Social media is used more widely now than ever before, and is growing in popularity. While social media has become a platform for both individuals and companies, it may never outshine SEO.
When looking at these two things it is important to remember that they aren’t really connected. They’re both used for the purpose of getting a brand noticed, but they operate completely differently.
Since social media began there have been arguments over whether it will become more important than using SEO, but so far they are both still relevant. To understand why the two are competing, it’s best to look at a breakdown of what they both do.
What is SEO?
SEO focuses on keywords and allows websites that are of higher quality to be put higher in the ranks on search engines. This is very beneficial for growing businesses and companies. Social media sites are a faster method than SEO for growing a sites’ popularity on the web. They react more to readers and uses creative methods in order to capture an audience.
The future looks as though social media may become more important than SEO, but not just yet. SEO will still be extremely important as long as people continue to use search engines like Google to find things they are looking for.
How does social media marketing work?
Then with all of these dominating search engines, how could social media become more important? If you’re looking for a place to shop or thinking about trying out a new product or some kind of service what would be the first thing you do? For most people, the answer to this question would be to ask their friends or their family. This is because if someone you trust is recommending something, you’re more likely to go by what they say. This same concept is true with social media marketing. People will follow a company or a person on a social media site because they enjoy what they’re doing.
If they follow a company on Twitter or Facebook and the company uses these outlets to their full extent then customers can feel more connected than ever before and it begins a new relationship. When clients become interested and agree with things being posted they will tell their friends and share it with their friends first, which opens up even a bigger market. This method makes search engines unnecessary.
Social media means having a constant audience. While SEO is important for when people are searching for a particular website, a presence on social media means people could just happen to come across something when they may not even be looking for it. As social media becomes such a dominating force it becomes a necessity for individuals, companies and businesses. While SEO should not be completely forgotten at the moment, priorities are definitely shifting.
Perhaps the two would work best hand in hand.
Taylor Fleischner – Social Media Content Assistant – @tayfleischh
Edited September 2020
