Google Including Social Connections In SERP's
The lines between Search Engine Marketing (SEM) and Social Media are becoming more and more blurred with Google's latest tool, 'Social Search'. 'Social Search' pulls relevant content from within your own social network, relative to your Google profile. Thats right, the 'searcher' must have a Google profile (account), and be logged in for this to function, but with more people adding to the already large number of web users with a Google account (having an analytics account is the same), we begin to see where this all ties in and it's usefulness.
With elements like Google's Social Circle, and Google taking social media into account within the SERP's, the methods in which we attempt to garner high rankings for searches is changing, and being active within the social networks online, is becoming all the more important. In the future, first page results in Google may be different based on who you are, where you are and who you are connected with. At the moment this only shows within the 'Social Circle' results, towards the bottom of the first page.
As more people take to social media and show their support for brands by 'Like'ing and so on, that brand begins to build quite a network. Add to this the amount of friends of friends—of friends of friends and you quickly begin to see the benefit of developing a strong 'Social Circle', and as a result better your chances of showing up on the first page of the SERP's. At this point, it is worth noting that 68% of US Facebook users are more likely to buy a product based on a positive Facebook friend referral and that 33% of all Facebook users have become fans of a brand. This greatly increases the chances for new customers, and returning customer sales, throughout the social media networks (and this is only Facebook); however, what is really interesting is that 57% of US online buyers will still begin their search for a product, within the search engines. More evidence of the impact of combining the social media network with the search engines, with the addition of the 'social circle'.
It is still early days yet, but we are beginning to see relevant results within our 'Social Circle' searches, and with these results having arguably more weight to them—as we are connected to the person the result is from—it is bound to begin to have an impact on purchasing decisions. I do believe though, that when the 'Circle's' results are aggregated within the regular rankings is when we will truly see a large impact as a direct result of users networks. When this will happen is a good question, although I do believe it will happen at some point.
So go ahead and check it out. Log onto Google, perform a search, and check the results from your 'Social Circle', towards the bottom of the first page.
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