Social Media Updates | 2013

Nothing in the world of SEO or Social Media Marketing ever stays still for long… a challenge that keeps all of us digital marketers running like Olympic sprinters trying to keep up with the latest winners and losers!  For those of you who are still running laps of the course or haven’t made it out of the starting blocks yet, the following update will give you an overview of one of the latest budding relationships that has been a big talking point of late in the digital sphere:

Facebook & Bing Jump into Bed Together and Give Google the Cold Shoulder!

For some time it has been rumoured that social media giant Facebook has been gearing up to give Google, the giant of the search engine world a run for its money!  This much anticipated event has seen Facebook team up with a rival search engine, Bing to create its own new offspring, a new search facility which has been christened ‘Graph Search.’  So how did this all happen?

Miss Bing Thought it was Time to get Noticed!

Formerly shy Bing has been the subject of much gossip and speculation over the last year as a search experiment on the quality of her search results aimed to turn the phrase ‘Perception is Reality’ on its head.  Blind test experiments revealed that a large volume of internet users who participated in an experiment to compare search results, rated the quality of the results returned from Bing as being better than those of her much bolder love rival, Google.  This has started ripples in the search world that Google is perhaps not the Goddess we should all be worshipping after all.  In fact, she is perhaps just ‘mutton dressed as lamb!’

Miss Bing Got Her Man!

Bing has boldly announced that she is proud of her new strong and confident partner, Facebook and is ready to show him off to all her friends in the coming months, in fact Bing’s search results are set to contain five times more content from Facebook than previously – everything from links and comments to status updates.  For those social savvy marketers, this will come as no surprise as Bing has been flirting with Facebook for a while, gradually featuring Facebook more prominently in her search results.  From now on, we’ll be seeing a lot more of Facebook in Bing's news feed! 

Things Moved Fast and They Had a Baby

Their young ‘un, Graph Search is now on a mission to help us find everything we need through our Facebook friends and connections – everything from searches for friends who share our passion for a specific sport, films our friends recommend, restaurants they’ve been to in Belfast.... the possibilities are endless!  To quote Facebook, “With Graph Search, you can look up anything shared with you on Facebook, and others can find stuff you've shared with them, including content set to Public. That means different people see different results.”  Tailored content unique to the user is what marketing gurus have been talking about for years.

What Does The Future Hold for Facebook, Bing, Graph Search and Google?

As always, how successful Graph Search will be remains to be seen but already the pros and cons are being heavily debated.  Some people fear that it will expose them to greater risk of phishing attacks, and privacy concerns have arisen in light of the fact that status updates and activity may appear in the organic search results but as businesses, we are look for the benefits.  Graph Search could prove to be a useful research tool to aid our understanding of things our target audiences like, enabling us to use these insights to target our fans with content that will interest them.  Facebook and its new offspring may also encourage fans to spend even longer than they already do in their company, which further cements Facebook as one of the leading channels that businesses need to utilise to strengthen engagement with their target audiences. Google will have to stay on top of her game in the coming months.

Social & Search’s Marriage is Strong

We’ve been chatting for some time about the growing strength of the relationship between Social & Search.  Events over the last few weeks indicate that Facebook’s relationship status isn’t likely to change to ‘single’ anytime soon and Bing’s heart isn’t going to get broken before the upcoming romantic occasion that is Valentine’s Day.  But what may change for those of us who are friends of the leading lights of Social & Search is how the latest developments affect our own relationships with them.  For some of us Google may no longer be our 'BFF' and Bing may be in with a chance of becoming our ‘New Best Friend’ in the future…. at least for a time until something better comes along!

Keep a close eye on your status updates, images, friends' comments and links to more juicy gossip in the coming months to find out exactly what is going on….. and if you are too busy, don’t worry, we’ll do our best to make sure you don’t miss out on any hot gossip!