Web search and social media merge

The option for Internet users to now search for real-time social media content across the Web, which has very recently become available in South Africa, has seen two worlds – still treated by many marketers as separate environments – suddenly converging into one space. As social media has been integrated into search as one of the most basic features of the Web, at least one South African marketing company has decided to extend its network to include the use of social networking tools.

Google launched a feature internationally in late 2009 to search for real-time social media content across the Web. This capacity has now been added to its South African search engine. According to Diane Charton, managing director of Acceleration Media, this may turn out to be one of Google’s most important search innovations.

Users can receive live updates from social networking sites such as Twitter, MySpace, Facebook and FriendFeed, as well as headlines from the latest news reports and blog posts published when they do a search.

The new feature was also designed with mobile platforms in mind.

“Google’s addition of the real-time search feature to its search engine is a tacit acknowledgement of the way that social media is starting to change the way that users search for and consume Web information," Charton said.

"Consider the fact that the stats from Hitwise show that visits to Facebook eclipsed visits to Google in the US during March. Users are increasingly seeing the social media space as their link to everything that matters on the Web. Twitter, blogs and Facebook drive massive amounts of traffic news sites and other content providers.”

In the meantime, the company Metrofile, a market leader in Africa for information and records management, has very recently announced that it has taken a strategic decision to extend its marketing net to include the use of social networking tools.

Announcing the decision, the company said it is done because of the changing nature of how customers and staff want to communicate with their suppliers and employers. After conducting research among its staff and customers, Metrofile has opted to start its foray into the field with the more popular social networking tools, LinkedIn and Facebook.

“The traditional forms of marketing to your internal and external audiences are changing. People thrive on variety and they want to select the medium they want to be communicated to, and how they communicate back to you – taking push-and-pull marketing practices to an all-new level,” said Metrofile’s sales and marketing director, Peter McLaren-Kennedy.

“That said, it is critical to align this with your own business strategy and ensure that you don’t fall into the trap many companies have, namely using these mediums to spam or over-communicate to your audiences. Common sense and relevance need to prevail when making use of social networking tools.”

Acceleration’s Charton said that, “users are increasingly hungry for real-time information, as evidenced by the popularity of Twitter and other up-to-the-minute information sources. And what is more, users are increasingly depending on their smart phones to stay linked to this information wherever they are.

Against this backdrop, it makes sense for Google to offer its search engine users access to real-time information from social media sources.

“With new threats and opportunities for marketers, this changing landscape is ripe with promise and peril. Savvy companies will be able to capitalise on the convergence of search and social media in all sorts of interesting ways. But that does depend on them having experience in tracking and optimising natural search results as well as managing social media,” added Charton.