Q. Is SEO more important than social networking?

Somebody told me recently on a different forum that SEO of a company website was much more important for a company than social networking of the company producing the website? Apologies for the convoluted English, but is this true I wonder?

A. 

Well unfortunately it’s rather hard to make sweeping statements about a particular marketing strategy being the best for “all” companies looking to do some form of Internet Marketing. It really depends on what the goals of the company are, how involved they want to become in their marketing, and really boils down to how patient or impatient they are in seeing results in the form of revenue or actual sales. The interent has many ways to market yourself and although the strategies overlap and benefit each other their tactic, process and outlook are very different. EX. SEO carries many long term benefits for visibility if it is done right however results often are slow to come and can take up to a year or longer to see in the form of increased revenue…depending on how competitve the industry. Social Media is both a slow burn and a quick fix! If you are dedicated enough it is not hard to quickly stir activity in the form of traffic to your site,  however it requires the effort of company members, so sometimes it is not a popular choice because it becomes another element within their business/staff to manage. Consequently, the chance of a companies success in Social Media is very small without direction and coaching from a professional on using this tool effectively. So each marketing type has different features and benefits and it really depends on the company and their goals or amount of capital they are willing to invest.  I view SEO or SEM as something every website should have or a form of marketing that is the foundation of the others. Social Media, PPC, Video Marketing, etc enhance that foundation. Certainly one can be successfully done without the other but I usually only recommend that if the industry I am marketing in is extremely competitive in which case being successful thru SEO alone would take more effort and money than they were willing to spend.  I would still recommend some degree of SEO or “tuning” on their website however.  ALL COMMENTS CAN BE VIEWED HERE:  http://www.focus.com/questions/marketing/seo-more-important-social-networking/