Adding Social Media

SEO has become challenging. SEO professionals whose clients have lost rank or can not attain rank, have branched out from SEO and added social media management to their offering as a way to help improve client ranking. One would think that an SEO professional has the perfect skill set to build and maintain a successful social media campaign however, it can be just the opposite.

Some months ago, a high quality hair care product company hired a well seasoned SEO professional to manage their natural search presence. Although this company has excellent name recognition and an SEO professional, they were not well represented in natural search. In an attempt to improve ranking, the SEO manager suggested the company add a social media component to their online presence and he should manage it.   Over the next several months the company saw growth in their social media presence but it then plateaued and yielded little result. It was at this time DCG was asked to provide some insight.

SEO

SEO is a tool best used by sites to engage people who are actively searching a product or product category.  However, the nature of search has changed drastically away from keyword searches to the search engines trying to determine intent… to “think” more like a human. And many sites whose SEO was maintained by serving the search engine rather than the end-user have lost ranking. In the case of the hair care company, they had poor natural ranking. I have seen well intentioned SEO’s attempt to salvage an account by adding social media as a means to improve poor search performance.

Preaching to the Choir vs Initiating New Congregants

Engaging people who are actively searching is very different than exposing a brand to people who are not actively searching. SEO professionals are engrained to reach people who are searching for a product or service. This does not qualify them to know how to expose a product, service or brand to people who are not actively searching. It is fundamental difference that defines SEO professionals from social media professionals.

In the example of the hair care company, the Social Media campaign was implemented by an SEO professional with the wrong skills, for the wrong purpose: as a basis to improve poor natural search results (SEO) rather than for the true reach and power of the viral nature of Social Media.

Choosing a Social Media Manager

While there are SEO professionals who are skilled Social Media managers,  SEO pros are not automatically qualified to manage a social media campaign.  Evaluate the previous social campaigns of the person you seek to manage your social media. Did that manager engage their audience to take action? or did they simply post for the sake of posting. …And if your manager focuses on how much social will improve natural ranking, this should be cause for concern that they may not be the right candidate to run your social campaign.