Social Search Becomes Increasingly Important As Social Platforms Evolve

As social networks continue to evolve social search look set to play an influential role in determining a brand’s online visibility. With Google+ launching its brand pages in quick succession of Google announcing it will look to index comments of third party social plug-ins, this would indicate that social media is set to play an increasingly prominent role in determining a brand’s online visibility.

With this in mind, brands must make it a priority to put social search at the forefront of their online marketing strategies if they haven’t already done so. To ensure brands maximise the potential of their online outreach, they would be advised to follow some of the points below:

• Encourage sharing – One of the most organic methods to increase visibility and grow fan numbers is through encouraging sharing. Once a follower shares content this will appear in the user’s news feed, alerting their friends to the fact they’ve shared such content and making their friends aware of the brand’s online presence. This can be achieved through several methods, whether through simply encouraging fans to ‘Like’ or share posts, or through offering them an incentive to do so, such as entering them into a prize draw.
• Post varied content – Varied content is a requirement to maintain a user’s interest in following a brand’s profile. Maintaining a user’s interest will not only encourage them to continue following a page, but will also encourage them to interact with a brand and share the content the brand posts, thereby increasing visibility and helping a brand’s online reputation to grow.
• Cross-pollinate – A brand should look to utilise multiple social media profiles across different platforms to ensure it reaches as many users as possible. Certain types of users may frequent a specific social platform more than another, and as such it’s important to create multiple profiles on several profiles to achieve suitable reach to gather as many new followers as possible.
• Stay on top of news and social media evolution – As with the announcement of Google+ brand pages and Google’s indexing of third party comments, social networks may implement changes without prior warning, leading to the necessity to alter current social strategies as soon as possible. With this in mind, marketers must be aware of any changes or updates as soon as they happen, thereby allowing them the opportunity to change outreach strategies and continue to engage their online audience with minimum hassle.

Clearly the combination of search and social media strategies is now a requirement in increasing online visibility and managing a successful online marketing strategy. As social media user numbers continue to increase the competition for visibility in the social space is becoming increasingly challenging, leading to the requirement to look for visibility through other avenues. Combining search and social media strategies allows a brand to maximise the visibility it receives through online channels.

By: WoDavis

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William Davis is an account executive at social media agency Punch Communications. For more information on Punch's work as a social search agency and it's abilities to improve your brand's online PR, visit punchcomms.com or call 01858 411600.