With more and more emphasis being placed on the importance of digital media marketing, businesses across the board are investing more time and money in boosting their online presence and their SEO profile in particular.
Because of the amount of specialised knowledge that goes into social media, PR & marketing, and content production, it becomes tempting to contract each of these disciplines out to separate firms and have them focus all of their energies on maximising the potential of that particular niche.
While such an approach can seem logical, it can create issues by overlooking the holistic environment that is your digital identity. All too often, such segregation leads to poor communication between teams, which hampers their cooperation and can even add costs. By having each facet exist in a separate silo, you damage the potential of your marketing team as a whole.
The crux of the problem
What this means on a practical level is that teams – regardless of their quality or competence – are often not kept in the loop by other groups. For example, Google’s ever-changing algorithm means that PR efforts that have already been put in place can be upset by updates to Google, even as the social media team may benefit from a clearer roadmap. Search engines are now giving poor quality links low priority, and often now penalise companies that pursue them; this has led to SEO companies pursuing strategies to counteract these negative effects, but they need to make sure all their content and outreach teams are on the same page.
Similarly, working in tandem can reap benefits for all parties. The same content can be reused multiple times – for example, a survey conducted by the PR team could become the basis for a blog by the content marketing team and simultaneously be promoted on social media—but only if all of the various departments are working together. Furthermore, SEO teams can often help PR professionals reach the goals that matter most to them, receiving exposure and quality links from the websites and brands which matter in return.
How to find the solution
It’s imperative to build a good working relationship between all of the marketing limbs of the organisation. If everyone is pulling in the same direction, greater results can be achieved. Similarly, smooth integration of the various departments allows a company to embark on bigger projects, yielding better traffic and resulting in more engagement and conversions.
For example, a video marketing stunt set up to promote your business can be very effective when appropriate content is created by the content marketing team, sent to relevant news agencies and outlets by the PR team and promoted by the social media team on all platforms. Such a project is simply too hard to embark upon unless everyone is on the same page.
Allow your business to reach maximise potential with its marketing efforts – abolish the silos which they inhabit and the silence which exists between them.