Tag: Google

Search in 2012: 4 Trends to Watch

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Along with the rest of the web, search continues to grow and evolve this year. Here are our top search trends to watch and be a part of in 2012.

Search Gets Personal
With the 2011 advent of Google+, it is no small wonder that Google search has gone social too. When logged into your Google account, your searches and browsing are tailored to you and your network.

Search becomes social

You now have the option to view posts from friends first, and additionally, the remainder of your search results will be tailored to you, your preferences, and your network as well.

As a result of social media’s rapid gains in search, we can expect to see links that are shared most via social networks to gain higher organic rankings on search engines.

Page Rank? Not so much.
As a result of search becoming so personalized, page rank as we knew it in the past will fall to the wayside. With so many factors being used to determine page rank—social media, location, and search history—results will differ for each individual, making page rank an obsolete measurement.

Mobile Search: More personal than ever.
With exponentially more cell phone users upgrading to smart devices, mobile search is changing rapidly to keep up. Highly localized apps and sites such as Foursquare, Yelp, Groupon, Scoutmob, and other geo-based services have changed the way we search from our phones. According to websitemagazine.com, Foursquare is the check-in app leader. Foursquare’s plans to enhance their offers and explore features, means that Foursquare and similar apps will be used even more for search in 2012. Google reported in 2011 that 79% of mobile users search on their phones while shopping and that 95% of mobile searches relate to location.

Mobile advertising will also increase in 2012 as advertisers increasingly realize that mobile search provides valuable leads. eMarketer.com reports that mobile ad spending is projected to exceed $2.6B this year. $1.45B was spent on mobile advertising in 2011.

Paid Search
In 2012, more and more ads will be delivered via video as opposed to text ads. There is speculation that Google will begin offering incentives to advertisers (based on budget size and ad quality) to maintain their stronghold of the PPC arena.

With social media becoming increasingly ubiquitous, advertisers will keep up with the trends by asking for “likes,” “+1’s,” and “follows” in their 2012 advertising.

Search = Influence
Google hit the 1 billion monthly unique visitors mark in June 2011, so it is no secret that search has become quite powerful. Search has become so influential in fact, that correspondents project that Google searches may be a better indicator of election results than preliminary polls.

So, what was the most-searched term on Google in 2011? Facebook.

We’ll be back soon to report on 2012 mobile trends. In the meantime, please share your thoughts with us on search. What are your favorite tools for finding the information you need?

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8 Social Media Trends for 2012

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Social media continued to gain popularity in 2011 and will grow even more in 2012. If you haven’t caught the social media bug yet, 2012 may be your year! Below are some of the trends we expect to see in the next 12 months.

Happy connecting!

1. Google+ is the new kid on the block

The latest big idea from Google and major social network on the scene, Google will continue expanding Google+ in 2012 and plans to integrate the social network with many of their other properties such as SEO, Reader, AdWords, and YouTube.

Though most social media users still spend the majority of their time on Facebook currently, it’s a good idea to create personal profiles and business pages on Google+ now so that you’ll be one step ahead while interest in Google+ continues to grow. Furthermore good implementation of your Google+ page can produce search engine ranking benefits.

2. Facebook on it’s own timeline

While Google+ is giving Facebook a run for its money, Facebook is projected to reach 1 billion users in 2012 (via dreamgrow.com). We’ve seen major changes with Facebook since Google+ entered the scene, not least of which is Timeline. This new profile format encourages users to “live their lives via Facebook” and use the social network as a virtual scrapbook. Although introduced a year ago, timeline is yet to be implemented on all personal profiles. You still have a choice. However, to remain competitive in 2012, Facebook will be releasing Timeline for brand pages and introducing mobile ads. Additionally, Facebook’s 2011 purchase of Gowalla is expected to result in some 2012 enhancements to Timeline. (This links up with the Geolocation trend as described below.) Mobile meets local meets social meets viral.

3. Twitter keeps on tweeting

While 2011 was the year of the URL shortener, 2012 will be the year of advertising. We are used to seeing sponsored tweets, but expect to see increasingly prominent ads on Twitter this year.

Additionally in 2012, Twitter will continue to be an important part of the world news landscape. In 2011 we saw microblogging play a major role in sharing news about Arab Spring and Occupy Wall Street, and the 2012 presidential election will make Twitter usage even more mainstream.

4. Aggregators keep getting better: Buffer and Crowdbooster

While technology becomes more advanced across social media, Twitter aggregators are making excellent gains as well. Buffer, an aggregator that schedules your tweets based on when your followers are most likely to see them, is now offering ifttt (if this then that). The ifttt service allows you to specify an action (such as favoriting a tweet) that will then trigger another action (such as retweeting said favorited tweet). There are many combinations that can be used with this technology so it is definitely worth a try! Buffer also allows users to email tweets via your phone or iPad.

Crowdbooster, another scheduling tool, provides a chart with data regarding your most successful tweets. With impressions on one axis and retweets on another, you have the ability to view total reach of your tweets. Pretty cool!

Crowdbooster Chart

5. Pinterest – Yes, pin your interests!

Interest in Pinterest grew immensely in 2011. By allowing you to “pin your interests” with images you find online, Pinterest is blazing the trail for an even more image-centric social media landscape. Additionally, Pinterest is leading the way in the transition from long form curation (such as tweets) to push-button curation. Much more popular with women than men, because of it’s wide usage for planning weddings and looking at fashion, Pinterest is a niche network competing in some ways with the likes of Stumble Upon.

As Pinterest continues to gain steam in 2012, more and more brands will sign on as well. Expect to see more “Pin It” buttons next to the “Like” buttons you see across the web.

6. YouTube – the number 2 search engine

Using video to get the point across (whether you are an individual or a business) will become even more prevalent in 2012. With 4 billion daily views on YouTube, why not put yourself out there? YouTube videos are very sharable on practically every platform and 57% of internet users surveyed by Yahoo say they watch videos daily. People will be online to watch videos even more in 2012, so now is the time to get in the game.

7. Geolocation – “I am here, are you near?”

Social will be even more local in 2012 with services such as Foursquare expanding their offerings and geo-deals such as Scoutmob becoming more and more popular. Users can already add their location to tweets and Facebook posts, so expect to see more and more connection between location and social media in 2012.

8. Infographics

While certainly on the scene in 2010, infographics became even more ubiquitous in 2011. Practically anything can be expressed via infographics these days and soon visual.ly will be providing a service that lets you easily build your own infographics. There are already several such tools available.

Infographics will be used more and more to display data. It’s easier to learn from a colorful picture than three paragraphs of statistics, right?

We’ll be back soon with 2012 trends in search, so stay tuned!

In the meantime what are your thoughts about social media trends for 2012? Please add your comments. Thanks!

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Good Google Beta Social Search

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Amidst all the iPad (or as some say “iBad”) hype, Google announced that it’s social search is now out of labs and in it’s infamous beta testing phase. Beta for Google means it’s available to you to use while they test it, but for most of us, that means it’s ready. Yes, they will continue tweaking it before it is out of Beta, but they have been known to have products in Beta for several years. Gmail being no exception.

A moving picture is worth more than a thousand words, so take a look at Google’s introduction to keeping the web as social as it is below. Otherwise, see Google’s blogpost – how social!

Is Google trying to get you out of Facebook and back onto their site? Please leave a comment.

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Facebook or Twitter?

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For the past two days I have been talking about why I am not convinced that Facebook is better for business than twitter.  This is the third in five posts I am writing in response to 5 Reasons why Facebook is better than Twitter for your business.

3.  Viral Promotion

Quoting from William Smith’s article:

In a sense, social media marketing is about giving your fans a platform to talk about you in a positive way – something Facebook makes seemless. If a fan of your Facebook business page decides to comment on something you’ve posted, their friends will see that action in their news feed. If your fans mark a photo as something that they “like” then their friends will see that, likewise, if they sign up to attend an event by sending in their RSVP, it shows up for all of their friends to see. In this way, Facebook can make any content viral.

Similarly if someone talks about you in a positive way on Twitter, and you’re listening to the conversation, you can thank them for their comment.  This will then show up in your timeline which will be available for all your followers to see.  Also, if a person is commenting about you on Twitter, it’s available to the whole world and often indexed by Google.  Have you ever tried Google Alerts? On Facebook, the comment is limited to the network of friends of the fan who posted the comment.  Twitter can have a similar viral effect as Facebook, because the core of both services is the sharing.  Retweeting is prolific on Twitter and if you engage with the people who are interested in your product or service they can become advocates of your brand.

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What is a Browser?

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This is a fun inquiry into whether people really know what a browser is from Google. It’s incredible how ubiquitous the browser has become. People have the same kind of incomprehension about how the Internet really works as they do about electricity and phone service. “It works, I use it, I like it, but don’t ask me what it is.”

I also find it interesting that people love to be on video, and how few people know about Google’s Chrome.  Is this Google’s way of spreading the word?

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