The Twin 'Pincers' of SEO and Social Media Marketing

As Internet users have changed their online behavior, search engine optimization (SEO) and social media marketing have become increasingly and inexorably intertwined.  SEO leverages social media marketing to drive Internet users to a site. Social media marketing utilizes SEO techniques to connect with Internet users.

Google and Bing are not going anywhere soon, and neither are Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. In military terms, the challenge for business is how to combine these two ‘pincers’ in order to ‘envelope’ their target audience.

Internet Users Play ‘More Active’ Role in Search

In an insightful article, Erez Barak of Search Engine Watch emphasizes that “the explosive growth of major social networks” have provided Internet marketers “a whole new range of channels from which to broadcast their messaging”.

Traditional SEO techniques were passive, in the sense that sites and site content were tweaked so that ideally once someone punched in their search term Google (or the competitive search engine de jour) would display the tweaked site at the top of their search engine results pages (SERPs). Search engines would thereby drive traffic from their SERP to the landing page of the selected site with a click of the mouse.

With the advent of social media, however, Internet users play a far more active role in searching out the sites they wish to visit. While for a fairly generic/impersonal service such as “laptop repair” or “computer rental” Internet users may still use sites displayed on the top SERP to find the nearest/most convenient/cheapest service, with more personal services such as “hair dresser” or “Italian restaurant,” as in ‘real life,’ users are much more likely to rely on the recommendations of their friends (irrespective of GroupOn coupons).

Internet Users Spend 25% of Time on Social Networking Sites

In his article, Barak points out that businesses can no longer afford to ignore social media, as this is where their customers or potential clients are spending most of their time. He references recent research from top rating service, Nielsen, which shows that 25 percent of the time users are online they are on social media networks or blogs. The obvious strategy is thus clearly evident. Marketers need to build their social networking profile. Yet, at the same time, the methods used to build that profile should reflect the reality that search engines are increasingly weighting social factors into the algorithms that generate their SERPs.

Barak confirms that both “Google and Bing have confirmed that ‘social’ is now a part of their ranking algorithms’. He notes that “Bing proved ahead of the social game when they announced their incorporation of Facebook's "Like" data into search results last year,” while Google recently announced search algorithm updates “which now incorporate three new layers of social integration including Twitter, Quora and Flickr.”

In a concise summary of how the twin ‘pincers’ of SEO and social media marketing are working, Barak points out that, “(n)ot only are consumers seeing tweets, shares, ‘Likes,’ blogs, and other relevant posts from people within their inner social circles, but these results are also . . . displayed higher in search queries.”

‘Content’ Is Still ‘King’

As ever, content is still king. Whether interacting on social media sites to drive Internet traffic or optimizing a specific website, the copy being posted must still be relevant, informative, and readable by the target audience and not just by search engine indexing programs. However, when writing for social networking sites the written copy must be appropriate to the forum. Targeted social media audiences are not interested in, and are actively turned off by, posts that are pure advertising or just plain spam. At the same time, search engine indexing programs are turned off by – and will punish in their SERP rankings – social media posts that are littered with SEO keywords.

Writing for both ‘pincers’ of SEO and social media marketing is thus challenging. Nonetheless writing readable and appropriate content that is focused on keyword terms but not strewn with them is not that big a challenge. The key is informative and appropriate focused on keyword terms but not dominated by them. To the extent that challenge is met the social media profile of a company or website will be enhanced, and that enhancement will not only drive traffic from social networking sites, but it will also allow Internet marketers to double down with the increased weighting that ‘social factors’ have in determining Google and Bing’s SERPs.

Guest post by: James Barry covers social media marketing for Wolf21.com, a Toronto-based search engine optimization firm offering a full line of SEO services.

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