Social Search & Impact for Marketeers...
Yahoo! have been shouting from the trees about their recently launched paid search engine. 'Social Search' seems to be their new buzz term; but what is it and what does it mean for marketeers?
Martin Child VP of Sales & Marketing from Yahoo! comments "search breakthroughs will come from rich new sources of metadata and user-generated content. The collective knowledge in a user’s community will become the driver for more relevant search results."
Reading between the lines, tracking existing users activity on a search term will play a more important role on the next listing shown to a user for that same search term. Therefore the next user will be learning from the previous users experience, and in turn increasing more relevant listings. This is actually a form of human editing, relying on existing search users to define whats good and whats not. Yahoo! Answers is quoted as a social search experience, complementing algorithmic search by delivering real-life answers in an engaging environment.
With all the above it appears search engines may possibly give a priority to communities and group based sites which is not just blogging but forums and other community based websites. Some marketeers are already tapping into communities through BUZZ marketing; which is the process of finding the figureheads for a given niche or industry and seeding them with information to filter out to their social circles through the internet. The movie industry is a great example of where buzz aids the early awareness; by giving exclusive clips and 'first' break news, the figureheads seed a positive message to their following. Of course with the ease of setting up blogs those buzz nets are now spread wider than ever before, paving the way for search to fill a much needed gap for advertising and revenues. The knock on effect could be that most advertisers have to switch back on their content search to deliver volume of traffic which they have come to expect. Of course its a known fact that content search is at the forefront of click fraud. As always the devil is in the detail, depending on the sophistication of implementation there could be a window of opportunity for SEO Spammers, who are perfectly capable of using click bots (to simulate clicks and drive specific sites up the search ranking). No doubt the Yahoo! search gurus will find a solution to this!
Yahoo! also put on their BRANDING hat on by commenting that search is more than just an acquisition tool; which they are right! Search should be integrated into the whole marketing mix.
Recent research from Yahoo in France indicates that consumers often remember the TV or Press ad but forget the exact web address – turning to internet search to find out more. It's a fact that 8 out of 10 users habitually use a search engine after having partially remembered site addresses.. With the fight to get to the top of organic listings - advertisers will be forced to turn to search as their filter channel. With some websites only released for the launch of a specific product or service, there is often little time to get it ranking for a number of premium search terms; leaving paid search to filter the traffic.
Martin Child VP of Sales & Marketing from Yahoo! comments "search breakthroughs will come from rich new sources of metadata and user-generated content. The collective knowledge in a user’s community will become the driver for more relevant search results."
Reading between the lines, tracking existing users activity on a search term will play a more important role on the next listing shown to a user for that same search term. Therefore the next user will be learning from the previous users experience, and in turn increasing more relevant listings. This is actually a form of human editing, relying on existing search users to define whats good and whats not. Yahoo! Answers is quoted as a social search experience, complementing algorithmic search by delivering real-life answers in an engaging environment.
With all the above it appears search engines may possibly give a priority to communities and group based sites which is not just blogging but forums and other community based websites. Some marketeers are already tapping into communities through BUZZ marketing; which is the process of finding the figureheads for a given niche or industry and seeding them with information to filter out to their social circles through the internet. The movie industry is a great example of where buzz aids the early awareness; by giving exclusive clips and 'first' break news, the figureheads seed a positive message to their following. Of course with the ease of setting up blogs those buzz nets are now spread wider than ever before, paving the way for search to fill a much needed gap for advertising and revenues. The knock on effect could be that most advertisers have to switch back on their content search to deliver volume of traffic which they have come to expect. Of course its a known fact that content search is at the forefront of click fraud. As always the devil is in the detail, depending on the sophistication of implementation there could be a window of opportunity for SEO Spammers, who are perfectly capable of using click bots (to simulate clicks and drive specific sites up the search ranking). No doubt the Yahoo! search gurus will find a solution to this!
Yahoo! also put on their BRANDING hat on by commenting that search is more than just an acquisition tool; which they are right! Search should be integrated into the whole marketing mix.
Recent research from Yahoo in France indicates that consumers often remember the TV or Press ad but forget the exact web address – turning to internet search to find out more. It's a fact that 8 out of 10 users habitually use a search engine after having partially remembered site addresses.. With the fight to get to the top of organic listings - advertisers will be forced to turn to search as their filter channel. With some websites only released for the launch of a specific product or service, there is often little time to get it ranking for a number of premium search terms; leaving paid search to filter the traffic.
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Links to this post:
Create a Link
<< Home