STUDIES: SEARCH IS BETTER THAN SOCIAL FOR DRIVING TRAFFIC & CREATING LEADS, BOTH HAVE UNIQUE STRENGTHS & ARE COMPLIMENTARY

Which is better?  Social Media Marketing or Search Engine Marketing?   It depends on whether you are trying to drive traffic to your website, create fans and engagement, develop sales leads, or researching for information to make some kind of decision, like buying or comparing different products or things.      

The newest study by Webmarketing 123 finds that online marketers overall prefer search engine marketing as their number one source for sales leads.  In a recent Forrester Research study, search engines ranked the highest in awareness, consideration and purchase factors.   Social media ranked fifth behind technology/electronic stores, television, consumer electronics information sites, and OEM sites in that order.  Kissmetrics completed an in-depth look at social media marketing versus search engine marketing, and claims search and social media are superior in its own way, but that they are interconnected in a way that can’t and shouldn’t be separated.  

Each of the above studies are summarized below, and it appears that search engine marking gets top billing among online marketers, but social media is making some inroads due to the addition of new technologies and gain in its popularity.   You be the judge. 

Webmarketing 123 - 2011 State of Digital Marketing Report

In a recent survey of online marketers, search engine optimization (SEO) was found to be the number one source of leads for both B2C and B2B marketers, beating out both pay-per-click (PPC) and social media marketing (SMM).   But more of those surveyed say they plan to increase their social media marketing budgets in 2012, ahead of SEO and PPC.

The data for the survey was collected from the responses of 500 U.S. online marketers in August and September 2011, then compiled by Webmarketing 123, a California-based online marketing agency, into their 2011 State of Digital Marketing Report.  About two-thirds of all respondents identified themselves as business-to-consumer (B2C) marketers.

Whether business-to-business (B2B) or B2C, both groups of marketers agree that SEO has the biggest impact on lead generation.

• 57 percent of B2B marketers credit SEO as their primary source of generating leads. 
• 41 percent of B2C marketers said the same thing.

Both B2B and B2C marketers said that website traffic is the primary metric used to measure the success of their online marketing efforts. Brand awareness was at the bottom of the list for measuring success by both B2B and B2C respondents.

The survey asked several budget-related questions, including which marketing channels get the majority of the marketers’ budgets and B2B and B2C marketers responded as follows:

• B2B Only - 33% indicated that SEO gets the majority of their budget.
• B2C Only - 42% plus  said that PPC gets the majority of their budget — about double the number of B2C marketers who said SEO is their top budget allocation.
• Both - 53% of respondents plan to increase their budget for SEO. 
• Both - 40% will increase their PPC budget.
• Both - 60% of respondents plan to increase their budget for social media marketing in 2012. 

The planned increases in social media spending are revealed two more interesting statistics from the survey:

• 68% say they have generated leads from either Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn. 
• 55% say they have closed deals from social media leads.

The 2011 State of Digital Marketing Report can be downloaded from Webmarketing123′s website and is summarized in the following infographic: 

Click Image To Enlarge

Forrester Research - It's Time To Make Facebook Marketing Work

Forrester Research just completed a study titled, "It's Time To Make Facebook Marketing Work," which included a comparison of social media and other marketing channels and their importance or value in terms of helping buyers of consumer electronics products as they progressed through the purchase path become aware (awareness), considered a purchase (consideration) and actually making a purchase (purchasing).  The findings shown in the following chart conclusively show that search engines ranked the highest in awareness, consideration and purchase factors.   Social media ranked fifth behind technology/electronic stores, television, consumer electronics information sites, and OEM sites in that order. 

Forrester Research also found that social networks are becoming more important to each stage in the purchase path (awarness, consideration and purchase) between 2009 and 2011.  For the year 2011 this is how awareness, consideration and purchase factors ranked among consumer electronics buyers:  

• Awareness ranked #1 among 18% of cnsumer electronics buyers.  
• Consideration ranked #2 among 17% of consumer electronics buyers.
• Purchase ranked #3 among 15% of consumer electronics buyers. 

KissMetric Compares Social versus Search 

According to a KissMetric.com article titled, "Search Engine Marketing Versus Social Media Marketing: The Showdown,"  an in-depth look at social media marketing versus search engine marketing, search and social media are superior in its own way, but that they are interconnected in a way that can’t and shouldn’t be separated.  

How search beats social:

• More people look for business on search - Users automatically go to a search engine first when conducting searches out of force of habit. 
• Know what people are searching for - Search engines algorithms are now much more sophisticated and forgiving, matching searchs by keywords, even if you mispell a word, the search engines often result in a good match.
• Buy your way into the search results - Even if your website doesn't get a top ranking, adwords and PPC provide a cost-effective and go-around solution.

How social beats search:

• Peer recommendations happen with the click of a like - A report by Econsultancy, found that 75% of people in the 18 – 26 age group used recommendations on social sites in product research before making a purchase.
• Respond to criticism in real time - Brand marketers and business owners can respond quickly to something negative posted about them in their news stream almost in real-time heading off potential problems and restoring loss of credibility.
• Buy your way in front of your target audience - Social networks now allow brands to market directly ( Facebook Advertising, StumbleUpon Ads, Promoted Tweets,) to targeted audiences by geograpy, demographics and online behaviors.

How search engine marketing helps social:

• Keyword research for social media - Keyword usage is important in social media.  Facebook uses metatags while Twitter uses #hashtags and you can find people, businesses and things by user name by adding the @ symbol  such as @turk5555 (my Twitter username).  There are numerous third party apps that provide search capabilities including Wefollow, Topsy, and Dofollow. 
• On-site optimization for social media - While On-Site normally just means on your own website, you can take the same principles for title tags, meta descriptions, image alt tags, and so forth to better optimize your social media profiles for search. For example, you can optimize Google+ for search…

How social media marketing helps search:

• Better reputation management - Want to bump off a bad entry in the first page of search results for your brand, or pre-emptively create a strong brand presence in search so a negative results can’t barge its way in? Social media profiles are your answer. Social profiles that generally rank well for businesses include Facebook, Twitter, Google+, YouTube, FourSquare, and LinkedIn. If the only online properties created by you appear on the first page when someone searches for your brand name, then you are well on your way to creating a great first impression.
• Confirm a search result is trustworthy - While, as mentioned earlier, almost two thirds of consumers research products before buying them through search engines, I’d bet that the social media savvy ones will check out the top results (aka you and your competitors) on social media. I know that, when I come across a new company that I haven’t heard of, I will also go check out their Facebook page and Twitter account to see if they are active in their customer service. This means I want to see some recent status updates and replies to customers asking questions whenever possible.

Courtesy of an article dated November 2, 2011 appearing in Search Engine Land, an article dated November 30, 2011 appearing in Marketing Pilgrim and an article dated November 28, 2011 appearing in Kissmetrics Blog

 

Comments

[John Peter]

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[John Peter]

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[Rihana]

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[Search Engine Optimization Seattle]

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[Tommy]

PPC, well said.

[Tommy]

Thanks for the nice compliments about this blog article. I think this article ends the controversy over whose better; SEO or social.

[SEO Agency]

This is such nice info! I've just started learning about SEO and PPC and I'm loving it! I just think it's really interesting how it all works with the search engines and websites and keywords and links, etc etc. Before I started reading about it for real I had no idea that's how the search results were generated every time I googled something. Thanks for posting!

[PPC Management Companies]

I think what avenue you choose depends a lot on your main marketing goal. If sales is your top objective ppc and seo are probably the better choices. However, if you want more of a PR goal with branding and customer interaction objectives than social media is definitely the route to go. Obviously, a combination of all 3 will create the most well rounded marketing campaign, but emphasis can be placed on certain avenues depending on your ultimate goals. Thanks for providing the studies though, it provided some really great insights.

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While, as mentioned earlier, almost two thirds of consumers research products before buying them through search engines, I’d bet that the social media savvy ones will check out the top results (aka you and your competitors) on social media. I know that, when I come across a new company that I haven’t heard of, I will also go check out their Facebook page and Twitter account to see if they are active in their customer service. This means I want to see some recent status updates and replies to customers asking questions whenever possible.