Is Social Media Marketing(SMM) Taking over Search Engine Optimization(SEO)?

[AceTech]

By any chance do you think SMM is taking over SEO and will be the next big thing to do effective Online Marketing?

[antihero13]

I don't think so. I think it's just easier for people to do SMM than SEO. A lot of people have personal Facebook, Twitter, etc. accounts anyway and figure they may as well do one for their business. In doing that, people are doing SMM and not even knowing it. There are probably a lot of business owners with websites who have never heard of SEO. Plus social media only takes a few minutes a day and it's free.

However, the reason I don't think it's going to take over is that with SMM people have to already know in advance who you are, what you're about and where you can be found before they decide to friend/follow you. To do that, you have to either do some traditional methods of advertising (newspapers, billboards, etc.) or make sure people can find you online (i.e. SEO). There might be a few people who do, but I doubt very many people follow random companies they've never heard of through social media.

Not to say SMM isn't important. SMM is just a complement to SEO and other forms of advertising. There's a possibly you'll gain nothing from SMM but you have nothing to lose with it unless you make bad posts or have horrible customer service. SMM will never take over SEO but it's just one more advertising tool you can use along with everything else.

[SENtelligence]

Plus social media only takes a few minutes a day and it's free.

I'm afraid I can't completely agree with you on that, it can be a 24/7/365 job. It depends on how serious you are about it and how important social media is for your business.

In some niches, social networks are huge traffic channels. However, a lot of web marketers do not use them to the max.

I think that, just like SEO, SMM has matured and can now be leveraged more effectively than before. You can build conversion funnels with SMM just as well as with SEO. It's just that, in the case of SMM you approach the prospect first, while in the case of SEO, the prospect looks you up, so to say.

Also, I don't think that social media will ever take over SEO. They have been getting more integrated, though, considering search plus your world, social signals in ranking algorithms, social plugins for websites, etc.

[A3L]

SMM is a money game nothing else while SEO is for treat sites fairly by search engines regardless of who pay more? A site which can spend money can easily approach in Social Media and there are no requirement of quality content and other parameters. But SEO can improve the popularity of a website without any paid efforts if the site have quality content and other stuffs in natural.

[AceTech]

Takling about SEO and SMM. @antihero has some good points but we can't mix them up. They are two different things. People have literally scammed while doing SEO by putting too bad stuff on Google to enhance their Google rankings. While on the other hand SMM is very genuine and the content given is unique. So IMO It's all about the uniqueness of the content that we share with people rather than the quantity we give. Quality is ensured by SMM. SMM is also providing back links, you can do micro bloggings through SMM, use your keywords in certain ways while posting. It's about maintaining the standards of Quality.

[morestar]

In some niches, social networks are huge traffic channels. However, a lot of web marketers do not use them to the max.

...or can afford to...

Then there's GM cancelling their ads with Facebook. If they have ads with Google, I'll bet they've kept them and still have an SEO team...

[mjtaylor]

Any time someone comes in and asks a question like this as a new member I feel like our chain is being yanked. It's called posting to post and it's usually a waste of time to answer it ...

[LD]

Takling about SEO and SMM. @antihero has some good points but we can't mix them up. They are two different things. People have literally scammed while doing SEO by putting too bad stuff on Google to enhance their Google rankings. While on the other hand SMM is very genuine and the content given is unique. So IMO It's all about the uniqueness of the content that we share with people rather than the quantity we give. Quality is ensured by SMM. SMM is also providing back links, you can do micro bloggings through SMM, use your keywords in certain ways while posting. It's about maintaining the standards of Quality.

The OP has apparently answered their own question. Since this thread has been exposed as a "chain being yanked" (good one MJ!) This thread is closed.