Everyone is buzzing about social media marketing.\u00a0 You can\u2019t turn your head without hearing about it at a conference.\u00a0 Marketing and PR professionals are either engaged today or thinking about how to engage tomorrow.\u00a0 Everyone is suddenly claiming expert status (by the way:\u00a0 you don\u2019t need a\u00a0social media expert, you just need a good marketer).<\/p>\n
None of this is surprising.\u00a0 Social media doesn\u2019t require knowledge of technology or staying on top of\u00a0 trends and technologies.\u00a0 Not in the same way SEO does.\u00a0 In comparison social media is easy to get right.\u00a0 You just need to know how to market to a connected society, have comprehension in sociology and learn the basics behind some pretty easy to use tools.\u00a0 Some patience helps too.<\/p>\n
The truth, though, is\u00a0social media is not new\u00a0hasn\u2019t\u00a0really<\/em>\u00a0changed since I\u2019ve been involved in message board and forum culture of the late 90\u2019s\/early 00\u2019s.\u00a0 There are just more people.\u00a0 And we\u2019re actually a bit nicer to each other.\u00a0 But it\u2019s still just digital conversations.\u00a0 Tools change, but the way we interact digitally hasn\u2019t \u2013 despite the glorification of certain platforms over others and the new found ability to be anti-social in public (or for some, more social) with the proliferation of mobile.<\/p>\n So here\u2019s the truth:\u00a0 digital marketing hasn\u2019t changed as much as some would have you believe.\u00a0 Search is still the number one source of traffic to my web properties by a pretty good margin (yours too, right?).\u00a0 Sure I\u2019m getting lots of social traffic, but guess what \u2013 search still wins month over month, it\u2019s far more consistent and it\u2019s just\u00a0better quality<\/em>\u00a0traffic.<\/p>\n And this brings us to the point:\u00a0 despite us early adopters shifting our habits and changing the way we use the web with the release of each new tool because we\u2019re infinitely curious doesn\u2019t mean everyone is like us.\u00a0 Search is still the core function of those seeking content or information.<\/p>\n If you\u2019re engaged in things like\u00a0content marketing\u00a0you should become fluent in SEO before social media.\u00a0\u00a0Social media and SEO\u00a0work together, but without having a search strategy locked down first, you\u2019ll never fully benefit from the intersection.\u00a0 Neither happens in a vacuum.<\/p>\n Search engine optimization intertwines with social media and the engines will only continue to look at social signals more in the future as more users participate.\u00a0 Sites like Twitter won\u2019t disrupt the web\u2019s link graph, eventually it could make it even stronger.\u00a0 But your marketing, your media, your brand \u2013 by engaging social without comprehension of search means you\u2019re yielding a higher conversion channel to competitors.<\/p>\n Social marketing efforts before SEO is putting the cart before the horse.<\/strong><\/p>\n It\u2019s shocking SEO isn\u2019t yet a core comprehension of all marketers when you consider the power behind the ultimate pull marketing channel.\u00a0 Yet it\u2019s not, because the truth is it\u2019s work to stay on top of search trends, continuously learn new best practices and relentlessly market your site better than competitors.\u00a0 It\u2019s also an environment where cash is not king, and many tenured marketers who only understand 1-to-many channels don\u2019t know how to participate in that sort of arena.<\/p>\n Unsustainable traffic<\/strong><\/p>\n Social marketing efforts behind a website that isn\u2019t optimized will produce fleeting returns.\u00a0 You\u2019ll hit peaks and valleys this way.\u00a0 The social web is fickle like that, and users navigating the river of real-time see today\u2019s signal as tomorrow\u2019s noise.\u00a0 Search on the other hand provides infinite life for your best content.\u00a0 Good content makes your website and the search engines equally more valuable, everyone wins.<\/p>\n No one looks at page 2<\/strong><\/p>\n Social web users look at page one of our favorite social sites.\u00a0 We want what\u2019s new, now.\u00a0 For many, page 2 of Digg, Reddit or even clicking \u201cmore\u201d on Twitter might as well be page 50.\u00a0 If there\u2019s some thought given to SEO behind your social participation your ideas can be extended beyond real-time and given infinite life by the engines.\u00a0 If not, when you fall onto \u201cpage 2,\u201d you\u2019ll live in archive purgatory.<\/p>\n Your campaigns can and will outrank you<\/strong><\/p>\n If you engage in social media without having an SEO strategy behind it, it\u2019s possible externalities are going to outrank your own content.\u00a0 I used to be surprised brands would let this happen, but I\u2019ve seen it happen so often that I\u2019m actually surprised when I see the opposite occur.\u00a0 It\u2019s just so rare people put thought behind this stuff.<\/p>\n You\u2019re leaving traffic on the table<\/strong><\/p>\n Good social media participation earns links \u2013 the organic, editorial kind.\u00a0 The kind the engines want to reward you for.\u00a0 But without an SEO program in place, you won\u2019t fully benefit from those links \u2013 which are invaluable.\u00a0 Most companies aren\u2019t cognizant of the value of links they\u2019re earning or how to make those links work for them, especially many engaged in social media.\u00a0 And they\u2019re only succeeding in letting competitors crush them.<\/p>\n Quick conclusion\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n Be weary of social media marketers who aren\u2019t fluent in SEO \u2013 you\u2019ll never benefit from the biggest opportunity the web has to offer.\u00a0 Search may not be as sexy as social, but it still matters more:\u00a0 it brings more traffic, higher conversions and is sustainable.<\/p>\n Thinking about this a bit further, this actually goes beyond social media marketing.\u00a0 I\u2019ll just say it like it is:\u00a0 if you put\u00a0any<\/em>\u00a0marketing or PR before SEO, you\u2019re putting the cart before the horse.\u00a0 There is a nexus between these items, but you can\u2019t uncover it until you are organizationally savvy about search.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Everyone is buzzing about social media marketing.\u00a0 You can\u2019t turn your head without hearing about it at a conference.\u00a0 Marketing … <\/p>\n