Look Out 2020, Google Is Changing the Digital Game
We have seen some exciting 2020 digital marketing predictions come out, but the one prediction that stands out to us the most is Google incorporating social into its search. We all know Google tried the whole social media thing, but it didn’t turn out as they planned. Well, we have some good evidence that they are stepping up their social game, which could lead to some big changes for us marketers and your digital strategy.
So, What’s Going On?
In 2011, the search engine had its own social ambitions with the launch of Google+, but a rare failure on the company’s part, they retired it in April 2019.
Since 2014, Google has denied the impact of search results from social media. However, since then studies have shown a positive correlation between rankings and social engagement. SEO experts believe that Google is planning on incorporating social media into its algorithm… and we agree.
In 2020, we believe we’ll start seeing a “social index” starting to personalize search engines’ result pages.
Why do we believe this?
Well, Google has been granted patent 9632972, which identifies “influence in a social community”, and it shows a process of how social media influencer scores are calculated and explains how this score will be stored in association with a particular user.
With this change, it will also be important to expand your social media strategy to Google.
Why the extra work?
Roughly 34% of consumers distrust search engines, and about 95% of consumers distrust social media. As we mentioned in our previous blog, it’s important to create valuable content that users can trust within your social media marketing strategy. With that being said, Google is a logical place to focus, and we aren’t just talking about search rankings.
Google is rolling out features like “Google Follow” (Google Map users can follow a business and then see that brand’s Google My Business Posts in a “For You” tab on the app) and “Google Posts” (this allows brands to create content directly on Google). No surprise that these will rank very high in search results.
By incorporating social into search and rolling out these new features in 2020, businesses will have to place even more importance on their social media strategy, as this can have a significant impact on their search page rankings.
Our PPC, SEO, and Social Media experts are excited to see how this change affects their digital marketing efforts. If you would like some expert knowledge and help with your digital marketing strategy, contact us!
