Recent statistics have shown that social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter are getting more visitors than traditional search engines. If there was ever a time to invest in your social media campaign, this is it! The influence of social networks in web search has become more prominent than ever before.
In October 2009 Google began to include a Twitter feed in its search results. In October Bing declared their love of Facebook by collaborating in order to personalise search results. What this means is that your individual search experience could be based on the Likes of your Facebook friends. These days social networks have a huge sphere of influence in a person’s life. People make decisions to buy products based on the opinions of their peers. This is why user reviews have worked so well on sites like Amazon. com.
The Difference between a referral from a Search Engine versus a Social Network
Visitors that come via search engines at times have a vague idea of what they are looking for. For example, a user is looking for a camera and visits your site as it is the most appealing in the search results. In contrast, social networks make people aware of information and websites they may have not known of before. Referral traffic from social networks is usually people who have never come across your site before, but were referred by someone they trust on their social network.
Social search is revolutionising web search . Already people depend on their social circle for opinions on what to buy, where to go etc. The rise of social search will lead to more qualified traffic coming to your site. These are people who have been referred by their social circles and are therefore more likely to buy into your product or service.
What does this mean for companies with an online presence?
You need to make sure your company has a presence on the main social networks such as Facebook and Twitter. Make sure you are investing time and resources into keeping theses social network profiles up to date and engaging with your customers.
R.O.I Media provides a wide range of social media marketing services. These include Facebook, Twitter and YouTube packages.
Contact us today and find out how we can help you with your social media marketing, increase your online presence and boost your SEO.
Great article! I also agree that referrals from social media networks are becoming very powerful and will soon be a strong source of traffic for websites. In this day and age every company needs to make sure they have a strong social media presence!