84% of search marketers say social signals such as likes tweets and Google +1s will be either more important (53%) or much more important (31%) to their SEO this year as compared to 2011 according to a BrightEdge survey released in January 2012. The remaining 16% say they will pay the same attention to these signals this year meaning that none of the search marketers surveyed believe these social signals will decrease in importance for them this year.
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| Source: MarketingCharts |
98% of the respondents said that social media matters to their organization’s marketing strategy. The integration of social media and SEO has been important to social media marketers too: last year 71% of marketers using social media said they planned to increase their use of SEO in the near future according to a report from SocialMedia Examiner.
72% of the BrightEdge survey respondents actually plan to increase their spending on search engine marketing technology this year compared to 2011 with a further 26% planning to maintain their current levels. The vast majority (90%) said they will focus on comparing and optimizing ROI from organic and paid search this year.