The Social Media Revolution
It’s not news to those of us with our fingers on the pulse, but it constantly surprises me how often my clients overlook social media and insist that search engine rankings and web site traffic are of more importance.
It often feels as though those of us in digital marketing are suffering the backlash from cowboy SEO companies circa 2003 brandishing mottos such as “more traffic = more sales” or “if you’re not on Google, you’re nobody”. Sure, Google’s important, but funneling thousands of untargeted visitors to your web site won’t increase your sales and will probably do more harm to your brand’s image than good.
Social media is SEO’s all grown up little brother. Social media is the equivalent of a man standing outside your shop with a megaphone giving his opinion on your business to those deciding whether or not they want to come inside. Imagine that the man had just been inside to purchase something and experienced a rude customer service representative; is his opinion going to be biased? If you aren’t at least aware of social media and its power; the good (and hopefully accurate) image of your brand could be sullied irreparably by a few customers’ bad experiences.
Social media is not a fad, it is a paradigm shift in the way that companies are advertised and unless you’re embracing it; you’re suffering.
[...] Arguably “social media” has replaced SEO as the biggest buzzword in traffic generation on web 2.0 — another buzzword that’s here to stay. Of course creating good content that people will want to link to has always been an integral part of SEO strategy, because more links mean higher rankings. But with many people bypassing search engines altogether and relying more and more on direct recommendations from trusted friends on Facebook and Twitter, it’s definitely time for SEOs to start concentrating their efforts on producing sites that offer instant linkbait. [...]
[...] Of course he’s right. SEO was an arcane art and promised more than it could deliver — usually because it attracted one real expert to every ten cowboys. It seems the majority of web entrepreneurs feel social media is going the same way. [...]