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I'm definitely in favor of Community Building being at the top of your list, but there's one portion of this post I don't agree with: "...community management is with reference to how your brand is communicating with your audience via social media..." In my opinion Community Management goes well beyond just connecting with your audience via social media. I'm perhaps being a bit nit-picky here but I'd hate to leave folks with the impression that managing your community only happens on social sites. It's also about your own site and blog, and many in-person events. In the community management world there are tons of posts on what it means and it usually boils down to that it's different in every organization.
Now, back to the question at hand... I don't believe it's *more* important than SEO, but if you work on them hand-in-hand, you'll find both aspects will soar.
Agree with Jen - think about all the industries which just aren't social on the web, yet have a *HUGE* influential community. A family friend challenged me to come up with a marketing plan for London Hedge Fund he was working on. Everyone talks to everyone (albeit discretely) about who's managing your money, but with tiny online footprints.
It's also dependent on context. Good luck making your viagra community thrive, but you could make a killing with awesome SEO ;) Still, I'd to see the Mint.com for viagra...
I like the idea of building a brand independent from Google.. And Tad really took a bold step by stopping Google to enter in his website. Community building is good but saying that it is more important than SEO in the world of today (may be in the future) is not true! Community building is important and people should invest in it but they should give the same importance to SEO and keep these two things in a line in order to see great results!
I am no friend of black/white binary oppositions saying that you have to favor one thing over another but in the case of SEO and community and as I have been cited in this article I have to admit that your online peers won't abandon you over night but Google might change the algo in a way you lose everything. Also Google won't help you create a community while a community will positively impact your SEO efforts. So you better nurture your community first before spending all your time and money on unreliable Google rankings and traffic.
I agree but dont you think investing more on community building and less on SEO is going to hurt the short term business goals? why not take both side by side.. so if Google ditches you (lets admit.. they can do this!), you have the community that you can reply on... #my2cents
Yeah, but in many cases SEO is anything but short term. Some campaigns take a year and you're still behind your competition that optimizes for a decade.
Community + SEO = win. Just look at the SEOmoz's community.