What Does Google’s Social Search Mean For Your Business?

Today Google announced they were unveiling yet another global social search tool.  Google’s Social Search is a trust tool that works to display content from people that they deem a trusted source, humanizing the search process. Social Search links your current social networks to aggregate search results that have been shared by your social circle.

Social Search assists you in finding your connection’s websites and content shared on Twitter. Say for instance your connection “Greg” shares a link about credit card processing, this will likely show up in your Social Search with a picture of Greg and an explanation of where he shared this content.

What originally began as an experimental project designed to help users experience another element of search is now live. However, we all know that social has been an emphasis for Google; whether it be incorporating real time trending elements into search, or developing their own social platform, Google definitely wants to be social. So what does it mean for your business? How can your business leverage the social circle for growth?

How Rankings Come About

Understanding how Google uses Social Search to rank their content is important for marketers. Google issued a statement that they are using the same ranking algorithm to select the content. This means you should place emphasis on getting people to link to your page, the authority of the people linking to your page and the on site SEO friendliness of your page.

According to Search Engine Land, here is the breakdown of how the rankings come about:

1. Google sees I have a friend on Twitter
2. That friend links to their blog from their Twitter profile
3. Google understands that they are connected to that blog
4. The friend’s blog has a link to their Flickr account
5. Google may understand, then, that the person I know on Twitter is also related to their Flickr account, even if that account wasn’t listed on their Twitter profile

Above is an image displaying what social account Google takes in to consideration. (These are in conjunction with Gmail contact and Google reader.)

Undoubtedly it is now even more important to get your content shared by people within your community. This is another push by Google to improve the relevancy of good content in their search results. Social Search isn’t so much an algorithm improvement as much as it is a trust tool for users. From a user perspective, it is more likely they will click on links from results that are trusted within their community; making it vital to improve the “share-ability” of your content.

You can do this by:

• · Improving your contents headlines for Twitter
• · Developing engaging content with interactive media
• · Interacting consistently on Twitter, LinkedIn and other Social Channels
• · Establishing thought leadership- users look to you for new developments within the community

Whether Social Search booms or busts, Google will still have their hand in social. If you are looking to improve your Google visibility and have no social media presence it may be time to start.