So (All the cool people start their sentences with “so” today.) search is a major force in marketing. No doubt. It’s driving Google’s revenue, helping software nerds buy big houses, making Ad Age and Adweek boring to read, and giving ad geezers apoplexy.
Search is very important and needs to be in every marketing plan.
That said, social media is an even newer marketing darling. (I can’t imagine any of the Wendy’s pitches not having 20 minutes of silly social media ideas, can you?) But here’s an interesting distinction between search and social: A search is not a tweet. Search is an inbound information gathering exercise, while a tweet is an outbound broadcasting exercise. And though one can certainly search Twitter, that search is taking place in a smaller pond filled with influencers.
Twitter is filled with Posters (original content creators) and Pasters (referrers of content). Every marketing plan needs to target Posters for maximum thrust. If you reach the Posters, you will reach the Pasters. If you reach the Pasters, you will reach the searchers.
This is how we do-oo ii-it.