Here is my recent answer on Quora.com about a topic that many people may be wondering about.
Here is my take on SEO vs SMO.
They both can work depending on the project you are working on and what you need to get done.
- In the search engines you don’t need to butter people up or try to make friends with them first, because the intent when someone searches in Google/Bing/Yahoo, etc is to find something, buy something, etc.
- When it comes to social the intent is to network, research, get a recommendation on a product or service and THEN MAYBE BUY.
- Social media is just like meeting someone at a cocktail party or a networking event, you aren’t going to go after them right away and start asking them to buy your widget, etc. You will exchange business cards, stay in touch and then later on down the line you may do business.
There should be a distinction that with SEO if someone is looking for a site where they can buy shoes well once they find the site and they find the shoes they want, BOOM it converts. In social usually they aren’t in the mindset to buy shoes right away but of course it depends if that social site carries ads, etc.
Take Twitter for example, no one is in the mindset to buy, yes they will read your articles, download your free material, sign up on your mailing list but you have to understand at one point the buyer is at on a given website. Understand the audience and their mindset and you can win with both SEO and SMO combined.
