Marketers, advertisers and brand managers are all buzzing with the news of Google and Bing announcing their new social search features, which will include content from Twitter and Facebook when users search on either engine, and what this now means for a brand’s overall success or failure. These tools have been promoted as the official “nail in the coffin” for those premium brands who choose not to go online, or, even worse, are being used to convince those shy brands to go ahead and spend their marketing dollars on social media PR and maintenance. With all this noise, I thought it best to do a little more research on the subject.
Just from reviewing and trying to get the social search features activated on my personal Google and Bing searches, it seems to be a lot more complicated than most are letting on. Not only do you have to have an account for each respective engine, but on Google, you also have to submit profile information, links to your social networks, and then be logged in at the time of search. After doing all that, even searching a familiar term like “facebook” yielded no results from my networks. And before you ask, yes, the account was signed up in the Google Lab, the testing section for the feature. For a more detailed look at what Google is offering and what it is really made of, watch the video below.
As explained above, these searches only pull up information from the user’s “circle of friends.” So, the doom and gloom of getting any and every negative comment about a brand seems highly unlikely. And although it can be said that a negative comment made within a customer’s social network may be more damaging than one outside, the likelihood of its occurrence diminishes quite a bit when all the filters are in place.
So, brand managers, take heart. The only thing this social search means for your brand is you had better pay attention to what’s being said about your brand online. And I know you’ve heard that one before.
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