Are you in a rush to jump into Social Media?   Have you signed up for Facebook, Twitter, Buzz, Linkedin, etc?  That’s good because Social Media is another channel that can help sell your products/services and drive traffic to your site.  Social Media also plays a role in Search Engine Optimization.  However, Social Media does not replace Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Search Engine Marketing (SEM).  Abandoning SEO in favor of Social Media Optimization (SMO) or Social Media Marketing (SMM) will lead down the path of diminishing  returns and traffic.

While Social Media is recommended and makes a great complement to business sites, they are not first line sites.  Being easily found in the search engines will be the primary point of exposure for the majority of your customers.

Have you ever searched Facebook or Twitter for a product or a service before you searched Google, Bing or Yahoo?
After you found the site on Google, have you visited the businesses Twitter or Facebook page   Probably.

Therefore, as it stands today, SEO and SEM rules in terms of driving targeted traffic to the average business website leaving social media to play a supporting role.

Is social media important? Absolutely!  Does it replace SEO and SEM.  Not today my friends, not today.

Keith Hickman, “Social Media does not replace Search Engine Optimization”

Update:  8-14-11   Study Says Social Media Sucks at Driving Traffic

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 22nd, 2010 at 9:19 pm and is filed under Search Engine Optimization. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.