Search and Social media marketing- Related?

Before understanding the relation of the two terms, we should first understand the difference between these two tools, and their real definitions in our terms. We shall put up it like this.

If our company tries to gain more and more traffic and visibility from search engines via both paid and unpaid terms, that we call as search Marketing. This can be done either through SEO (Search Engine Optimization) or SEM (Search Engine Marketing). Wondering what these mean? Do not worry; we shall go one by one.

SEM is actually paid searches. The perfect example would be Google Adwords. On yahoo, it’s Bing Ads. What SEO actually does is bringing the company name / brand name to the first 1-3 search results when an individual types a word and searches for it. For example, if a person types ayurvedic spa, Colombo then, if Horizon Spa, in Kollupitiya comes among the first 3-5 results on the result page, then, there SCO has done its part. As you can see it is a game of words. We play SEO using identified key words, and careful research has to ne surely done before SEO deeds.

Now, What does Social Media mean to us? Face Book? Just that? Nop, Twitter, G+, Instagram, YouTube and Linked in are all are social media. Social media itself is a catch-all term for sites that may provide radically different social actions. For instance, Twitter is a social site designed to let people share short messages or “updates” with others. Facebook, in contrast is a full-blown social networking site that allows for sharing updates, photos, joining events and a variety of other activities.

Now, why do we say that these two- Social Media Marketing and Search Engine marketing are inter related?  Social media often feeds into the discovery of new content such as news stories, and “discovery” is a search activity. Social media can also help build links that in turn support into SEO efforts. Many people also perform searches at social media sites to find social media content. Social connections may also impact the relevancy of some search results, either within a social media network or at a ‘mainstream’ search engine.

For an example, we shall take one scenario. If a newly introduced tour company is to increase its website traffic, backing up via social media is really necessary. It may be needed to have FB posts posted with regard to various travel packages and that need to carry the website link as well followed by a wording like “see more at / view all at / full details at” etc.

A good understanding about the website behavior could be obtained through Google Analytics and, the behavior in social media could be tracked via social bakers, tweet mention and etc. These analytical tools help a lot in understanding the geographies and the demographics of our audience and, based on these, important decisions could be taken.

Thus, today, Search engine marketing is not a stand alone, but a tool highly contributed by the activities in the social media relevant to the brand / company.