SMM and SEO – Human vs. Machine
While the two forms of search engine marketing, SEO and SMM, are based on similar objectives, they are different in important ways. SMM deal more with the human side of online marketing, whereas SEO is concerned primarily with strategy surrounding the search engines.
SEO considers how search algorithms work and what people search for. SEO involves adjusting a site’s coding, presentation, and structure, as well as fixing problems that could, for instance, prevent search engine indexing programs from fully spidering a site. It also focuses on content creation and promotion, like article marketing campaigns.
SMM deals with the human side of marketing and promotes website and brand building through engaging people, networking through social media sites and generally building on relationships with people to gain links, authority, traffic and ROI. It also focuses on the use of UGC, or user-generated content, as a main method of promotion.
Social Media Marketing also entails many viral marketing techniques, such as creating content (e.g. posts, podcast, videocasts, video blogs), but focuses on creating truly engaging content that people want to find and that will be useful to them.
