When it comes to driving traffic to your website and increasing sales, we can find a number of ways to so it. But, the two most prominent methods are SMM (Social Media Marketing) and SEM (Search Engine Marketing).
Businesses, brands, and individuals are always struggling to find the best platform for marketing their product or services. Often, people get confused between search and social. Most people don’t know where to invest their time and effort.
So let’s talk about SMM and SEM and discuss their differences so that you can find the best platform that can help generate leads.
What is Social Media Marketing?
Using different social media platforms to market your product or service, build brand image, connect with your audience, find potential customers, drive traffic, and increase sales is called SMM. Those platforms include Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc.
What is Search Engine Marketing?
SEM is a form of marketing which help in increasing the visibility of your website. You can market your business by using paid advertisements. Those ads appear on the search engine result pages, resulting in more visibility and traffic.
Your website can also show up in the Google search results by the organic method that is called SEO. The website traffic mainly depends on your ranking. By using the right keywords and strategies, no one can stop you from ranking higher.
Difference between Search Engine Marketing and Social Media Marketing
1. Type of Content
Social Media
People love to see relatable, humorous, and emotional content on social media. They are more likely to reshare a meme and like a fashion inspiration video. A short food recipe video and a post about mental health will also get many likes and views.
Search Engine
On the contrary, SEO/SEM targets an audience that likes to see educational and informative stuff. A how-to guide on using a gadget or recommendations about pet food will bring in more visitors.
2. Format of Content
Social Media
Social media is all about visuals. People would love to see an eye-catchy picture and an attention-grabbing video. That is why it is vital that you also work on your content strategy and post appealing photos and videos.
Search Engine
Long-form articles, paragraphs, and texts perform well on SEO/SEM. If you have over 1500 words written in a post, you are more likely to drive profitable traffic. Along with that, people are also doing well with screenshots, graphics, images, and even videos. Adding some colour to your written stuff will make it more interesting.
3. Audience
Social Media
On social media, people find your content while scrolling. The best way to grab their attention is to hit their pain point. Besides that, the audience on social networks doesn’t like to see much business-related stuff. They engage with content that they find interesting and relatable. So if you’re marketing your business, make sure to do it in a way that forces people to view your profile.
Social media also allow you to target audience easily. The built-in targeting options include location, demographics, and interests.
Search Engine
On the other side, people on search engines are looking for instant answers to their questions. The audience is actually looking for quick solutions to their problems and searching for informative stuff.
So if you write content based on what the audience is looking for, you will become more credible.
4. How long does it take to see the results?
Whether it is search engines or social media, you need to act smartly and use effective strategies to see the results.
Social Media
It is apparently easier to grow with various methods on social media. From boosting followers and likes to driving traffic and increasing sales, most people see the results faster. But like we said before, sometimes you will see instant results and other times you won’t.
Search Engine
Search engines are comparatively slow. It takes time and effort to see the results on SEO/SEM. Sometimes the most highly relevant pages might take time to rank. Some people even waited for years to see results in the search engine.
5. How much traffic can one get?
The amount of traffic you get from social media or search engine mainly depends on how well you work with it. Sometimes it also depends on luck. You can get the same amount of traffic from both SMM and SEM, and both give you the opportunity to go viral.
On both platforms, the demand for the topic or subject will bring in more traffic if you use the right strategies.
6. Success rate
Social Media
When you post something on social media, the response will be very quick. You will gain visibility and drive traffic in no time if you do it right. But social media requires continuous posting and effort. The traffic you get on a single post is only about 2-3 days or maximum one week.
Search Engine
On the contrary, once your page starts doing well on search engines, you will get continuous traffic with less effort. You might rank higher for months and even for a year, driving profitable traffic. The number of visitors may also increase with time.
Search Engine Marketing or Social Media Marketing
This post is for you all to understand the difference and go for the one that you think would work best for you. If you look at the bigger picture, SEO and SMM are both important for your businesses or brand. When you include both ways in your strategies, it will be more effective.
If you want to generate leads, drive profitable traffic, and witness tremendous growth, it is best to try out both methods. Tell us in the comments about what method will you apply to market your business and drive more traffic. We’d love to hear your opinion.
Author’s Bio:
“Zain Malik is a young, enthusiastic, and independent creative content writer. He has been writing for many national and international corporations. He enjoys writing on Digital Marketing and Social Media Specifically. Helping people to grow on Social Media is his passion.”