My friend and gyro colleague Scott Gillum recently wrote that "Social is Intriguing, However Search is Proven." In that piece, Gillum presents some interesting data points, culminating with the closing argument that social warrants experimentation, but until more is known about its impact on the bottom line, marketers should be sure the basics are covered. The basics, of course, include best-practice search engine optimization and a healthy paid search presence. Gillum's piece and my recent MediaPost column, "Social Is the New Search," have been positioned as a point-counterpoint of sorts within the office. I'm on record saying that the future of search appears destined for decentralization into social venues; Gillum advocates that organizations place social opportunities on a shelf until the search house is in order. Who's right? Or is it just a matter of perspective? According to Gillum, "traditional online" tactics are crucial in environments where marketers have limited time and money. In order to prove value to their organization, marketers are pressed to demonstrate that their expenditures are directly impacting bottom line-performance. The data Gillum shares points to an online buying environment where the "importance/usefulness" of traditional online channels is significant and slated to grow "2-3X" in the year ahead. Social is a different story altogether, because it's difficult to quantify the ROI impact. Now, let's exclude social advertising from this discussion. Social advertising can be challenging to attribute ROI, but it's not outright impossible. I'm talking about core social media programs: social listening, community development and management, contests, games, applications -- you get the point. Those programs require some leaps of faith to quantify impact. And analytics vendors, please spare me the "we've figured out how to calculate the ROI of a Facebook Like!" No, you haven't. You have marketing propaganda and little more. The truth is, my belief that users of social media will grow in their reliance on these channels to perform "search" functions (information seeking) in no way conflicts with Gillum's stance that investing in search before social is the way to go today. We're actually very much aligned in our thinking: Now - Don't ignore search. It's proven and produces solid ROI. Tomorrow - Social will pay off. The onus is on companies to discover their own "killer application." The real challenge for those of us in the digital trenches is to help guide our clients (or bosses) to a sensible communications roadmap. Social media may hold all the glitz and glam, but we can't allow the decision-makers we report to, to get caught up in the hype. Many need reminding that even "social engagement" is difficult to prove, because it relies on a handful of arbitrary metrics. Install an exceptional "traditional online" platform first, then feel free to experiment in social. If your priorities here are reversed, then you have gaping holes in your digital presence. Now, I'm not trying to rock the boat; I'm a big believer in social media. But there's a reason there are far more fake social gurus than there are fake search gurus -- and it has everything to do with accountability. Search is proven because it is held accountable.
According to BrightEdge, an in-depth analysis of more than 4 million tweets shows pages that display Twitter share buttons get 7 times the social media mentions than sites that do not, pointing to enormous social marketing opportunity. The September issue of the BrightEdge SocialShare Analysis shows that almost half of the largest 10,000 sites on the Web still don't display any kind of social sharing links or buttons. 53.6% of the largest 10,000 sites on the Web display some social links or buttons on their front pages, up from 52.8 percent in late July. Adoption of Social on Homepages of Top Websites (Top 10,000 Websites) Type of Site% of Total Sites with social links of plugins 53.6% No social links or plugins 46.4 Source: BrightEdge Research, September 2011 Jim Yu, CEO of BrightEdge, notes that "... social sharing buttons can drive real social traffic that will inevitably drive sales, brand awareness or affinity... but... brands are not taking advantage of this simple, cost free tool... " The study analyzed a representative data stream of 4 million tweets that were selected at random to determine which tweets carried shared information, and if it was shared with tools and buttons, links or other methods. The examination revealed that pages that display Twitter share buttons or links were distributed to followers on average about seven times more often than pages that did not have similar sharing tools. This could lead to exposure to millions of additional consumers for the sites that took the modest step of just installing social sharing buttons, opines the report. Average Number of Link Mentions Per SiteButtonsMentions Sites with no Buttons 4 Sites with Tweet Button 27 Source: BrightEdge Research, Aug 2011 In the social adoption analysis, all of the leading social sites saw increases in usage compared to the previous month, but the two largest and most established social platforms have commanding leads in market share. Facebook plugins (e.g. the Like button and links to fan pages) are seen on homepages of more than 50 percent of the world's largest sites. While buttons and links for Twitter are seen on 42.5 percent of the top 10,000 sites. Google plus continues to grow, but is still only used on about 8.5 percent of the largest 10,000 sites. Social Links/Plugins on Homepages of Top Sites Social SiteWith Social Links/PluginsChange From Previous Month Facebook 50.3% Up from 49.5% Twitter 42.5% Up from 42.4% Google+ 8.1% Up from 7.3% LinkedIn 4.0% Unchanged Source: BrightEdge Research, SocialShare Analysis, September 2011 While this growth is healthy, concludes the report, there are still a surprising number of major sites that have not fully embraced social marketing. The absence of any social engagement vehicles such as Social Links, Facebook plugins and Twitter Buttons on the homepages of a large number of major sites shows there is significant untapped opportunity for social media to drive greater marketing exposure for brands. The release may be found here, or Sign in to download study:
Well, that was simple enough. In launching improved, automated Lists of friends, Facebook has easily -- and almost without notice -- exploited Google+'s biggest advantage: that it makes grouping friends the default, and sharing with discreet groups of people clickably easy. (Oh, God, that sounds like part of a future tagline.) Because of Google+, Facebook has finally started the slow process of helping people manage their often unwieldy friends lists. To quote from Facebook's blog: "Each of your lists has its own News Feed, where you can see just the photos, status updates and other posts from the people on the list. To view list News Feeds, look for the Lists section on the left side of your homepage and click the list you want to see." As at least one commenter joked on the Facebook blog, "This is Facebook+?" I'm surprised that this tweak to how Facebook works, which was posted on the Facebook blog just yesterday, hasn't gotten that much notice. Maybe it's because some of the news leaked last week; maybe it's because it doesn't seem to be up and running yet -- at least in my little Facebook universe. Or maybe people just aren't paying attention. Still, this is important for at least two reasons: One, as said before, it exploits the biggest advantage of Google+, and two (this is a biggie): it's automated. In the handful of months that Google+ has been out in private beta, one thought I keep hearing is what a pain it would be to go back through your Facebook friends -- the average American has about 225 of them -- and assign them into groups, even if it sounds desirable. But, duh. Facebook knows a lot of who's grouped with whom already, so it is doing the heavy lifting for us by automating the list-making process; whether you use your Lists or not is up to you. In addition to using the profile information we give it -- like our high school and graduation year, for example -- Facebook already knows who hangs out with whom. While I suspect Facebook will get some of this wrong -- by grouping unrelated Taylors into my Family List, for example -- making it automated neatly skirts the problem of users having to create Lists. (The list of Close Friends is not automated, and will be strictly DIY.) So Facebook just copied Google+. So what? Maybe that's the right response. But where this could get interesting for marketers is if, over time, Lists fundamentally change who we share things with. As with Google+, users can click on a tab below each status update to determine who to share it with -- co-workers, family, neighbors, the greater public and so forth. It's easy to do. And if that behavior starts to catch on, it will change the nature of the News Feed, the stream so many marketers want to swim in. Right now, people share the overwhelming majority of their status updates with all of their friends, serving as a most powerful amplifier of word-of-mouth. But what if that changes? What if people start routinely sharing status updates, photos and other content with smaller groups? You may think that people won't do this, but I truly think the main reason people on Facebook share everything with everyone is because Facebook was built that way, not because they want to. Maybe this move will mean that sharing within Lists will make word-of-mouth more refined, quality over quantity. On the other hand, I've never heard someone in charge of a viral marketing effort say that what they are really after is micro-targeting. Facebook may not care about this, since more discerning sharing of status updates will enhance its ability to target paid advertising. However, for marketers -- many of whom view earned media as the most valuable media of all -- this could end up being a monumental, and negative, change. By and large, they'd prefer that everyone share with all of their friends, not their ten friends from work or the fifteen people on their Family List. My guess is that, in improving and automating Lists, Facebook didn't dwell on such things. Especially if you follow the Silicon Valley dictum that all profits flow from a good user experience, it had to make this most obvious change, and its impact will be felt slowly enough for Facebook to adjust. But as a marketer, I would watch this development closely, to see if an evolution in social sharing is at hand.