Visibility

In the online world, the relationship between search engines and social media continues to strengthen day by day. It is a relationship that businesses should give due consideration.
But what is this relationship based on? Well, it is based on the fact that the content generated by users of blogs, forums, Flickr, YouTube, Twitter and so on is almost all eventually indexed by search engines. And in many cases, it will be proposed by these engines among the results of a search on related issues. The business implications of this relationship are therefore quite notable.

On more than one occasion I have written how the future of a product and the success of a brand or company are increasingly linked to the information (comments, reviews, advice, assessments, images, videos…) that interested users can access, when in the full throes of the decision-making and purchasing process, by using a search engine. If you want to book a hotel, for example, as well as going to Expedia to find the best prices, you may also go to Tripadvisor to read the hotel reviews and use Google to find other useful information to help make up your mind.

And the fact that people are more likely to use the Internet to describe negative rather than positive experiences - an unwritten yet universally observed rule across the world - has left many companies facing serious problems over the last couple of years.

One famous case in Italy is that of the "892 892" telephone service used to provide information on people, restaurants, shops, and so on. The excessive costs that consumers faced for using this pay service, which came into being in 2005, saw it massacred online in a blog authored by Beppe Grillo (one of the most influential Italian blogs in the world, consistently in the Technorati Top 100) and, more particularly, by all of its furious users, who used the Internet as an outlet to publicly vent their frustrations with the operator in question. An outlet that Google has made increasingly accessible. These attacks proved fatal to the business of this particular operator.

More recently there was a case involving the marketing director of an important Italian insurance company that also operates online. A few days after joining the company, whilst carrying out a search on Google to see what appeared when entering the company brand; the director came across a link under the company site link to a forum in which an apparently dissatisfied customer spoke negatively and in very aggressive terms about the business. The title and description Google gave for the link was enough to understand the tone of the content, and resulted in a significant drop in the conversion rate among those who, having already decided to purchase from the company, also searched for the brand on Google and, discovering this same link, began to think twice about their choice.

Returning more specifically to the relationship between social media and search marketing, it is a relationship that is finally coming to maturity and beginning to understand its own explosive potential.

A relationship that began a few years ago with the aim of link building and search engine visibility, but which has now expanded to comprise entire company communications spheres. Although it is important to be visible, we need to understand at what cost. Creating a blog with fictitious content for the sole purpose of positioning it on Google has always been a short-sighted strategy that can also have serious repercussions for company’s image. It is a different story, however, when a company truly embraces web culture and considers, in all its communications actions, the implications of securing visibility in search engines. Of course using social channels to develop company awareness via links can still be a very effective strategy if well planned and executed. I recently saw a company make major progress in terms of its Google visibility through relevant keywords to its business, and this in a highly competitive sector, thanks to a well-produced press release on the appointment of a top manager; a press release that was subsequently published – with related links, which enabled it to make to this major step forward – not only by the biggest online publications, but also in blogs and industry forums.

But there is yet more potential.

Nowadays, the “virtuous circle” that we seek to embark on through the integration of social media marketing and search engine optimization (often also with the support of sponsored links) is that of ensuring that web users have a valid reason to talk about the brand and product we want to promote (we hope always in a positive manner, but in society where we have freedom of expression there will always be negative opinions) in such a way that other users read and pass on this content so it gains visibility in search engines. Here this content will be found and replicated by other users, whose own content will be indexed and visible to other interested users…

A theoretically unending virtuous circle with both short-term and long-term potential benefits given that many people will decide whether or not to purchase a specific product on the basis of this information generated by other web users.

An example of the speed with which social media can contribute to raising awareness of a new product on the web was highlighted by Alfa Romeo at the end of February. The Italian car manufacturer had planned to present the new Mito GTA at the Geneva Motor Show. However, all it took was for a Dutch blog to publish a number of preview photos of the new car and for a couple of videos shot in Valencia featuring the vehicle to appear on YouTube, and word spread like wildfire across the Internet (with both positive and negative opinions being published). To give an idea of just how much the car was being discussed over the web, when the first speculation appeared, the term “Mito GTA” totalled just 11,000 pages indexed by Google. One week later, this figure had risen to 1.6 million. On YouTube, meanwhile, for a few days the GTA videos were the most watched films of all in Italy.

Contributing to this success were forums and blogs, but above all Twitter. The rapid speed with which word of this new car spread was above all a result of this micro blogging tool and similar functions on other platforms, such as Facebook status.

A more recent example was the negative buzz that rapidly spread across social networks and search engines regarding home delivery pizza company Domino’s, which was caught in the eye of a storm for a video filmed by two of its (now former) employees and posted on YouTube. How did Domino’s react to a situation that cast doubt on the quality of the food they serve in their various outlets? First, with silence (“so as not to give further publicity to the story”), then with an apologetic video featuring the CEO on Youtube and the opening of a Twitter in order to listen and reply. A little bit late in the day, according to many: businesses should monitor social media sites and be aware of their potential. This is certainly true, but it is easy to say with the benefit of hindsight. It is pointless trying to deny it: you generally only become aware of a problem once the damage has already been done. So, rather than having taken preventative measures, you are forced to try and repair the damage instead.

My aim was therefore to use a few examples to introduce the scenario that the search + social media combination have left today's companies to face. To understand the possible developments of the near future, I am going to limit myself to highlighting an IDC forecast, according to which 70% of web content will be generated by the public by 2013, and to predicating the increasing use of search engines in the future thanks to the way they can be used - using smartphones, for example – whatever the time, place or instrument being used.

I would like to conclude by making an appeal to businesses: don’t think of social media marketing only as a tool for obtaining links and/or visibility in search engines. Use them as the excellent communications tools that they are: not just for talking but also for listening. And don’t use short-term KPI, such as sales and contacts, as performance indicators because they are not the most indicative. Indeed, as Augustine Fou wrote in an article on ClickZ (http://www.clickz.com/3633341), “the ROI for Social Media is zero”.
If you want to know how social media is employed by US marketing professionals download this research http://marketingwhitepapers.s3.amazonaws.com/smss09/SocialMediaMarketingIndustryReport.pdf.