The Questions You Should Be Asking When Looking at Your SEO and Social Media Strategy To build -- and keep -- an audience, digital marketing is a must. But investing too heavily in a single platform can cost you money, customers and plenty of opportunity.

Q: When looking at our marketing spend, what's more important for digital growth: SEO or social media?
-- Chris G., Minnesota

Before consulting, I made my living as an editor in media. Each job I held taught me the same lesson: Digital growth is not about manipulating tools like search engine optimization (SEO) and social media. It's about using them to reach customers. Then it's your job to create a sustainable relationship off of those platforms.