This is a particularly important question to social media marketers because customers are increasingly turning to social media channels for customer support as much as for interaction. On a daily basis we witness our clients’ customers reaching out to Facebook, Twitter and blog comment areas to offer new product ideas, propose business partnerships, and yes, air grievances when traditional customer support channels aren’t responsive enough.

Heads should explode when customers post things in Facebook like “I see you here every day but you still haven’t fixed my software,” yet these posts go unattended for hours, days and weeks. I think this happens for two primary reasons:

-There’s nobody home. Companies buy into creating a presence on social channels, but still don’t fully understand how much of the communities they build shape their public image.

-There’s somebody home, but they don’t feel that dealing with customers within their job description. Marketers don’t view customer service as core to their job, and they don’t bother contacting someone in the company who is.

What we need to realize is that customers view social channels as fully integrated entities – a direct line to the company’s major decision makers. To some, this may be just a cute delusion. But it shouldn’t be. It should be a wake-up call that companies need to spend less time in traditional channels and look at social as more than just another place to issue press releases.

Instead, the list is topped by the “All-In-One SEO Pack” and followed by “Google XML Site Map.” The rest of the list is dominated by search marketing, analytics and visibility plugins such as “Random Page Widget-For Visitors & SEO,” “Easy AdSense” and “Add to Any: Share/Bookmark/Email Button.”

In an age where custom WordPress design themes have become a cottage industry, and Web development shops churn out $5000 blog designs like they’re going out of style, it may be a little surprising that bloggers aren’t instead gobbling up free visual bells and whistles such as NextGEN Gallery.

This is just the latest sign that the most daunting challenge facing any Web property today is simply getting found. It wasn’t so long ago that anyone who committed to a niche content focus, and blogged three or four times a week, could rack up significant organic search traffic over time. Those days are over. Just last month, DemandResults was asked to look at a blog that had been updated religiously and continuously for the past year and – with a specific content focus – and was pulling less than 50 visits per month. Surprisingly, the blog was also more or less fully indexed by the major search engines, and it had plenty of carefully categorized content.

Great content is essential, but that alone just doesn’t cut it anymore. Bloggers can still get traffic without having to pony up for pay-per-click campaigns, but even employing XML site maps and basic SEO tools such as the (not) “All-In-One SEO Pack” won’t be good enough in the near future. In order to compete, bloggers also need to have a clearly defined SEO strategy and an advanced understanding of a broad array of search marketing concepts.