Comments on: Why You Shouldn’t Trust Social Media To Search Marketers

By: Swing Trading

Swing Trading — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 08:21:05 +0000

Nice one. I have stumbled and twittered this for my friends. My friends will enjoy reading it also.

By: Newest on the Net’s Readers List

Newest on the Net’s Readers List — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 15:31:49 +0000

[...] Jason Falls from Social Media Explorer – A blog about social media and networking. Here is an great article titled Why You Shouldn’t Trust Social Media to Search Marketers. [...]

By: Weekly Links - November 30th << Vandelay Website Design

Weekly Links - November 30th << Vandelay Website Design — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 22:49:08 +0000

[...] Why You Shouldn’t Trust Social Media to Search Marketers from Social Media Explorer. [...]

By: Jason Falls

Jason Falls — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 11:39:20 +0000

Thanks Kenneth. I appreciate the endorsement.

By: Kenneth

Kenneth — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 10:37:02 +0000

Listen to this guy, he know what he’s talking about. Great job Jason

By: Jason Falls

Jason Falls — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 01:19:52 +0000

Steven – You are welcome and entitled to the credit. I enjoy your blog regularly.

Michael – Fascinating experiment and I will most definitely follow. Please feel free to share. Perhaps we can both blog about the project and share thoughts. I suspect your feelings will be validated — robust backgrounds will win out. I hope it proves thought provoking and revealing for us all!

By: Michael Lodispoto

Michael Lodispoto — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 01:16:57 +0000

I am not a pro in either field. I do hire SEO as well as Social Media people. The best as far as I can tell so far have backgrounds in both. Although as I see it now there is a new crowd of Social Media people coming up now without the search engine optimization or IT background. These people are making great strides and you can see their work on Stumbleupon, one of the best sites in social media, daily! You can also see their work on Digg and a few other sites.
I’m doing a little test over the next few weeks with a major project, pitting many social media people along with SEO people to see who gets the best results. It will be interesting to see the results right before Christmas. Can’t name names obviously but as of this date there are 0 links or references anywhere to the site I’m having worked on. Very easy to tell who and what works the best with the nice budget I am dealing with.
I suspect though that the top people will have a background in both SEO and SMO. If you want to see this debate further check out Sphinn and watch both styles go at each other and debate.

By: Steven Snell

Steven Snell — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 00:51:02 +0000

Jason,
Thanks for the mention! It is appreciated.

By: Jason Falls

Jason Falls — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 19:21:15 +0000

Deeter — Great point. And I think it’s important to note that social media supports good search marketing, but can serve brands, sites, etc., in other ways. Many of the brands I work with want to employ social media to simply ensure there is an active conversation about them occurring. Top of mind is an attainable business strategic goal for some brands. Search does drive sales better but some strategies aren’t all about website visits or transactions. Thanks for rounding out those thoughts for us.

By: Deeter

Deeter — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 18:04:39 +0000

Your article makes a great point — SMO requires a different approach than SEO.

However, I see the two types of expertise combining.

The most active (buying) visitors come from a search page. Passive browsers have “stumbled upon” our site (no pun intended)but they were NOT really looking to buy,subscribe, opt-in, etc.

The new SMO tactic is to use social media to develop such a web presence that your most valuable content, or a link to it from a social media site, pops up on the 1st page of a SERP.

Working together, an SEO and SMO campaign can ensure maximum visibility.

By: Jason Falls

Jason Falls — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 17:36:05 +0000

Webmaster T – Thanks for the response. Points made, points taken. You seem to have a lot of hostility toward PR and Ad folks. I’m sorry for that. You’re right to a certain degree that some haven’t “gotten” the web. But just as much as I’m right that some have and as trained content providers are better able than SEO/Search Marketers not trained as such.

Derek’s point is also well taken. The black and white between programmers/developers and content providers is blurred to gray these days. I do recognize there are perfectly qualified search pros who are great at social media. The difference is that PR and Ad guys aren’t trying to be search marketers. Other than our standing (in general) behind the curve, I’m just saying it shouldn’t work the other way.