- Why focus on social media marketing over SEO?
You're probably surprised to hear this,
after all, I'm mostly known for all things SEO.
So why do I focus on social media marketing now?
Because I've learned that it's one of the quickest
and most effective ways to drive major traffic to any site.
That doesn't mean to say that SEO doesn't work, it does,
and I still love it,
heck, my company relies upon it, our clients do,
and SEO has created me one of the largest companies
in the marketing space.
Heck, it's created me one of the fastest growing companies
in the United States according to Inc. Magazine as well.
But here's an interesting stat for you,
74% of social media users actually use social media
to make buying decisions.
Influencers and social marketplaces are huge these days
and they can quickly and effectively
promote your products and services.
And half of adult internet users
say that when a brand incorporates
their data into social ads
it helps them discover products or services
that directly align with what they're looking for.
In essence, companies are using those targeted ads
that a lot of people say they never click on and don't work
but in reality people are clicking on them.
If they wouldn't, Google and Facebook wouldn't be
as big of a companies as they actually are.
And if you're targeting younger audiences
they're all over TikTok and Instagram right now,
and even Snapchat.
Pranhakar Raghavan, a Senior Vice President at Google
said at a 2022 conference that,
in our studies, something like almost 40% of young people,
when they're looking for a place for lunch,
they don't just go to Google Maps or Search,
instead they go to TikTok or Instagram.
And if a major Google executive
is sweating the rise of social media,
that means you should be paying attention.
The amount of time that adults use social media
across every platform per day is higher than ever,
95 minutes,
that's more than an hour and a half,
that's a ton of time,
plenty of time for your ads to be seen
and ultimately converted on.
Instagram Story ads will bring in almost 16 billion
in sales worldwide in 2022, according to HootSuite.
Think about how quick and easy it is
to create an Instagram Story and how inexpensive it is.
A major reason why I love social over SEO,
and again it doesn't mean I don't like SEO
it just means that I love social media
and you should use all channels.
Social also allows me to quickly pivot.
Again, love SEO, but because it takes
a long time to see results,
with social media you can see results instantly
and you can pivot and figure out what's working
and adapt that to your SEO strategy as well.
See, social is a rapidly changing environment
but I can see what's working and what's not right away,
and I don't have to wait for a algorithm update
or I don't have to wait for someone to index my content.
But at this point, you're probably wondering,
Neil, social algorithms?
They keep compressing my reach.
And yeah, you talked about ads,
so why should I love social media?
Because I don't want to spend all that money on ads.
Well, think of it this way.
All platforms, whether they're social or search,
have algorithms,
it doesn't matter if it's TikTok or Google or Bing,
you can't control what they do
and over time they have all made it harder to get reach.
Google keeps showing more content
within their search results
so that way you don't have to click
through over to their website.
And if you're wondering what I mean
just Google what the weather is today within your city
and you'll see what I'm talking about,
it just shows you the weather
you don't have to click on weather.com or go to any site,
you just see it right then and there.
TikTok used to have much better reach a year ago
than it does today;
still a great platform, just like Google,
they take up a lot of the clicks these days
but it's still a great search engine
but you can't do that much about it.
So instead of complaining about Google,
YouTube or LinkedIn or TikTok or Instagram,
as a marketer you just have to use these channels
for what they are whether you like them or not.
And there's a lot of platforms out there for you to use,
so maximize them and get as much traffic
as you can from them.
And as I mentioned earlier,
it's easier to see quick gains from social media over SEO.
Now to be clear, I'm not saying that
you should use one channel and not the other
because that's far from the truth.
You need to actually take a omnichannel approach
and use all the channels that your customers are on.
But at least you know why I prefer social media over SEO
even though I use both of them, and you should too.
Want to help driving more engagement online?
I want you to connect with my ad agency, NP Digital,
where we are the agency of the year
in performance marketing.
If you have any questions, you can leave a comment below
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