Comments on: Facebook Is Not the Future of Search

By: Alex Hawkinson

Alex Hawkinson — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 22:39:08 +0000

The data published by eMarketer today around search advertising growth in the SMB space supports the conclusions that you made here. http://bit.ly/8iL7VY

The future is social AND search, not either or.

By: Alex Hawkinson

Alex Hawkinson — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 05:41:43 +0000

Definitely interesting to see the point / counter-point conversation that is unfolding around social media for businesses. I was reminded in another context today about the Citibank small business social media survey data that was published a few weeks ago. I wasn’t alone in seeing a lot of issues with the data – http://bit.ly/42DRWz.

At the core, I think it’s still just early days in terms of small business social media adoption. 40+% of small businesses in the U.S. don’t even have a web site (and most that do have them are inactive), but people don’t say that the web doesn’t matter.

Fundamentally, social media growth is exploding amongst consumers. Facebook is now 1 in 4 U.S. pageviews (http://bit.ly/28iVda). Consumers talk about companies as they use social media (http://bit.ly/4zJ0Xe) and those conversations influence buying behaviors (http://bit.ly/MM6ZT).

Consumers expect businesses to be present and interactive with them in those environments and the businesses that embrace it as an opportunity to deliver great customer engagement and service will benefit (http://bit.ly/nf0or).

So it’s a balancing act. From our experience with the 400K small businesses running on our platform, I’d say that the those that take a holistic approach touching search, social discovery, online listening and engagement are far more successful than those that get out of balance and overly focused on one part of the equation.

By: Ed Gubbins

Ed Gubbins — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 20:32:36 +0000

Well said, Alex. I like your description of social networks as “a massive incremental time expenditure.” Brings to mind what Conan O’Brien said: That in the future, YouTube, Twitter and Facebook will be combined into one giant time-wasting site called YouTwitFace.

By: Alex Hawkinson

Alex Hawkinson — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 15:53:13 +0000

Thanks for a really thought provoking post. I posted related thoughts last week when some analysis was posted showing Facebook now being 25% of Internet pageviews in the U.S.. I saw a lot of the businesses that we talk to over-reacting and felt compelled to write about what it does and does NOT mean for businesses – http://bit.ly/28iVda.

As I said in that post about what Facebook growth does NOT mean:

* This does NOT mean that Google is shrinking. If you look past the data in the Facebook analysis, you will see that Google is growing amidst all this, and that this is not a “zero sum game”. Overall Internet use is continuing to grow and social networking has emerged as a massive incremental time expenditure that augments rather than replaces search as a key way that consumers find information. Businesses need to have a strategy in place that enables them to be discovered in BOTH search engines AS WELL AS social media.

* It does NOT mean that businesses can simply put up a Facebook Page as the center of their social media strategy. Facebook is super important, but it is still just one of the mechanisms that customers will use to find and interact with businesses that they buy from. Businesses must be prepared to be found and engage with their customers whereever they are and across whatever medium those customers prefer. Businesses need to have a “hub” at the center of this that is solely about them (without ads and distractions a click away) and can be the foundation for deep interactions with their most engaged customers.