I don't think so. I think it's just easier for people to do SMM than SEO. A lot of people have personal Facebook, Twitter, etc. accounts anyway and figure they may as well do one for their business. In doing that, people are doing SMM and not even knowing it. There are probably a lot of business owners with websites who have never heard of
SEO. Plus social media only takes a few minutes a day and it's free.
However, the reason I don't think it's going to take over is that with SMM people have to already know in advance who you are, what you're about and where you can be found before they decide to friend/follow you. To do that, you have to either do some traditional methods of advertising (newspapers, billboards, etc.) or make sure people can find you online (i.e. SEO). There might be a few people who do, but I doubt very many people follow random companies they've never heard of through social media.
Not to say SMM isn't important. SMM is just a complement to
SEO and other forms of advertising. There's a possibly you'll gain nothing from SMM but you have nothing to lose with it unless you make bad posts or have horrible customer service. SMM will never take over
SEO but it's just one more advertising tool you can use along with everything else.
By any chance do you think SMM is taking over
SEO and will be the next big thing to do effective Online Marketing?