SEO Popular with Social Media Marketers

Those who are mystified by SEO, or consider it a type of modern voodoo, are fond of saying that every new search innovation is an SEO “killer.” It would seem social media would be the biggest, messiest threat to search engine optimisation; after all, who needs those outdated search engines when one has Facebook or Pinterest? A new survey from Social Media Examiner, however, indicates that SEO has a prominent role in social media marketing and that it remains a valuable tool. Social media is more of a friend than a killer.
The survey looked at over 3,800 social media professionals from around the world. Among its findings:

• Email marketing was the clear favorite in terms of marketing channels. The majority (87 percent) favored this platform.
• Number two was search engine optimisation, with 65 percent of social professionals opting to employ these strategies for success. Online ads were further down the list with about a third of marketers using this channel.
• B2B marketers tend to be more active with SEO than B2Cs, but that gap is closing.
• Most (68 percent) say they are going to boost their SEO efforts. Last year, that figure was 71 percent, so that is a bit of a decline. However, only 9 percent said they have no plans to use SEO.
• Less than half of marketers are planning to increase PPC advertising spent.
• Facebook is number 1. No surprise there; 92 percent of marketers use this platform. Way, way down on the list at number 6 is Google+, which is used by about 40 percent of those surveyed. Google can be heartened, though, because a majority of those surveyed say they plan on intensifying Google+ efforts in the future.
• Social bookmarking/news sites and forums decreased in popularity, and photo sharing sites like Pinterest gained steam.

The real takeaway here is not that SEO is great and forums are not; it is that savvy social media marketers utilise a variety of channels to reach their audiences. Audiences are not sitting in front of their televisions or reading the daily newspaper anymore; they are spread out among Facebook, Pinterest, YouTube, search engines…there is no one-size-fits-all approach; rather, you have to make use of the channels that make sense for your target audience.

Posted by Vadym Gurevych, Business Development Director at Bullseye Media