Facebook may have once cornered the user review market, but those days are now over. On March 30th, Google announced its rival product to the Facebook ‘Like’ button, the ‘+ 1′ button, which allows users to indicate their likes in the search engine results pages.
The search engine company noted that the new feature is meant as an extension of its general social media plan, which has seen the incorporation of social media and personalised results into users’ searches. The company is now taking that one step further, allowing users to recommend pages to people they know by clicking ‘+ 1′. This means users looking for a good restaurant locally in Liverpool can access friends’ recommendations.
In taking Facebook on, the search engine might well have found the right angle. Google’s attempts to incorporate social into search have got off to a slow start. The ability to communicate, after a fashion, within the searches of people you know may be what is needed to make Google a social force.
In terms of search engine optimisation, the development is both good and bad news. The good news is that a business may be able to control these likings, at least for a short time. Google will no doubt work out any loopholes that allow site owners to take advantage. The bad news is that this system puts even more emphasis on the individual user, meaning a site owner needs to concentrate on very specific user groups when planning for website optimisation, something that makes SEO jobs just a little more complicated.
SMO requires social media researchSocial media optimisation, or SMO, is something that many companies are doing with their websites as part of SEO without even knowing it. With the incredible rise in popularity of social media in the last few years, a site needs to be active to get any reaction. As your site’s users become more enmeshed with their online social communities, the best way to approach them is through their community spirit.
The methods of SMO, just like search engine optimisation, vary from site to site. You might want to simply feature a couple of affiliation buttons on your homepage. You might want to get your site into social bookmarking circles. You might install some of the numerous widgets that social media networks are now offering to participants. All of these moves are going to reap very little reward, however, if you haven’t managed to track down what your target users actually need.
Different social media sites appeal to different groups of Internet users. Digg, for instance, has a predominantly technical leaning. Twitter tends to attract users who are into mobile communication. Facebook, of course, has a broad range of users, but is so big that a little definition is needed to reach the right people.
It’s best to research your options before putting a social media plan into place. It’s not much use featuring a Digg bookmarking button on your pages if your site or your users have absolutely no technical knowledge.
If you’ve already got a few social media buttons on your pages, they probably came from the pursuit of your own interests. In most cases, these will match up quite neatly with the needs of your site users, but it is worth doing a little research. It’s just as important to have the right focus for your social media optimisation as it is for search engine optimisation.
