[Cross posted from the LSS blog]
The Search vs. Social panel is another session poised to be a real winner [at Local Social Summit '11]. Well maybe only a winner for one. Our vision is a celebrity deathmatch style smack down from the perspectives of the local business, minus the injuries and blood.
Backing up a bit let us explain a little about the context for this one… By Search we mean search engines, we could just say Google, but we will give the other guys a chance and there is vertical search as well. By Social we could just say Facebook, but there is Twitter, LinkedIn, Foursquare, etc plus myriad new social services and enabled mobile apps.
The question we want to start off with is from the perspective of a small or medium sized business (SMB) or a local business – some SMBs are not local they might be mail order or services that can be done remotely. We see both of these segments as interesting to explore. Many local and small businesses are investing in social in a big way. Why?
- As a business which of these two channels should you invest your limited time and effort to develop?
- Which will benefit your business the most?
- Which works better search or social?
- Does social offer advantages compared to search?
We admit it will be easy to say “well you need to have a strategy for both search and social.” Or maybe depending on your business type, target market or location one is better than the other. We want to dig into the details and nuance of how search and social are very different. Different in execution and effort required. Different in what equals results (traffic vs. follows). We hope to hear about real examples, ROI and also other attribution models.
Search or social which would you choose if you could only focus on one?
Go here for passes to Local Social Summit 9-10 Nov, in London.
