Something which I am currently thinking about is the relationship between Search Engine Optimization and Social Media Marketing. There surely is a direct relationship, and this short post about SEO and Social Media Marketing mentions it, too:
When it comes to social media, millions of links are shared every day on Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and blogs. As more people share a link to a website, the ranking of the webpage will increase. So the more your links are shared via social media, the more search engines pick up on this and increase your website’s overall rank.
But it doesn’t only work in one direction – it also works the other way around:
It’s also important to note SEO’s impact on social media. Primarily, if a link is easier to find on a search engine, then people are more likely to share it.
So far, SMM and SEO experts don’t seem to be working together much. Social Media Marketers might think about a presence on Youtube, or conducting a „blogger outreach“ programm, some crowdsouring, etc.
But when selecting platforms or target audiences, Social Media Marketers tend to only think about „social value“ of the respective platform or person. This Social Value is determined by the potential influence of that platform or person on the opinion or actions of other users.
The SEO tends to only think in „Link Value“ of a platform. When doing offsite optimization, SEOs try to place links on other sites that have a high link value in the „eyes“ of Google, so that it helps to improve the ranking of the SEOs site.
So SEOs don’t necessarily care about the Social Value of a site, and SMMs don’t care about the Link Value of a site.
Quite often this might correlate, since the Google Algorithm is based on social dynamics (sofar, most links are still published by human beings), but not always. And as far as I know, SEOs and SMMs don’t yet plan their activities together, trying to increase the intersection between the two online marketing approaches. It could prove to be interesting to unite these two approaches the next time activities are planned!
Wo ich sonst so bin...
Excellent points, any business owner who would attempt to market by only using SEO or SMM Online marketing services respectively is essentially wasting their time. They may generate some relevance, but at the end of the day.. the lack of „viral consumer confidence“ will eliminate any gains and put them back at the beginning. VCC will be the next stage in the evolution of SMM and SEO.
At present most employers review potential candidates Social Networking pages in order to make hiring decisions. Does it not also make sense that Potential Customers to your business will begin to seek out those businesses which provide them some social networking interaction. They gain confidence, review your other clients, keep up to speed on your promotions and specials. This is how long term business is built.
One the other side, the business with no SMM to speak of is relying solely on SEO ranking which is already a time consuming proposition. You can use SMM to grow your SEO, grow your client confidence in your product and create Viral Consumer Confidence. However, neither method will make it alone so be smart about how you market.