Despite the fact that, on a daily basis, there seems to be an exponential increase in the number of self-proclaimed experts in the field of social media marketing, for whatever reason, this doesn’t quite seem to be the case with search engine optimization. Not to say that there aren’t a good many people out there who believe that they’re the be-all and end-all when it comes to all things SEO, just not nearly as many as is the case with social media marketing. It’s an interesting conundrum, especially when you take into consideration the fact that social media marketing can be considerably more difficult that search engine optimization.
Anyone who’s ever done any work in either field knows that it’s pretty much essential to not just gain knowledge in the first place, but keep it up to date. You scour all the blogs for the latest news, updates, and ideas, and you try your best to retain as much of that information as you possibly can. And, if you’re lucky, you’ve kept up with all the right trends in search engine optimization and social media marketing so that you’re able to stay on, or ahead of the curve.
It’s at that point, however, where the two paths begin to diverge. Search engine optimization is, in large part, about trying to increase your online presence by way of search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo. All you’ve got to do to start putting your knowledge to work is build or purchase a few sites and start applying everything you’ve learned to help build your profile. Although search engine optimization is by no means quite that cut and dry, getting started with it is noticeably easier as everything you need to successfully use SEO is readily available. Like anything else, it requires hard work, testing, tweaking, and optimizing, but all the tools you need are available for you to build upon.
Social media marketing, on the other hand, presents an entirely different problem. While it’s easily to read about the ins and outs of social media marketing, actively learning about and engaging in it requires a heavy amount of both time and experience. Using social media marketing means much more than just landing a page, link, or article on the front page of Digg or Reddit. You need a strategy, the ability to implement it, and then skill to actually follow through with it. And, that’s after finding a client who’s willing to work with you on a problem that you can analyze. It involves a lot more than working with a few domain names to create a presence online.
With social media marketing, you need to be able to constantly and consistently apply your skills to a wide variety of campaigns, companies, and products. And, unlike with search engine optimization, you don’t have the luxury of the ability to begin immediately with a number of tools at your disposal. Social media marketing requires a degree of time that needs to be invested beforehand in gaining the experience and practice you need to fully understand what it involves.
Written by Kenny K.