This discussion has been popping up all over the industry, and has recently become a buzz topic at work. I wanted to generate some external conversation into who "owns" the social media landscape in an agency setting. It's a bit like a discussion of two job candidates; who's better suited for the job, and who's space can this easily slot into.
The Case for SEO
User-generated content on blogs and social networking sites are a goldmine for keywords and the direction of any SEO campaign. Social media is scalable as well; small stuff on Twitter can snowball into a group on Facebook and a video on YouTube, with users doing the content generation for you. Companies can get keyword-rich sites with quality backlinks - an easy-ish way to increase traffic, conversions, etc etc by using free brand advocates. Score one for SEO.
The Case for PPC
Paid models for Twitter Applications such as ThinCloud are making it easy for people to get exclusive eyeball access to hundreds of thousands of users, using a bid system (sounds like PPC, eh?). Expect to see a bid auction system emerge for a myriad of social media feeds soon - there’s a reason for $15 million round c for a certain social media app. Comcast, Dell and Southwest Airlines are just a few of the big-name companies using Twitter now - and they haven’t even monetized it yet. Expand your horizons; sooner or later, pay-per-click auction systems are coming to a social network near you, so it pays to get in on the ground floor of PPC. I'm talking about new, funky technologies and applications mostly - Facebook, Bebo and MySpace have been monetized for display and PPC for years.
Obviously, the comedy third option is that nobody "owns" social media and it belongs between the realms of PPC and SEO. I have a feeling that one segment is going to have to stand up and take greater ownership of the landscape though - I'm just a bit biased. Then again, we have search marketers completely devoted to social media now - maybe it's a pillar of its own?
