Back in 2008 we discussed the how social media marketing is becoming the new SEO. We predicted a radical paradigm shift to social voting, where search engines pay more and more attention to what individual Internet users are doing and saying on their blogs and social network sites.
We argued that keywords, meta tags and all the other traditional SEO techniques would still have their part to play, but they would quickly take second stage to the New Social Media, which would become the dominant force in determining which websites get to stand in the limelight.
The balance of power was shifting. And boy did it shift!
Last October, Google deployed it’s experimental Google Social Search, which aims to give users search results that are more personal and relevant. Just this week, the Intenet giant has upped the ante with the announcement of Buzz, the new social network it is building into Gmail. But more on Buzz later.
The idea behind Google Social Search (see video below), is that you can search for information and get results based on what your friends and colleagues are saying on their blogs and social networks. This has massive implications for Internet marketing, because friends are by definition the people we trust most. Your clients will pay a thousand times more attention to what their friends are saying about you, than to anything you say yourself.
This is why you absolutely have to become part of this Social Media Revolution.
Your first step is to get a Gmail account, if you don’t have one, and link your blog and all your social networks to your Google profile. Google will build your social graph based on the friends in your social networks and their friends as well, and also from your Google Chat and Google Reader contacts. This social graph will be used to customise your search results as Matt Cutts explains in this video on how Google Social Search works.
And now there is Google Buzz, which lets you automatically connect and socialize with the people you communicate with through Gmail, sharing updates, photos and more, like you do on Facebook today. In fact, Buzz is Google’s direct challenge to Facebook and as Google adds more features it could very well emerge as yet another powerful social network that you will have to take advantage of and leverage in your social media marketing.
The playingfield has changed, and if there is anything you can be sure of is that it will continue to evolve. So make sure you and your business stay at the forefront of this change and avoid getting caught in its wake. Ask us about how you can jump start your Social Media Marketing today!
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Nice collection of docs on google’s social marketing push, and you were absolutely right on the money about traditional seo tactics such as meta tags being on the way out, all in all, good post.