The merging of search, social, and content marketing into a single digital marketing strategy has been happening for years. Intuitively, many of us have been guided by this fact to create the type of strategies that bring the disciplines together appropriately. As the evolution of the three reach a tipping point that is breaking down a good chunk of the practices of the past, it has become paramount to gain an understanding of how everything works together and why the flow of data between each has such a tremendous effect on digital marketing as a whole.

To do this properly, it's becoming necessary to break it all down into units. The easiest way to understand this is to compare digital marketing strategy to a living organism. Every action has an effect of some sort on all of the parts. With this comprehension, you'll be better equipped to make decisions about how to craft the overarching strategy as well as how to organize the individual actions.

A Quick Breakdown

If the model to make this work is like a living, breathing organism, then understanding what the different units are can help you grasp how it all plays together. We're going to be breaking them down individually then bringing them together as a whole. In preparation, here's a partial list of the individual units that we'll be covering.

• Inbound Links
• Business Content
• Useful Content
• Company Blog
• Site UI and Navigation
• Social Media Profiles
• Social Media Shares
• Customers and Visitors

Over the next few weeks we will be breaking down how each of these works individually to support the whole. In the meantime, start thinking along the lines of holistic processes rather than individual tasks. While the tasks themselves are important, how they affect the entire body of marketing processes is the key to finding success.