I’ve long wondered what to tell people I do, and even more, how to explain it on the phone to prospects 
I sit somewhere between social media optimization and search engine optimization, knowing that the community participation and coverage I do helps create content that resonates with my target market. And generates links. Oh yeah and search engine traffic.
A recent post from Emergence Media goes a long way towards a new definition, and comes as something of a relief…
He asserts that the primary “new school,” or Website Positioning Strategy areas of concentration are:
- Community Positioning
- Content Building based on Community Positioning
- Social Media Assessment
- Search Engine Positioning
- Greater Marketing/MarComm/PR Integration
When I was at MSI we shifted towards using the term “presence” to better define what we were going for, rather than rankings. Rankings can mean traffic, but if you’re increasing traffic to a site that doesn’t convert or brand effectively then what’s the point?
What Emergence Media has put together here is a great starting point for a new definition of SEO, and it’s one of the first elaborate and systematic attempts I’ve seen thus far.
In short, he’s not content with calling what we do “link bait” any more 
What do you think? Should we work towards a new name for what we do since the practices have matured? Is SEO too confining?
Other Resources:
ClickInfluence assembled a bada$$ list of social media/new seo/pr bloggers. That’s where I found Emergence Media.
Yesterday I wrote on marketing in StumbleUpon, based on an interview I had with Garrett Camp.
Posted on March 2, 2007
