While 33% of companies say that social media marketing (SMM) is “very much part of our search activity,” a much larger 58% of agencies report the same, according to a September 2012 report from Econsultancy. Some 60% of companies treat social media and search engine marketing (SEM) separately, compared to 35% of agencies. And, while the percentage of companies that treat SMM as integral to SEM is unchanged from 2010, the percentage of agencies that treats social as integral to search has risen 10% points in those 2 years.
The study concludes that agencies are more likely to have direct experience with the impact of social influence on search traffic, as well as with the impact of social signals on page relevance and ranking. Read the rest at MarketingCharts.
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