Convergence is very often a losing value proposition. History is littered with countless examples of failed attempts to bring two seemingly opposite items together. The car-boat, for example, lives large in secret agent movies and that’s about it. And your TV–VHS–microwave combo is probably best left for an auction online … in about a millennium.

Perhaps the only documented example of a successful convergence is the clock-radio, which would be super-relevant — if people still listened to radio.

This brings us to modern marketing, where attempts at convergence abound. Recently, there have been rumblings in the new marketing world from some agencies that have begun to combine “social media” and “search.” They hail it as a step forward. But if you ask me, it’s a largely surprising — and even perplexing — move that signifies much of what is wrong with the industry today.

Let me explain …

Social media — or, as I refer to it, conversational marketing — is not always visible to the untrained eye. Indeed, many word-of-mouth conversations happen offline (face-to-face); they are not measurable and are very difficult to qualify. In the digital arena, it’s all too easy to fall into the trap of “too much information.” We measure because we can, when in reality we might not be measuring the right things and/or in the right way.

There is no question that one tangible outcome of social media success is high organic search-engine rankings. Search engines reward relevance, and contemporary consumers place more emphasis than ever on trusted, credible conversations among their peers. That doesn’t mean, though, that we should oversimplify the cause and effect to be the shortest distance between two points.

Ultimately, the skill sets required for success in social media and search are more different than alike. Recognizing their similarities is crucial, but reorganizing based on them is conceivably shortsighted.
Either way, it is incumbent upon us to continue to look for new synergies, without necessarily trying to streamline the process to a fault.

Joseph Jaffe is president and chief interruptor of crayon, an advisory group.