Sure, your tweets may show up in certain Google searches, but we know that social media links don't figure in SEO link-building (or we'd all rank for everything). Plus, unless someone is searching specifically for your Twitter profile or Facebook page, those social SERP results typically don't convert leads into customers. We also know that SEO efforts don't have the same effect on social algorithms as they do on search engines.
The main difference between SEO and social is that SEO often finds consumers when they're actively looking for something, whereas social posts are incidental, appearing while people are just performing normal social browsing tasks:
- If I'm actively looking for an Italian restaurant near me, I'll Google nearby places, click on their Google My Business profiles, read their reviews, and make a choice based on their menus.
- If I'm just casually browsing Facebook, I may see a post from a nearby restaurant, but since I'm not actively looking for it, I could well just pass it by and promptly forget about it—even if I'm actively following that restaurant's page.
There are inherent issues in treating social like SEO and SEO like social. So what's the point in SEO marketers working with social media and community managers and vice versa?
Though it seems they're on two ends of the marketing spectrum, there is quite a bit of overlap that can benefit both sides.
