Social Media Marketing a New Requirement of SEO?

There seems to be much confusion between the common folk between what SMM vs SEO is.  So begs the question, does one need to know/understand SMM in order to do well in SEO or vice versa?  The answer is NO!

The important point to note is that knowing the guidelines set by the search engines, the technologies available, and the internet searcher’s constantly changing behaviors constantly requires SEO people to update their understanding on a regular basis.

Unique Audience:

SMM strives to keep PEOPLE happy.  Social = people right?

SEO strives to keep ROBOTS happy.  Googlebot + other crawlers = robots!

Who is the audience? For SEO, the audience is the search engine crawlers, so we should learn the crawler inside out.  Indirectly, we reach the people, but the focus is different than SMM.

Unique Goals:

SMM goal is to communicate to community of humans.

SEO indirect goal is to communicate to community of humans, but main focus is search engines, with assumption that people will be reached through engines.

Therefore, end goal is the same, but initial goal is not.

Unique Tactics:

SMM wants to build community through multi-directional conversation, quick response times, and constant stream of content.

SEO wants to gain high search engine rankings through perceived web site relevance and superior code crawlability.  This requires in-depth technical knowledge of how the web works, and heavy analytical monitoring.

SMM + SEO: Where they intersect

SMM and SEO compliment each other.  Social media can be used as a tool to achieve a goal of search engine optimization while search engine optimization can get the word out to people.

Future Proofing your online strategy

As long as a company focuses on the following, they shouldnt have to worry too much about having to fundamentally change their online strategy (in lieu of changing market dynamics):

• Technical
• Content
• Marketing

Things to focus on re: Technical -

• Internal Linking
• Sitemaps
• Keyword placement
• Clean URLs
• Canonicalization

Things to focus on re: Content-

• Uniqueness
• Value to the user
• Shareability
• Viral Co-efficient

Things to focus on re: Marketing-

• Social Engagement
• Email marketing
• External Links
• Community

Source: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/whiteboard-friday-futureproofing-your-seo