Social Media Is Not a Substitute for Search Marketing: The Two Go Hand In Hand

Why you need Social Media AND Search.

With tight budgets, companies are trying to make decisions about where and how to allocate resources. The much-lauded options for social media are ever present in the press, which pushes many to shuffle resources from search marketing to social media. But really the two should operate hand in hand.

Social media is all about content creation. Search is all about indexing content and making it easy to find.

You need a strategy for both. And, a supercharged content strategy combines search and social media to maximum effectiveness.

For example, social media search functions are increasingly important for monitoring the conversation about your industry, organization, competitors and customer conversations. Twitter’s advanced search lets users track various keyword phrases that can be filtered by language of the page, timeframe and other criteria. Monitoring the social web can inform your understanding of the language, terms and tone used by your customers. Commonly used keyword phrases can then be integrated into your blog post titles, page headings, meta descriptions and title tags—all things relevant to search engine optimization.

The feedback loop created is invaluable. Your business strategy informs your social media strategy, which informs your search strategy, which validates the assumptions made in your business strategy, allowing you to refine your messaging, audience targets, and sales pitches.

The beauty of a circle is that it has no beginning point. Your search strategy can inform your business strategy, which informs your social media strategy, which feeds back into your search strategy.

When you combine search and social media, the left hand not only knows what the right hand is doing but is able to act on it, and vice versa.