HOW SEO AND SMM WORK HAND-IN-HAND FOR YOUR BRAND
SEO or SMM – It is almost unavoidable that you will encounter a brand mention while you scroll through your social media feed. Whether it is through a targeted ad or an influencer promoting a particular product, brands have infiltrated social media platforms, a stark contrast to a couple of years back when sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram were a way for people to escape blatant consumerism.
But it is through this escapist appeal that businesses have flocked to social media platforms in drove. Business owners and marketers are simply following where the people are and already the combined users of the major social media sites have surpassed one billion.
The landscape is filled with business opportunities but only the creative and well-informed succeed.
Rules of Search Engine Optimization – SEO or SMM
Search engine optimization came to prominence the moment people started using search engines to navigate themselves online. A couple of keywords are typed into the search bar and you are immediately taken to where you need to go. It wasn’t long before site developers and owners realized that they get more traffic to their site if they rank high on the search engine results page.
We can describe SEO as the process of optimizing a website to make it appealing to search engines, thereby ranking it high when its targeted keywords are searched. Over the years, the process in which search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Bing crawl and index websites have evolved. New algorithms are tweaked regularly to favor certain site features.
In recent times, websites that are mobile-friendly, easy to navigate, regularly updated, and content-rich seems to do well in search engine results pages. This observation leads many people to brands to change tactics and become more creative with their SEO strategies.
Enter Social Media Marketing – SEO or SMM
Contrary to what many people believe, social media marketing and SEO are not competitors. Both cater to different criteria of online marketing. SEO ensures that the website and its content are appealing to users. SMM serves as a funnel towards the brand’s landing page or site.
Essentially, SMM and SEO are two different processes that, in the end, increased the online visibility of websites. Despite the difference in approach, the two processes do cross paths.
Social media marketing, although quite new to the game of digital marketing, does contribute to marketing efforts in ways that SEO cannot. Below are a few examples.
- Instant customer communication. Businesses with social media presence have an immediate communication channel to their audience. A simple tweet or a post with the brand’s handle tagged is enough to open a discussion about a concert or a query.
- Constant updates. Updating websites on an hourly basis is going to be difficult. To this degree, brands turn to social media for news and updates, reserving the major ones for their websites. New video content can be shared through social media for video marketing for small business.
- Quick damage control. Should there be any negative reviews or comments about the brand, social media can be a channel to quickly act on a “crisis” and do damage control before it becomes worse.
- User-generated content. Reviews help businesses a lot but more and more people prefer to read those left on the brand’s social media page due to its perceived authenticity.
Visibility and Communication
Conclusion(SEO or SMM) The rise of social media marketing doesn’t mean the end of SEO. Search engine optimization is still very much relevant for businesses to succeed. It could be said that SEO can be used as a visibility tool, while social media marketing is for communication. Using either for the success of a business is fine, but using both is better overall.
