Search Engine Marketing (SEO) and Social Media Marketing (SMM) are two of the most important elements within your digital marketing strategy. While each practice has its merits, there is still the question of how relevant each one is to your strategy, and how does it fit into your digital marketing strategy. Diving deeper, it helps to understand what are the benefits that each practice brings to the table.

SEO

The biggest benefit that SEO brings to the table is “inbound” advertising. As opposed to “outbound” advertising, inbound advertising seeks the user’s consent on whether they wish to receive news or emails from you – it is about making life easy for your audience to find you if they when they need information from you.

Inbound marketing is a customer-centric approach which entails the creation of helpful resources which will actually benefit the user. By guiding new users towards the ins-and-outs of an industry or a certain product, they would then have a credible source to turn to if they intend to know an even greater deal. It is significantly more convenient for customers and brings in higher quality leads.

Hubspot’s State of Inbound reports that 59 per cent of marketers agree that inbound practices give them the highest quality leads for their sales teams.

Whereas in outbound marketing, users are subjected to unsolicited information such as cold calls, intrusive ads, spam emails etc., all with the agenda of pushing a message across without considering if the user is actively seeking said information or if it is actually useful for them.

It is widely regarded as an annoying practice and is generally frowned upon.

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Google’s organic rankings are solely dependent on what it’s algorithm determines to be the best result for any queries. It is basically about creating a page that is worthy enough in the eyes of the search engine to direct traffic to, and it can continue to attract traffic for months and years after you’ve published it.

The key to succeeding in this is undertaking the initial investment of creating high-quality content. There are a few ways you could go about it – hiring a digital marketing agency, creating it yourself etc. But once you’ve sunk the time or money to make that initial investment, there is virtually no ongoing cost to continuously attract traffic to your site. Unlike PPC ads, which across all industries cost around $2.32 per click, having a spot in Google’s organic rankings is virtually free of charge.

SMM

Another must-have within your digital marketing strategy, the prevalence of social networks within the past decade have made it such that anyone who does not implement a social media marketing within their strategy is practically missing out on a fantastic marketing opportunity; as the benefits to using this cost-effective resource is endless – the huge potential for growth using the platform. However, while 96 per cent of marketers is active in social media marketing, 85 per cent of them aren’t sure which tools are the best to use. To set the record straight, here are just a few benefits of social media marketing which you’ll find useful to your marketing strategy.

Increased Brand Awareness

The prolificness of social media platforms is an excellent way to syndicate content and enhance brand awareness. Having a social media strategy allows you to engage a broad audience of consumers, because through every interaction – shared posts, likes, etc., will be introduced to a new network of individuals which could then become your potential customers. Little by little, the exposure generated through consistent social media marketing can accrue significantly.

More Inbound Traffic

Given that social media platforms have now become a gateway towards visiting a website, a good social media strategy will allow you to cater to a wide array of demographics. E.g. An older user may begin a search query using a particular keyword on Facebook, but a younger user may begin with a search on a completely different platform, such as Instagram because of the search for products in a completely different manner. Within the millions of users on social media comes individuals with varying backgrounds and differing trains of thought, therefore effective marketing on social media will allow you to capture these segments of users, giving you more inbound traffic.

Improved Search Engine Rankings

As in the aforementioned section, having quality content brings the chain effect of attracting more users. Here’s how.

By posting quality content, Google’s organic ranking algorithm will naturally drive traffic to your website. With quality content, the same can happen for you in terms of social media whereby you’ll eventually build a social media community where followers can engage with your content. Another significant benefit to this is that you will more likely be able to get in touch with industry influencers which you could then collaborate with; further improving your visibility and thus helping you increase your search engine rankings.

Which brings us to…

Higher Conversion Rates

Engagement is key. Social media marketing is an excellent opportunity for a business to share content and interact with its followers. By giving users the impression that they are interacting with another human being rather than another brand, they are more likely to continue interacting with you. 51 per cent of marketers claims that developing a relationship with your users leads to an increase in sales.

Given that the social media community is highly connected, word of mouth travels far. Thus by throwing your brand into the mix, your brand will more likely than not get mentioned, giving it a social proof of quality. By placing your brand in an atmosphere where people are constantly liking, sharing and talking; it wouldn’t be a surprise that you’ll see an improvement in your existing traffic rates.

Greater Customer Satisfaction 

“When you interact with customers on a one on one basis on social media, it makes them more loyal. Loyal customers spend more with you, stay with you longer and tell their friends about you.” – Dan Gingiss, Marketing and Customer Experience Executive

Social media is also a platform which allows for two way communication between a brand and its customers. They appreciate it when their comments are met with a personalised response, as it demonstrates consideration and attentiveness towards their needs in order to provide the best experience possible. As a brand that is dedicated to its customers will always be viewed in a positive light, even if any complaints arise.

In the end, SEO and SMM should be seen as two complementing tools as opposed to standalone items, whereby SEO deals with the intrinsic aspects of a marketing strategy and SMM the extrinsic aspect of it. As its effective use of the two as a pair can be a powerful duo which will yield significant results.

Speak with us here and let us help you determine what works best for you!