15 Sep How Will Social Networks Change The Way We Search?

In the month of August, the time spent on Facebook surpassed all of Google’s sites combined. This includes YouTube, Gmail, and the rest of their network.

This is big news because it’s the first time in history that Facebook has surpassed Google in time spent. Back in March, Facebook surpassed Google as the most visited site in the U.S. So what does this mean?

Experts believe that it’s a direct nod to the inevitable take over of social and in particular social search. I don’t think we can make this call yet but the theory is gaining momentum as more and more people turn to social networks as a reference for information.

Regardless of how we will search in the future, these milestones achieved by Facebook confirm the importance of establishing a strong social presence. As our search and learning behaviors continue to shift it’s important that our businesses are well represented on the right networks. There is a plethora of ways companies can use Facebook to promote their business but it’s becoming more important to participate because of the search aspect that everyone is discussing. Google is continuing to incorporate social networks into their results.

What this means is that both theories on search require companies to establish a strong presence on Facebook. If we turn away from Google and begin to rely more on social networks for search then we must be present in the social space. If we continue to rely on social networks as our main source for search then we still need to have a strong presence in the social space because Google and other search engines are constantly improving the integration of these social networks into their search results.

How we will search in future is still not evident. What is evident is that establishing a strong presence in the social realm is a must for the present and future.