the goldmine of social activity on “social” media get significant return on their efforts, and the dollars made from that engagement are the proof that “social” media, when used “socially”, is incredibly powerful.
I like your analogy. Love it more when you brought in blogging as a fuel for both SEO and social media. Cannot be any more true.
I was just wondering though, isn’t the cost of managing social media very low? Why, aside from manpower I’d think, would a company worry about budgeting for social media?
Thank you, @JasonHJH:disqus. Social media marketing planning, monitoring, reporting, management, and continuous improvement takes an enormous amount of time and talent if done properly. Each social media platform requires a separate marketing plan, reporting protocol, and resources; as well as highly-skilled communications coordinators to implement it; not to mention the necessary budgets and management time for social media advertising. I think that this Facebook Marketing Plan Template will give you an idea of the effort necessary for just one social network: http://pamannmarketing.com/facebook-marketing-plan-template/
I would go for Social Media and Google Ads.
Thanks for the comment, Tarik. I think that Google Ads are great as a holdover until an organic SEO strategy can be put to work. After organic SEO gets ramped up, it is then possible to pull back on the level of investment Google AdWords.