Managing SEO and Social Media Together

How etailers manage their social media marketing channel has a growing impact on organic search results. Google and Bing have both incorporated social data into their algorithms to signal content freshness and quality. While the datasets each engine has access to differ, the fact remains that search marketing and social media cannot be managed in silos.

According to the presentation given by Andrea Fishman, vice president of global strategy at BGT Partners — a marketing and design firm — at Search Engine Strategies Chicago 2011, “57% of digital marketing impact is derived from SEO.” But search engine optimization also has a symbiotic relationship with social media, press relations, paid search, offline advertising, and other marketing channels. Though the focus of this article is on organic search and social, when all the marketing teams work together the combined efforts create an upward spiral of success across all channels.

A Search and Social Example

As usual with SEO, it all starts with content. An etailer needs a creative angle to develop interesting, valuable, sharable content that remains relevant to its core product set. For example, ADT Security produced an interesting infographic on safety and home automation systems for its blog. If this were merely a blog post, there’s no chance I’d read it. But an infographic? That’s a different matter. It lures the eyes in with its seemingly easy-to-digest information and interesting sequential information flow. Apparently ADT’s audience agreed; just look at these results as reported by BGT’s Fishman:

  • 17 percent increase in social connections;
  • 53 percent increase branded buzz;
  • 47 percent increase organic search to ADT.com;
  • 305 percent increase organic search to homesecuritysource.com, ADT’s unbranded blog;
  • 45 percent increase in organic leads.

Great Content Still Reigns Supreme

The etailer still needs to create, optimize and publish valuable content, managing it through the various relevant social and other marketing channels.

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Article source: http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/3223-Managing-SEO-and-Social-Media-Together