Many website owners concentrate wholly and solely on search engine marketing and little if any time on social marketing. One reason often stated is that it is too time consuming, difficult to measure and doesn’t deliver targeted traffic.
It can be argued that search engine marketing fits those three criteria as well – but only if done poorly and the same can be said for social marketing. There are counter arguments for each of those points.
Time: it can all be relative. You can have someone spend hours answering queries or use the time to create a blog or faq page. Blogs are a valuable part of both search engine marketing and social marketing. Time spent on social sites need not be lengthy. Social marketing doesn’t require long hours, it requires a plan and self control.
Measurable: most business owners have a need to measure and quantify everything. When there is a cost involved, this is understandable, and time is money. The investment in a blog can be measured particularly if the right analytics are used. Those same analytics can tell you how much traffic is coming from social media sites. To say that social marketing cannot be measured is really not true.
Traffic: Search engine marketing can deliver targeted traffic. If you have a good social marketing strategy then the traffic received can be more closely targeted and often with higher conversion rates.
Social marketing outcomes can be better than search engine marketing. There are now web site owners that concentrate more on the social marketing aspect than on their search engine marketing. The truth is, both can be undertaken with great effect.
In the bigger picture, social marketing is simply and extension of search engine marketing, or, as some would argue, vice-versa.
