This is quite a hot topic this month; there seems to be a lot of discussions out there as to what all the different elements of online marketing are, whether they are the same thing, and how they fit together. So, we decided to add our own voice to the pack, to tell you exactly what these different areas are and how we can help you with them!
So to answer the most fundamental question – no, they are not all the same thing. Social Media Marketing is not Content Marketing, and Content Marketing is not SEO. They are all related and can be bunched together under the commonly used term “Online Marketing”, but they should really be used in collaboration with each other. So, let us take a closer look at what they are:
Content Marketing
A relatively new term in the marketing world, which has been defined as a term which encompasses the interesting or entertaining content your business produces in order to capture your target audience’s interest and increase the market’s awareness of your business. Content covers a wide variety of things, such as blog posts, videos and even infographics. Yes, even social media posts can be classed as content, but it is only one element of the content mix and not the whole thing.
Social Media Marketing
Social Media Marketing is utilising the various social networks available to tap into your audience’s conversations for marketing purposes. Social Networks began as a personal thing obviously, but the increase in popularity of companies using them for marketing purposes has led to them developing specific functions for business users, e.g. Facebook pages, etc. Using Facebook as a page rather than a person means that your message will be pushed into people’s social streams, and will, therefore, put your brand in front of other people who may never otherwise have stumbled across you.
SEO
SEO is the acronym for Search Engine Optimisation, which encompasses the process to optimise your website to help it to receive more traffic from search engine result pages. This includes such things as backlinks, keyword optimisation and content.
So, how are Content, Social Media Marketing & SEO connected? Well, social media networks have seen a massive rise in popularity over the past few years, and this has led to people having access to and consuming a considerable amount of content daily. This has then led to content marketing become a hugely popular area of the marketing mix, as the fact that people are consuming more content means that marketers have to produce more content! And the fact that they are creating more content means they need to up their social media marketing game, to get that content in front of people. A vicious circle, one might say! SEO used to be the primary way to get content in front of people, but Google’s continually changing algorithms has affected this, as it has made the whole process of SEO quite complicated and more content-focused.
Here is a brief example of how these three things work together, and how tightly related they are!
Let’s say your business has a website (most of them do!) and you decide to start a blog on this website to provide helpful content to your audience as part of your SEO strategy. The content on your blog needs to be quality content which is useful to your readers, but it also needs to be keyword optimised. It also needs to be read by people for them to share it and link to it – which will create quality backlinks. So, you decide to set up a Facebook Page and a Twitter profile for your business to set your content in front of people. And suddenly, you are involved in SEO, Content Marketing and Social Media Marketing when all you wanted to do was improve your leads!
If all this sounds a bit daunting, then don’t worry. Call your local digital marketing agency, Zool on 01625 238 770. We are based in the heart of Cheshire, and we specialise in SEO, PPC, Content Marketing and Social Media and are always happy to help!
The Definitive Guide to Online Marketing
Digital / Feb 18, 2015
This is quite a hot topic this month; there seems to be a lot of discussions out there as to what all the different elements of online marketing are, whether they are the same thing, and how they fit together. So, we decided to add our own voice to the pack, to tell you exactly what these different areas are and how we can help you with them!
So to answer the most fundamental question – no, they are not all the same thing. Social Media Marketing is not Content Marketing, and Content Marketing is not SEO. They are all related and can be bunched together under the commonly used term “Online Marketing”, but they should really be used in collaboration with each other. So, let us take a closer look at what they are:
Content Marketing
A relatively new term in the marketing world, which has been defined as a term which encompasses the interesting or entertaining content your business produces in order to capture your target audience’s interest and increase the market’s awareness of your business. Content covers a wide variety of things, such as blog posts, videos and even infographics. Yes, even social media posts can be classed as content, but it is only one element of the content mix and not the whole thing.
Social Media Marketing
Social Media Marketing is utilising the various social networks available to tap into your audience’s conversations for marketing purposes. Social Networks began as a personal thing obviously, but the increase in popularity of companies using them for marketing purposes has led to them developing specific functions for business users, e.g. Facebook pages, etc. Using Facebook as a page rather than a person means that your message will be pushed into people’s social streams, and will, therefore, put your brand in front of other people who may never otherwise have stumbled across you.
SEO
SEO is the acronym for Search Engine Optimisation, which encompasses the process to optimise your website to help it to receive more traffic from search engine result pages. This includes such things as backlinks, keyword optimisation and content.
So, how are Content, Social Media Marketing & SEO connected? Well, social media networks have seen a massive rise in popularity over the past few years, and this has led to people having access to and consuming a considerable amount of content daily. This has then led to content marketing become a hugely popular area of the marketing mix, as the fact that people are consuming more content means that marketers have to produce more content! And the fact that they are creating more content means they need to up their social media marketing game, to get that content in front of people. A vicious circle, one might say! SEO used to be the primary way to get content in front of people, but Google’s continually changing algorithms has affected this, as it has made the whole process of SEO quite complicated and more content-focused.
Here is a brief example of how these three things work together, and how tightly related they are!
Let’s say your business has a website (most of them do!) and you decide to start a blog on this website to provide helpful content to your audience as part of your SEO strategy. The content on your blog needs to be quality content which is useful to your readers, but it also needs to be keyword optimised. It also needs to be read by people for them to share it and link to it – which will create quality backlinks. So, you decide to set up a Facebook Page and a Twitter profile for your business to set your content in front of people. And suddenly, you are involved in SEO, Content Marketing and Social Media Marketing when all you wanted to do was improve your leads!
If all this sounds a bit daunting, then don’t worry. Call your local digital marketing agency, Zool on 01625 238 770. We are based in the heart of Cheshire, and we specialise in SEO, PPC, Content Marketing and Social Media and are always happy to help!
