Social networks and SEM

[jmiller]

This article is constructed around an SES session about utilizing social sites like digg and del.icio.us to your marketing advantage.

[dburdon]

Given the current hype surrounding web 2.0 and social networking it seems that search is now on an irresistable path to segmentation. Much of the pre-digital native (30+) market place is never going to buy into anything but a fraction of the web 2.0 services. Meanwhile the under 25s are going to develop and buy into ever more narrowly defined products.

Google seems so last year. And Yahoo feels like 2004.

[A. Smith]

Ok, so do you all think that Social Networking will replace blogs? Or are those two mediums going to live together, maybe for different age groups (as dburdon suggests)?

[jmiller]

i think that social networks require blogs to exist. Without them, those networks would have much less to talk about. Whether it switches over to photo or video-blogging as the medium of choice over written word blogs is a question that still remains. There's a huge future in video.

As far as demographics...we'll see a shift, as with all generations, in the use of these networks. Gen Xers and part of Gen Y will reach Baby Boomer age and stick with what they know...Millennials will have a much richer relationship with new media on the Internet...but I think the MySpace generation and the Mosaic internet generation will always share a certain level of staple media, just like certain television stations do well across all age groups...but the Internet is far more vast and will become amazingly segmented as well.

keep a close eye on Google and how the company will link TV and Web...they'll lead the charge there, with programs that run real time social networks alongside television programming.

[soniqhost.com]

I don't ever see blogs going away, its the new medium of communication.

[Oman]

At the core of this discussion are two questions; (1)why do we (you and me as students of SEO) believe that social networking is of value and (2) if I built a social networking site (digg/stumble etc) why did I do that? What was my intent?

One theory might be that social networks are a way for search engines to refine social data? So the builder of said site would be looking to sell that data to a Google or Yahoo. That answers both questions.

These social sites are phenomenally self propogating. So another reason to build one would be to sell advertising. But you don't see advertising too often on social networking sites. But then again, there's MySpace.

So OK, I admit, I'm over 30 y/o and do have a difficult time understanding the reason why we're all drifting towards social networking as a form of SEO.

But why are we doing it? And why was a site like del.icio.us built?

Jeff

[dburdon]

I guess that what we are witnessing is the transition from ordered evolution to explosive fragmentation of the potential search media and channels. The audience is both consumer and producer of the new media, defining the direction and role of each of its components. This audience led dynamic is vastly more forceful than in the development of previous media - TV and radio.

Almost by definition, search will also fragment. Maybe Google's recent moves (e.g. the deal with Myspace) are a futile attempt to retain hegemony in the industry.

[jmiller]

I'm not sure I agree its a futile attempt to regain hegemony...I think Google is putting their brand in everything anticipating the fragmentation you speak of, and plans to have the Google logo alongside every search function you can think of in the future:

social
blogging
academic
local
foreign markets
health
tv
radio
magazines
internet access
you name it

[Tom O'Leary]

The article is spot on. Regardless of the platform (blog, discussion board, wiki or social network), the Internet is all about creating conversations and engaging in dialog with others. There is no one platform or channel that is better or worse as a distribution vehicle for conversation content. Good marketers active in SEO will use all of them when possible and practical. Trackbacks on blogs are also an important ingredient in SEO 2.0.

The best piece of advice that can be extracted from the article, though, is the need to be a respected user of these platforms. Trying to be slick rather than truly engaging in the conversations and providing something of value (industry expertise, an innovative suggestion, an end-user perspective, etc.) will be easily detected today. And if you've never witnessed an Internet backlash, it's not something that you, or your brand, would want to experience.

Get engaged, but be real. It's a longtail SEO tactic, but it will pay off if you invest enough time and effort.

All the best

Tom

[dburdon]

JM,

Google's a good company. A stonking success story.

But let's not forget what it does well - search and selling Adwords. That's 99% of the activity and 99% of the profits. The capital markets belief in Google's future is a given.

Now, when it starts gets getting involved in projects further and further from its core then it is inevitable that it will find it increasingly difficult to sustain its earning trajectory. However, the current value of the company - P/E of 55 - (you'll note today's graph is downward) is predicated on above trend expectations from the current financial performance.

Let's just ask a simple question. Will the Myspace deal yield a better return on capital than the return previously experienced?

Google is essentially applying a Web 1.0 mentality to a Web 2.0 environment. Economies of scale, vertical and horizontal integration and buying up the competitive real estate are essentially strategies to a previous competitive environment.

[dharrison]

Originally Posted by dburdon

Given the current hype surrounding web 2.0 and social networking it seems that search is now on an irresistable path to segmentation. Much of the pre-digital native (30+) market place is never going to buy into anything but a fraction of the web 2.0 services. Meanwhile the under 25s are going to develop and buy into ever more narrowly defined products.

Google seems so last year. And Yahoo feels like 2004.

So David whos this year? Ask or MSN(?) :lol:

[Tom O'Leary]

Originally Posted by dharrison

So David whos this year? Ask or MSN(?) :lol:

Search is evolving in line with the social web. Very social, very 2.0. Swiki, Rollyo, Wink, Lexxe and others will evolve traditional search in time. Read about the evolution of search here if you want to know more. I personally use technorati, digg, del.icio.us, and a host of RSS feeds to retrieve content regularly; but still rely on the traditional engines when I'm looking for something specific, like "flower shops in Bellingham". Maybe it won't be a one stop shop anymore. Shhh. Don't tell Google.

All the best

Tom

[dburdon]

Debbie,

as you can probably guess I'm still living largely on a diet of hard news and facts from sites like FT.com.

I'll have to ask a digital native like my 15 year old son.

Hold on.... (30 second delay whilst I ask him).

His reply, out of the corner his mouth, was "probably Myspace". My inference from his facial expression was that Myspace is already past its diffusion curve peak. In reality he spends a lot of time having face to face conversations (using his logitech camera) with some girls who live in San Sebastian. They speak a sort of English/Spanish hybrid language.

[Tom O'Leary]

Originally Posted by Tom O'Leary

Good marketers active in SEO... an important ingredient in SEO 2.0...longtail SEO tactic...

Sorry, I have SEO on the brain today. Please mentally replace those Os with Ms!

All the best

Tom

[whipnet]

Why do we feel we must "communicate" and "socialize" on the internet?

The internet should be used for database storage only. And people should look to "BIG MEDIA" for all information without question.

Conform! :)

*

[dburdon]

WN,

maybe your humour is more prescient than intended. Isn't Myspace owned by the Murdoch mega corp? Can't get much bigger media than that.

[whipnet]

HAHA.. ok


"BIG MEDIA with no comment section" :)

*

[emmanuel_2012]

web based standards for moving content such as personal information and blogs, articles and other documents related to a persona from one site to the other, or even from one pda to the next, are in need, and in the making.

for instance,
www.peopleaggregator.com
has a lofty goal, and a good one.. if you have not heard of this site, check it out. the intention is there, but it may be lacking in technoguru staffing, and perhaps funding. im not sure. problem peopleagreegator i see is the users charge. this stuff must come free or i'm not having it!

identity segmentation is so apparent on the web that we need apps to converge all of this information. as of right now, nothing to me seems right... the problem of course is where to converge all of this personal information? the key i think is to have subcontracted and outsourced business processes. the more segmented and specialized the infrastructure, the more reliable a global impact.

for instance, .NET framework could be used for authentication ONLY. frankly i don't even want to bother with learning a development environment that isnt open source, but having that many potentional users not have to register with you is beautiful.

really, think of how many people dont register because they have to?

the best ideas win- terence mckenna.

regardless of our methods and management, only the great ideas will succeed in todays marketplace. most people can smell a rat trying to get rich off you millions of miles away.

the future of social network success is going to depend on accepting standards and partnering with those developers. and basically, since the standards can be cloned and modified, these partnerships must be non-financially motivated; they must be motivated by the intentions of sustainability. we need honest developers not out to rule the world, but rather be an integral part of it.

that being said, which is a lot, i concur that segmentation is inevitable, for a good reason. good thing most of us have 3 IM apps/screenames and probaly more than 2 email addresses. staying connected to humanity is the real goal behind all of this!

namaste

[Tom O'Leary]

Originally Posted by emmanuel_2012

for instance,
www.peopleaggregator.com
has a lofty goal, and a good one.. if you have not heard of this site, check it out. the intention is there, but it may be lacking in technoguru staffing, and perhaps funding. im not sure.

Yea. Saw the launch of People Aggregator at the Gnomedex conference in Seattle. Pretty cool. The problem is, thinking that there will be a one-size fits all social web formula is simply ludicrous. We can't even get a one-size fits all social formula as families, communities, etc. We need a one-size-fits-one approach, ensuring that all platforms and channels are interoperable and scaleable as necessary. We also need to start thinking more seriously about the mobile web and the implications that it will have on existing platforms and standards.

All the best

Tom

[emmanuel_2012]

oh yah, to answer the question more directly, "why do we need to communicate on the interent?"

technically anything communicated via the 802.11b standard is already a communciation in several layers. thats my smartass answer.

the real answer is its all over the world in a second, has output AND input, and it is virtually public. no other medium i know has all three properties.

[Orion]

The Internet was created as a means to communicate and share information.

Blogging and social sites actually seem far more like going back to what the web was back in 1992 and on back when we used to dial and phone number to connect to a bulletin board to post messages, share information, and socialize.. take that a few years further on and we were with Compuserve and Prodigy Networks (AOL caught on around then too) which were all first and formost social networks based on 'channels' or topics and they had a little button called 'web' on them which I remember many people couldn't figure out, lol.

It's always been here, always will be. When it comes to marketing / SEM etc. there is a reason that word-of-mouth either online or offline remains the number 1 form of advertising out there. Nothing can touch it, and nothing will. No matter how 'awesome!' that ad or claim is on a product most of us won't leap to the purchase until we've met, spoken to, chatted with someone else who has had an experience with a similar product or company.

Hope that's not off topic, but it's what struck me from reading through the posts.

Hey guess what we're all doing here! Socializing and sharing information..

[emmanuel_2012]

We also need to start thinking more seriously about the mobile web and the implications that it will have on existing platforms and standards.

interesting you say this.. because i just purchased a Sidekick3 by T-Mobile powered by Danger. it is fresh. im a young guy, 28.. so its hip and has everything i need now to communicate anywhere, but lots of web things wont work, and of course, you are right- without acessesing the personal phone market, a social network of the future is doomed to fail. i wont even think about trying to download myspace pages on a personal phone-- too much content for now.

cheers[/quote]

[Tom O'Leary]

Originally Posted by emmanuel_2012

interesting you say this.. because i just purchased a Sidekick3 by T-Mobile powered by Danger. it is fresh. im a young guy, 28.. so its hip and has everything i need now to communicate anywhere, but lots of web things wont work, and of course, you are right- without acessesing the personal phone market, a social network of the future is doomed to fail. i wont even think about trying to download myspace pages on a personal phone-- too much content for now.

cheers

[/quote]

Mobile web standards are coming along. There are a few people working hard at the moment. I wrote a post on my blog about mobile web standards back in March which hightlights a few and some has a link to a great article from one of the infrastructure strategists.

All the best

Tom

[Peter (IMC)]

There was a time that you had to be a technological freak to work with computers. These people were already socializing on the internet long before the majority even knew there was something like they internet (Or as Homer (Simpson) says: Hey, they have the internet on computers now.)

Then for many years it was still only those that had some kind of reason to use the internet to really socialize on the internet.

But in the recent years "normal" people start to discover that the internet can be used to socialize and they do it big time. It´s one social network after the other that shows up and becomes a huge success.

Eventually there will be something like the .com bubble bursting and just a couple of social networks will remain. But it is definitely something that will stay.

With the improvements of handheld communication technology I expect that there will also be a move away from using PC's to access the internet and you will find people socializing online in the buss, the train, etc.

[Oman]

OK, I understand the need to socialize. And the fact that social networking sites were developed to fill that need.

But how do the developers of Digg and del.icio.us make a living? It sure would be a heck of a lot of time, money and effort to build a site of this caliber just to facilitate a social trend. What's in it for them?

Jeff

[emmanuel_2012]

my guess is that social network developers can have 2 main sources of income from their site-
one from advertising of course and the other from e-commerce solutions built in to their portals, if that applies. in most cases it doesn't but i would expect to see more commerce related solutions going commmunity oriented, or community portals going commercial, so to speak.

[greeneagle]

As a long time marketer with Fortune 100 and 500 companies in my background... I find every new digital door that comes available, fascinating within itself.

Not everyone of them is right for any Site, but it's really great to have a number of doors to walk through for any given client, or our own site's promotional endeavors. Sometimes I feel like a gluten at a smorgasbord.

It's great, it's fun, but it's hard to keep up with them as fast as the spill out of the chute! Those of us that play there have to walk through the most intriguing doors and see where they go.

Ken

[Tom O'Leary]

Originally Posted by Oman

OK, I understand the need to socialize. And the fact that social networking sites were developed to fill that need.

But how do the developers of Digg and del.icio.us make a living? It sure would be a heck of a lot of time, money and effort to build a site of this caliber just to facilitate a social trend. What's in it for them?

Jeff

Usually, sites like these are VC funded. But any site that amasses a large community and user data can make a lot of money. It's the new monetization strategy in the new world of work. The most common business model involves some sort of advertising once your community grows. Read this for a good idea of where Digg might be heading.

All the best

Tom

[greeneagle]

A comment in response to an earlier post:

Social Sites aren't just for the under 25 crowd anymore!

Ken

[Tom O'Leary]

Originally Posted by greeneagle

A comment in response to an earlier post:

Social Sites aren't just for the under 25 crowd anymore!

Ken

I agree. I'm in trouble if they are. Perhaps some social networking sites are designed for the under 25s (MySpace, Bebo, Facebook, etc.), but then there is LinkedIn, etc for older geezers like myself. But social sites aren't defined by such sites anymore. Everything is becoming social now, with wikis, social apps and coversation platforms.

All the best

Tom

[Oman]

Interesting link Tom about Digg's income. You have to realize that they're not doing it out of the goodness of their hearts.

I reckon it's a field of dreams; build it and they'll post.

Jeff

[Tom O'Leary]

Originally Posted by Oman

Interesting link Tom about Digg's income. You have to realize that they're not doing it out of the goodness of their hearts.

I reckon it's a field of dreams; build it and they'll post.

Jeff

I actually do think that a lot of web and app devleopment today is inspired by a passion for the game rather than payoff (initially), but there is no denying that monetiztaion becomes part of that passion at some stage, if only to finance a developers dreams. ; )

[edhan]

Originally Posted by Tom O'Leary

I actually do think that a lot of web and app devleopment today is inspired by a passion for the game rather than payoff (initially), but there is no denying that monetiztaion becomes part of that passion at some stage, if only to finance a developers dreams. ; )

Yes. I do agree that initially might be for the passion. Eventually it has to be for money to cover the cost ... how nice if it can be passion forever!!!

[greeneagle]

Digg's Revenue is currently about $10M USD/Year.
Ken

[greeneagle]

I came across a real interesting read on this topic today:

Computer scientists Put Social Network Theory To The Test

Ken

[EmergenceMedia]

In the context of SEO, I see that in the very heart of the matter Social Media is a new tool for Link Building.

Back in the old days, you sent an email to some webmaster asking for a recipical link. Now that anyone can be a content producer, this has exponentially increased the potential of links that can be created. So now you need to go viral - you need to engage and respect social media.

Yes, Cluetrain Manifesto tell us "Marketing is Conversation", but in SEO its about getting top visibility on the SERPs (along with all the proper branding, call to action, relevency to visitors, persuasion architecture etc).

So now SEO Link Building is now a viral, WoM, and PR exercise. There's a place for traditional link buying and recipical link request, but the ability to exploit the "Network Effect" of Social Media is too hard to ignore with SEO (and Branding, Marketing/Advertising, PR etc too).

[greeneagle]

Welcome aboard WPW; EmergenceMedia

I sincerely believe there is quite a bit of room to evolve around Social Networks these days.

There are all kinds of social networks and companies devoted to creating Social Networks for you... This phenomenen will continue to expand around personal interests and other demographics in the future - IMO.

Ken

[lourdes]

This subject is amazing...

[Peter (IMC)]

Link building is technical term really. But to a search engine like Google, links are so much more than just a thing people click on to get to another page. Link data goes way beyond that now a days, especially with Google. Link data factors go way beyond just popularity and the popularity of the pages that link to you (The original PR algorithm).

Link data, especially the historical factors, give such a huge amount of information about a site. Link building is a totally wrong term for it. In fact what the link data shows is how much a site is marketed and appreciated. The standard link building techniques (directories and exchanges) aren't enough for the slightly more competitive keyword phrases.

What happens when you market a site? You get links. These are the natural links we all want.

Social networks are a way to market a site, but in stead of naming it link building, it´s better to name it marketing and promotion.

[emmanuel_2012]

its interesting that Fox News (Rupert Murdoch) bought MySpace.com for 580 million cash 1 year ago.

The Hollywood Reporter: What has surprised you the most about the MySpace experience?

Rupert Murdoch: The speed at which it has grown. It has had no marketing. Not a penny has been spent marketing it before or after the purchase, and it just grows faster and faster every week. Now we're taking it out to other countries.

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