Yes! That is a double bacon hamburger fatty melt with two bacon-stuffed grilled cheese sandwiches as a bun. Mmmm...

If you think of web marketing as a recipe, and search and social media as two of many different ingredients performing different roles, you can understand why this one-line infuriated the SEO community so last month.

“The time and effort invested on Social Media is better spent than time spent on SEO.”

 -Gary Arndt - Guest Post on ProBlogger, 8th November 2010 

That’s like saying you’re better off adding salt rather than sugar to your cake. Yuck!

The second reason I think this is such fundamentally bad advice is because of the small business owners who are going to be reading it and thinking “crap, I’ve gotta start me a blog... and do facebook... and youtube” or whatever combination of the above. It's not as if they haven't got enough on their plates.

My argument is it’s simply not worth their while, at least not yet. Why? A recipe doesn’t just show a list of ingredients in correct proportions. It shows the methods and order of which the ingredients are mixed together. It shows the execution.

Why Search and Social Are Two Different Ingredients

Picture a conference. The small business owner is at the back, and on the advice of a trusted friend he starts talking about his business, his product and how it’s going to help change the world. No one notices him because:

• He doesn’t have their attention
• Nobody cares

The guy is busying himself ‘being social’ for no benefit. His recipe and execution is totally off balance. A losing strategy...

Meanwhile, the rest of the room is hanging on every word of the speaker at the front. He’s earnt their attention and respect, so much so that they’ve paid for their seat and flow across the world to come and see him. The reason behind this is they have a permission-asset (for which social media and email are core ingredients).

Search is the best way to build this, because searching is a proactive, decision-based action. Microsoft call Bing a ‘Decision Engine’ for a very good reason. The path of a visitor doesn’t stop after one search. Google’s Superbowl ad shows us...

The objective for a website is to build a flow of traffic and be sticky enough for a person’s ‘search’ to continue on there website (rather than returning to the SERP, like in the Superbowl Ad). Social media is the interaction, the informed discussion and debate where people toss around ideas so they can make their final decision.

How to Build the Useful Form of Social Media

Start by building your tribe. Here's why...

The reason why such conversation exists (like we have here on SEOmoz) is because at some point the tribe been educated on this, such that we can go and talk, debate and even write about it. I wrote last month about how you should use remarkable, awesome, white-paper-worthy content to educate people so they can start conversations (and win at social media) and so you can win ‘the search’ (because you provide “the answer”).

There is an order to your web marketing recipe. The journey of your prospects is a linear one. Write it down and create your roadmap from discovering you to buying your products to become an evangelist. Then you'll see how search and social are relevant to your business.

Take Away Points for the Small Businessman

• Think of web marketing as a recipe; ingredients + execution
• Create a roadmap. Today.
• Invest your time in Definitive Content to create "ah ha!" moments and build bonds
• Build a tribe, don't count scores
• Broadly - SEO is for educating prospects, Social Media is for connecting with them.
• Think about the conference speaker. What did they do to earn their place on stage?

More recipe-related analogies from Rand. Nomnomnomnom...