01 Oct How Social Networks Are Changing Search

We all know that Google has been the king of search in the previous years but the emergence of social media has raised a few questions about the future of Internet search. It’s becoming widely accepted that social media will play an important role.

As Google and Yahoo continue to alter their search engines to better incorporate social media, there have been several start-up search engines that focus entirely on social network results. A recent Socialmediaexaminer.com blog breaks down the difference in the three most popular search engines that focus on user-generated results.

The Social Media Examiner blog suggests that marketers looking to dive a little deeper into trends and consumer attitudes in real time should checkout some of their suggested search engines. I really think these sites could be a huge asset in brand monitoring and market research. This of course depends on what your market is and whether or not your consumers are spending time on social networks.

All of this makes me wonder if Google and Yahoo will ever be replaced. When Google first introduced social search results the response from users was less than stellar. They have made adjustments but it still seems that these other specialty sites are ahead of the curve as many of them incorporate trending topics and more user interaction which is the core of social networking.