As mentioned in my previous post(s), it seems that Search Plus Your World has caused quite an uproar. When Twitter accuses Google of manipulating search results and not having the best interest of users at heart, you should take notice. In this article I will attempt to wrap up my thoughts on this issue.

Will Google Plus survive?

I have not touched this issue before in depth, but it has been lingering in my mind for quite a while now. Last month Larry Page announced that Google Plus reached 90 million users. Facebook has about 800 million users. To the casual observer this might seem that Google Plus is gaining significant ground on the social giant (it has managed to get more than 10% of the amount of users in less than a year!).

For the following reasons, I do not think that this is the case…

There are a few problems and gripes I have with Google Plus. As much as I love Google and what they do, I’ll quote a post I read from one of my ‘friends’ on Google Plus (just before he abandoned using the Social Network) : “I do not want all my eggs in one Google basket”. This however, might be a personal thought process and not the consensus of the majority. What bugs me personally though, is that although I have a significant number of people in my circles – my news feed is basically empty. When I scroll down for a couple of seconds, I already start seeing posts from weeks ago. I am sure many people will echo my conclusion : there is nothing going on on Google Plus. You might be asking yourself – ‘Why do they then have 90 million users?”. The answer is simple. Because every person with a gmail account got signed up to Google+ automatically when it officially launched. I have a Google Plus account, I am part of the 90 million, do I ever use it? The answer is no. Technically, there is nothing wrong with Google Plus – but when no one uses it because there are no others using it, it creates a vicious cycle. I predict that Google Plus will die slowly (although I hope not). Facebook is just too big and established.

The only saving grace will be if Google Plus fills a different segment of the market – perhaps a social network focused on businesses…

SEO in 2012 and beyond

One cannot predict what changes Google will make to their algorithm in the future, perhaps links will play a smaller role, perhaps social search will dominate or (as discussed above) Google Plus will fade away.

I cannot foresee search evolving into something inherently social unless Facebook, Twitter etc decides to play along and open up all public content for Google to index. This will in turn depend on Google to position results in an unbiased manner. If and when this happens on large scale, SEO will be a totally different ballgame. As I have mentioned in the past, SEO ultimately boils down to ensuring that a website is optimised for the user. This aspect will never go away. Websites will always need relevant quality content, the site will always have to be user friendly and designed in such a way to deliver a great user experience.

At this point in time however, an SEO specialist cannot ignore the social aspect of search, it should benefit your SEO client noticeably if you include social in your SEO efforts.

Well this isn’t as clear-cut as you might think as social media has been confused as being certain social platforms used to generate social media. For instance when you mention social media most people immediately think Twitter or Facebook. While both of these are social media platforms social media is not just about the platforms users use to generate social media.

Social media is seen as media that is social in nature. Thus generated by people and not only by corporations, as was the case in early stages of the Web’s existence. This description form Wikipedia sums up Social Media quite well for me – “Social media is content created by people using highly accessible and scalable publishing technologies.”.

This means that any platform that allows users to publish information online is social. Even Wikipedia’s 3,202,005 articles, which have mostly been generated by the public, is a form of social media.

So now that you have an idea of what social media entails would you consider the following example as a form of social media? A UK based online bank has taken customer ratings made online and started posting it in it’s offline advertising on underground trains. Is this still social media or has it become traditional media?

Customer ratings are a form of social media that most companies don’t even recognize as being social. For a lot of companies this might be a customer service agent on it’s own as it encourages people to buy products by using comments gauge if a product will suite them. In the same manner this may discourage customers from buying a product that doesn’t meet there needs. Because customers don’t buy product that will fulfill their needs it indirectly lowers after sales customers support.

So now that you have an idea of what social media is we will show why you should be implementing it in your business and who it will benefit your business. Our next post will be on why you should be implementing social media in you company.