Covario's study, 2011 The Year of Facebook, reveals social platforms will play a big role in brands' organic and paid search efforts next year.

Brafton has reported that SEO is evolving in the face of mobile, video and social channels, and a new report suggests marketers will prioritize social media when planning search optimization strategies in 2011. Covario's study, 2011 The Year of Facebook, reported by senior vice president and chief marketing officer Craig MacDonald, reveals social platforms will play a big role in brands' organic and paid search efforts next year.

In a survey of marketers, Covario found that the No.1 priority for SEO next year is integration with social media. More than one-third of respondents (36 percent) say leveraging social media for organic link-building will be their main SEO focus in 2011.

Social integration was deemed more important than overall link-building programs, a priority for 30 percent of marketers. Meanwhile, video SEO and mobile SEO were listed as a top concern for just 3 percent and 1 percent of marketers, respectively.

Social media was also the leading concern for paid search advertisers. Nearly half of marketers (46 percent) said social advertising on Facebook and LinkedIn is their paid search priority for 2011, far outranking local search ad strategies (18 percent) and paid search ads planned for Google Instant (14 percent).

Just 6 percent said they will prioritize creating paid search campaigns that consider the Bing/ Yahoo integration. This could be a mistake – a Chitikia study, covered by Brafton, shows marketers who ignore the Microsoft and Yahoo alliance are paying the price of lost traffic.

Nonetheless, prioritizing Facebook as a search ad platform might pay off for brands. As Brafton recently reported, Facebook accounts for one in four page views in the United States. 

Katherine Griwert is Brafton's Marketing Director. She's practiced content marketing, SEO and social marketing for over five years, and her enthusiasm for new media has even deeper roots. Katherine holds a degree in American Studies from Boston College, and her writing is featured in a number of web publications.