Free Assessment: How does your sales & marketing measure up?

Get Started
Close

Free Assessment:

How does your sales & marketing measure up?
Take this free, 5-minute assessment and learn what you can start doing today to boost traffic, leads, and sales.
Get Started
Social Media Marketing

How You Can Use Social Search To Your Advantage

Desiree Baughman

By Desiree Baughman

Jan 12, 2013

How You Can Use Social Search To Your Advantage

Anyone who’s even been remotely involved in online marketing knows full well how search engine optimization (SEO) works.

SEO can essentially be defined by two things:

  • Relevancy (choosing and incorporating the “right” keywords for a piece of content)
  • Authority (the type and number of sites that are linking to your content)

But search engines have been getting smarter. Since the dawn of social media, search engines like Google have been looking for ways to incorporate any sort of social media context into their search results. And so the term “social search” was born.

What is Social Search?

The term “social search” is generally used to describe how a search engine factor’s in a user’s social graph (or social network activity) into search results and how those results are displayed after a search query is entered. So if you have certain content that you wrote or posted or shared to your Facebook or Twitter page, for example, Google could then somehow take that content you posted and use it to ensure that its search results display the most relevant content for you.

If you want to see social search in action, try out Google’s “Google Plus Your World”. This new function marries Google search results with a users Google Plus social media network. Any content that has been shared on social media, or that has received a +1 by anyone in your Google network, will be “prioritized” and rank higher in search results.

Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s CEO, has also shown clear interest in launching a social search engine, which is not surprising since Facebook reportedly handles almost 1 billion search queries every single day (WebProNews, 2012). As he said earlier this fall, “Search engines are really evolving towards giving you a set of answers… like, I have a specific question, answer this question for me. And when you think about it from that perspective, Facebook is pretty uniquely positioned to answer a lot of the questions that people have”.

Integrating Your SEO And Social Media Strategy

The moral of the story here is that we all have to stop looking at our SEO tactics and our social media strategies as two separate entities. As each day passes, these two are becoming more and more reliant on one another, and we’ve got the tips now to help you stay ahead of the game. Here’s where you should start:

1. Invest In A Fully Integrated Marketing Platform

The best thing that you can do for your inbound marketing strategy is to invest in a great inbound marketing platform which will link your social media up to your SEO. Being Certified HubSpot Partners, we encourage that our clients use HubSpot inbound marketing software as it’s proven to be reliable and profitable, but if you’re not sure if HubSpot’s right for you, check out our free eBook “The Essential Guide For Mastering HubSpot” which explains exactly how HubSpot can help your business, and if it’s right for you.

2. Look At Your Keywords And Content

Start this process off by looking at your content and your keywords, and seeing where there’s any overlap. For example, is there one blog entry that has both been shared a lot on social media and that has a high ranking in Google? If so, work on optimizing that content.

Your social media profiles also need to be keyword rich, as that too can increase your ranking. For example, if you go to Bing and enter in a certain keyword query, Bing will show you any friends who have written or shared content related to that keyword, as well as show you “People Who Know” search results. If your profile includes that keyword, then you may show up in the “People Who Know” section of search results.

3. Recruit Your Social Media Influences

Recommendations from our peers are far more valuable than any other form of marketing or advertising. Nielsen Research proves this with their recent study that has shown that 92% of global consumers will trust recommendations that come from their friends and family above any piece of advertising (Nielsen, 2012). This means that you need to:

- Locate your influencers: Look for who’s sharing your content on a regular basis and who engages with your brand
- Encourage and nurture your influencers: Thank your influencers for their help, such as providing them with special product launches – but make sure that you don’t frame this in such a way that you’re giving them gifts for promoting your company

4. Keep Your Finger On The Pulse

Social search is still continuing to develop and change, so don’t rule anything out. For example, in the opinion of many, Google+ was a complete bust, but don’t write it off just yet. Remember that this social media site is the product of the biggest search engine company in the world and that using it and optimizing it can work in your favour.

5. Continue To Produce Great Content 

Above all else, remember that the content that you produce is what is going to get you ahead in those search results. Our free eBook “How To Be The King Of Content Marketing” can provide you with a number of tips and strategies on how you can produce fantastic, optimized content that will get you more shares and get you a higher rank in Google than you ever thought possible.

Free Assessment:

How does your sales & marketing measure up?
Take this free, 5-minute assessment and learn what you can start doing today to boost traffic, leads, and sales.

Related Articles

Why Short-Form Video Is a Vital Tool for Reaching Your Audience

September 25, 2023
Lindsey Schmidt Lindsey Schmidt

Your B2B Content Strategy Is Going to Need More Social

June 21, 2023
Nick Bennett Nick Bennett

12 Ways You're Totally Blowing Your Business Social Media Strategy

June 18, 2023
Mary Brown Mary Brown

Should Your Demand Gen Strategy Change in a Slumping Economy?

April 12, 2023
Nick Bennett Nick Bennett

How To Build an Effective Instagram Video Marketing Strategy

April 30, 2022
Ramona Sukhraj Ramona Sukhraj

How Facebook's news feed algorithm works and prioritizes content

July 14, 2021
Liz Murphy Liz Murphy

Data: Facebook is No. 1 in revenue value for publishers, Twitter is a bust

July 7, 2021
Liz Murphy Liz Murphy

Best times to post on social media in 2021 (new data)

May 19, 2021
Liz Murphy Liz Murphy

Twitter fails to buy Clubhouse, whose creators can now make money... so what?

April 8, 2021
Liz Murphy Liz Murphy

Marketers, Facebook Analytics will be no more on June 30, 2021

April 2, 2021
Liz Murphy Liz Murphy

7 Best Social Media Management Tools (+ Video)

March 26, 2021
Connor DeLaney Connor DeLaney

Twitter teases Super Follows, Communities; undo send tweet still a rumor

March 11, 2021
Liz Murphy Liz Murphy

LinkedIn adds new 'Products' highlight tab on company pages

February 25, 2021
Melissa Smith Melissa Smith

54 jaw-dropping social media statistics for businesses [New for 2021]

February 23, 2021
Connor DeLaney Connor DeLaney

Facebook video best practices: what you need to know to grow your video presence

February 16, 2021
Lindsey Schmidt Lindsey Schmidt

27 best digital marketing news sites

January 26, 2021
Liz Murphy Liz Murphy

Should you care about Clubhouse, the new audio-based social media app?

January 19, 2021
Nick Bennett Nick Bennett

How to maximize lead generation via Facebook posts and ads

January 18, 2021
Myriah Anderson Myriah Anderson

Working with IMPACT on paid media: What to expect

January 13, 2021
John Becker John Becker

Instagram advertisers can create branded content ads on creators’ accounts

January 6, 2021
Justine Timoteo Thomas Justine Timoteo Thomas

The top 10 social media trends for brand survival in 2021 [Infographic]

January 2, 2021
Joe Rinaldi Joe Rinaldi

6 holiday campaign examples that are total showstoppers

December 25, 2020
Dia Vavruska Dia Vavruska

Pinterest continues diversity and inclusion efforts with new features and leadership

December 16, 2020
Shandia Drummond-Butt Shandia Drummond-Butt

TikTok still available in the US despite not reaching a sell-off deal

December 11, 2020
Karisa Hamdi Karisa Hamdi

New Pinterest weighted ads have better CX customization

December 8, 2020
Allison Melnik Allison Melnik