What Google is to the web, Graph Search is to your social network on Facebook. Graph Search, which will appear on the top of every Facebook page, enables people to find information through the filter of their friends in relation to four pillars—people, places, photos and interests. With Graph Search, people type in what they’re looking to find, not just by name but also by category or simple phrase.
Search marketing, both organic and paid, is extremely important to digital marketers that want to increase their presence online. A seemingly endless number of users are out there searching for your brand, products, services, etc., using search engines such as Google and Bing. Because of this, there is a major opportunity for your brand to use search marketing to expand your audience and market share. But the question arises: are you doing everything you can to be found by these search engines?
While her heart is in the right place (encouraging active, useful social engagement by brands), neither the algorithm updates nor Fielding’s interpretation of them reveals a direct correlation between social activity and SEO relevance. Though extremely important for an effective content marketing strategy, simply interacting with your fans on Facebook, sharing relevant tweets, and uploading useful videos won’t (in and of itself) boost your brand website’s SEO ranking.
Let’s take a look at what Panda, Penguin and social media really mean for brands.
Earlier this month Google made another important change, updating their search algorithm to include personalized search results specifically pulled from Google+ activity, naming the new results “Google Personalized Results.” Once again the news spread through social circles and landed on a few of blogs, but compared to the hoopla surrounding SOPA, Facebook Timeline, and emerging technologies like Pinterest, its effect was more of a ripple than a tidal wave and has many users and news outlets slamming the change.
However, love it or hate it, these changes may be the new "normal" for search, forever.
Desperation is never attractive, even when it comes to brands. Nevertheless, it’s apparent that brands have stooped so low as to actually buy Facebook likes (25,000 guaranteed for the low, low price of $1,757!). Who knew in a marketing medium based on transparency and honesty, brands would zip up their hoodies, dawn a fake beard, put on their sunglasses and travel to the seedy underworld of black hat social media to inflate their social metrics?
This post originally appeared in our March issue of “Live Report from the Future of Marketing,” our monthly Post-Advertising newsletter. Subscribe for free here.
Google has finally rewarded those steadfast providers of valuable, high-quality content over purveyors of drek. In the main objective of their recent search algorithm revamp codenamed Farmer, Google has yanked republishers, editorial mills, aggregators, and other wholesale sources of otherwise weak, unorganized content (such as Associated Content and Mahalo, to name two of the most egregious offenders) off their high-ranking perches and slashed their search results by adhering to a new system that attempts to account for actual editorial quality. Adhering to a standard of perceived quality means that news outlets, brands and other publishers of notably engaging stories are finally gaining the additional recognition they deserve. But what of the grey area—the in-between web listings that don’t deserve to be demoted? Will those harmless do-gooders potentially be misplaced, orphaned by Google’s iron hammer? One thing’s for sure: Great content wins—especially when a system exists to recognize it as such.
Paid search. Overwhelmingly ruled by Google and its AdWords platform, it allows deep-pocketed brands to cozy up to search results in exchange for a steady payoff. Our very own Jim Boulton (Deputy UK Managing Director here at Story) shared his thoughts on the program's pitfalls versus natural search, stressing the need for content creation over web payola. Read all about it at Figaro Digital.
