I'm by no means discounting social media - I greatly respect and enjoy what social media has to offer the business world and to a large extent, we are still learning about what is possible. At Quirk, we've seen some great results through social media campaigns, but we've also seen what SEM brings to the table.
Have to be realistic
Both tactics and schools of thought have been around long enough for us to start scrutinising their respective business values; which is a wonderful thing. I believe that in order to do social media marketing justice, and develop our understanding of how best to use it, we have to be realistic about where its strengths lie and look beyond the hype.
The fact is, the two are regularly compared, often with an argument for the one discounting the other. What's important is to be discerning and to recognise that while social media has a lot to offer, search drives business. This is why Forrester Research reported that by 2014, SEM and pay per click (PPC) will represent “[US]$31.5bn of the total online ad spending pie…more than 10 times the size of the social media slice.”
SEM is the strategic relationship between search engine optimisation (SEO) and PPC. SEO, the practice of ensuring that your website ranks better on search engine results for particular, relevant, search phrases, is a tactic that is immensely measurable and drives motivated visitors directly to your website. The same can be said for PPC - contextual adverts that are placed in line with a directed keyword search are likely to offer a measurable and direct return on investment (ROI).
Social media marketing, though, relies on connections, understanding your audience, providing conversational value and sharing your knowledge with your peers. These are all IMMENSELY valuable and important things which are increasingly measurable. Making connections with people in your industry and your customers can drive readership, networking and legitimate trust.
Given the time investment required, however, what social media cannot do as easily as SEM is drive sales and targeted leads to your website.
The clever among you (all of you, I'm sure), will by this stage be thinking - why are we comparing the two? Their goals are largely different; as are their uses. SMM should arguably be a part of any brand building or communications strategy - where it can drive trust, conversations and relationships. SEO fits more closely into a sales and marketing strategy, however - where it's primary focus is converting site visitors to clients.
For an overall strategy, both should be used as and when relevant to a particular brand's needs.
The point, as always, is to look at your brand and its needs from a holistic point of view - what will meet which goals best. You also need to understand all of the possible tactics. Realistically we are all reporting on the bottom line - and ROI in hard numbers (at present and for the foreseeable future) is more directly tied to SEM than to social media.
