Last week, Google announced that it would begin rolling out “Search, Plus Your World,” which is an integration of regular organic listings, PPC and social updates via Google Plus from your inner circles. For those people who thought social networking was going away any time soon, think again. This update is a bold statement by Google to say that social is here to stay; maybe more-so than ever.
Marketing people can almost instantly see the value in this update. For example, let’s say I’m a consumer shopping around for a new digital camera, more specifically, a Canon. If I type Canon digital camera into the search engine, not only will listings from CNET, Best Buy and Amazon come up, but any status updates from my inner circle that mentioned those exact keywords. Notice from the screenshot below, that social listings find their way to the top, this is no mistake. Social listings are more trustworthy sources than a random organic listing. Think of it as a referral.
In the image below, I used “brandon laws” as the keyword in Google, and it brought my Google+ page plus and any updates that mentioned “brandon laws.” These are identified with a little blue icon to the left of the listing that looks like a person. It actually reminds me of the original Myspace logo.
This biggest problem with this update is that Facebook, Linkedin and Twitter are not included. The adoption of Google+ was huge early on, but all signs are pointing to the fact that people just aren’t using it. A Facebook integration is much needed in the future if this new update is going to be successful. There is no doubt that the potential is huge though.