Social Media Signals on Search

November 8, 2011

iCrossing - Agency services

with clients including…

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A few stats

Popular Objectives for Social Media Marketing

• Increased brand awareness and enhanced reputation is the most important objective for social media marketing, with just over half of company and agency respondents (both 51%) deeming it to be the top goal.

• Improved customer service and satisfaction is a more significant objective for social media marketing than for SEO and PPC, with 34% of companies and 38% of agencies [Figure 20 and 21] saying that it’s among the top two goals for this type of marketing. There has been a significant increase in the proportion of companies saying that social media activity is primarily aimed at improving customer service and satisfaction, from 8% in 2010 to 13% this year.

Source: State of Search Marketing Report 2011

Still search and social are widely treated as separate disciplines

• While the proportion of companies who don’t carry out any social media marketing activity has declined from 18% in 2010 to 13% this year, 9% more respondents are treating social media and search engine marketing separately.

• Search and social CANNOT be run as separate programs. Integration is key to success!

Source: State of Search Marketing Report 2011

Add one more objective for social:

It helps your natural search presence

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Social’s Impact on Search and SEO

Shift in Linking Measurement: Social impact on SEO

• Links are the cornerstones of natural search algorithms

• But influence of links has shifted greatly from webmasters and technical influencers, to the average Internet user

• As a result, the social graph has taken a massive bite out of the link graph

• Examples of this include:• Tweeting (not a direct link)• Publishing via blog CMS such as

WordPress or Blogger• Rating, commenting, posting• Bookmarking• Etc.

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Meet the Share Graph A new kind of social link graph

• Search engine’s view of sharing activities across the social graph

• Takes into consideration

• Authority of the network sharer• Theme of the user, or related concepts of the network sharer• Depth of the network sharer’s network, and the authority of those in the network• Trustworthiness of the network sharer (in relation to the likelihood that they

produce spam or low-quality content• Velocity of keyword usage across a network, and the spreading of that keyword

or phrase over time though shared networks• Velocity of link being shared, over time, based on time frequency, volume, and

level that it cascades though various networks

• Kind of like a cross between the link graph and the social graph

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Link network size expanded through social

Before outreach After outreach

• NetworkSense Map: # nodes indicates instances of a keyword or URL; the larger the node the more inbound links it has• The larger the network, the more mentions, inbound links and traffic point to each node

Social relevancy:

It’s just common-sense SEO

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…thinking like a search engine in social networks….…sending social signalsto search engines…

Social Relevancy: How engines are looking at Twitter

Consider the parallel aspects of websites, and Twitter accounts

• Domain authority : username authority

• Duplicate content : retweets

• Blogging freshness : content freshness : microblogging freshness

• Links : number of followers

• Quality of links : Quality of followers

• Inbound links vs. outbound links : ratio of followers in contrast to the number of people followed

• Linking to bad : good neighborhoods

• Themes of Twitter users

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Social Relevancy: How engines are looking at people and companies as nodes

The value of approaching social with a search frame of mind

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Google+

Velocity

• Keyword search velocity: Google trends the rise and fall of keyword usage over time

• Sharing: Google+ is tracking the speed of traffic by time-stamping every click

• This helps determine “QDF” factors (“query deserves freshness”), and rank sites accordingly

- +1-ing other sites adds a level of

trust for others in your network

- Authoritative and aggregated plus-

ones and shares will provide

increased visibility for the sites

being shared

- Plus-one the pages you really

like and would use

- Add a +1 button to your content

to encourage other Google+

users to spread the word, and

send a signal

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+1

Google+

• “Plus one annotated URLs receive 20% higher CTR in the SERPs.”

- Google

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Google+ - The Bottom Line

• Yes, marketers should become active in Google+

• Google+ should be treated as a primary top-tier social network, in line with Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn

• Social presence and network signals in Google+ will have an impact on standard web search

• Engagement and outreach programs will be critical to search

• Content production and promotion will be critical to success in Google+ and Google web search

• Natural search tactics critical to social in terms of extending opportunities in networks

• Search and social practitioners must become fully literate in both search and social to be successful

• Google+ is about search+social, and this will be a core theme for marketers for some time to come

• Continue to watch the Google+ story develop – this is just the beginning, and it will continue to change

A Final note: Search signals on social…

Google’s competitive advantage may be its technology, and making the social experience more relevant

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Thank You.