Social Media, Ads, or SEO: Which One To Use and When

At SilverServers, we help clients get their websites and their advertised services in front of their potential clients. Three ways that we can get information in front of the right people are through social media services, SEO services, or Ads consultation and services. Sometimes it can be confusing to know when it is best to use each of these. Social media is constantly telling us social media is the best place for marketing. SEO providers preach about the uncontested power of SEO. Ads companies like Google constantly try to sell expensive Ad space to businesses. So when is each marketing tool the most useful? As we examine each, you’ll see that time is the primary factor in your choice.

In this article, we are not going to talk about how often you should use a particular tool – we’ve written about how often to post already. Here, we want to talk about when it’s best to use one of these methods instead of the others.

Social Media

Social media provides a fast-paced space for marketing your services to your company’s followers and their connections. Your posts won’t be visible for long, but they may become visible to a large number of people – even people who don’t know whether they might want your services.

The best types of information to post here are sales, news updates, or any type of information that needs to get in front of your target audience quickly. If you post today, the post will be placed in front of your audience today. It may not be visible for very long, so it may be worth considering posting more than once, but you can trust that it will be visible soon after posting. Social media’s results are fast, but their quality has its basis in the consistency of a long-term commitment to sharing content. Additionally, posting consistently builds brand recognition for your company.

If you need updates, news, sales, or other information visible as soon as possible, then social media is likely the best place to market that information.

SEO

Your website provides the most long-term and cost-effective value for marketing services to your target audience. New pages or posts may not show up in front of your audience right away, but their value will grow over time, and they will be available to be seen for as long as your website is available to be visited.

The best type of information to post to your website for the intention of SEO growth is information that’s always going to be relevant. This differs from social media and ads, where information does not need to be relevant for very long. You might post testimonials, Service information, FAQs, contact information, and more. If you post today, then it might be displayed in search engines in a few days or weeks. It may not rank well at first, but over time (sometimes months or years) it will become more valuable so that more and more of your audience can find it more easily when they need it. The longer the information is on your website, the better Google will understand it and its intended audience, so its value may grow, making it ever-more-visible to the right people.

If you need information to always be available for anyone who might be searching for it, then it’s best to post to your website in an SEO-friendly and SEO-focused way.

Ads

Ads provide a high-cost but high-visibility space for marketing your services to people who are searching for them. Whether in a search engine, social media, or other ad space, your Ad will be visible for as long as you pay for it, putting it in a highly visible place to be found by people who search your selected keywords or fit within a specific demographic.

The best types of information to post as an Ad are services and new or short-term sales you offer for which you don’t have time to wait for SEO efforts to become effective, and which need to stay visible for longer than the 2-3 days of value social media posts provide. You should post about your service or sale - ideally with a link to a website page about it. If you post today, the Ad will become visible exactly when you request it to become visible. It won’t be placed in front of a general audience based on “friend connections” though, it will only be visible for people who search specific keywords or fit within a specific demographic. If you pick the right keywords or demographic, then you may get a lot of value out of your Ad.

If you need new and/or short-term information to be seen for a set amount of time by a very specific audience, then Ads may be your best option.

What This Means

At the end of the day, the biggest difference between the ideal use of each marketing method is time. Do results need to be instant and short-lived, slow but long-term, or somewhere in between? Having this information can help you make a knowledgeable decision about which service(s) to use for your needs!

Social Media, SEO, and Ads Services

SilverServers offers to help with all three of these marketing channels. Contact us today for a consultation!

For more related content - including a 3-part series on the differences between Digital Marking and SEO - check out the Business Marketing section of our blog! You may also like our General SEO Tips as well.