Could Social Media Be the Google Killer?

The ongoing growth of social media may indicate that we should look beyond a Yahoo-Microsoft merger and other algorithmic-based search engines and explore the possibility of search becoming less important.

If people started using social media more, and advertisers thought they could get better results for their money in that arena, search engines would be impacted by the loss of income. Even if they just moved away from content search advertising, the loss of income for the big three would have a major effect.

Social media is becoming more popular.
The millions of people who have signed up for various social media applications, such as Facebook apps, the millions who are using mobile connections to Twitter all reflect a shift in how people interact with the Web these days.

People are starting to move away from being satisfied with search results. They’re starting to develop trust groups with social bookmarking tools and other community or social networks. If this behavior continues, we may see a change in the way the majority of people use the Web.

Twitter has yet to monetize its popularity, and Facebook is just starting to play in the advertising space. YouTube and MySpace have gained traction and other social networks will follow in their footsteps.

There may not be a need for a new search engine to topple Google from the mountain top. The advertisers may just choose not to continue making the climb.

I make sure all my clients get involved with social media. It’s hard to pass up the traffic, especially in an area that is growing so rapidly. And, if used properly, it can also improve your search positioning. Nothing like a double-edged sword!

Frank, I don’t think social media as an aggregate entity can ever be a Google killer, even from an advertising perspective, let alone from a traffic perspective. Don’t get me wrong, I certainly look forward to the first time a client that we’ve worked with on the social media front can claim even a small percentage of the traffic that search delivers on a consistent basis. The question really comes down to how sustainable the traffic is, and how much true value it delivers.

As an advertising medium, there’s much more opportunity for some verticals to benefit from social media than others. This footprint of beneficiaries from the medium will probably further diversify as adoption rates increase.

But as many social media communities have found out, there’s a high likelihood for abandonment of testing in this arena by a number of top brands.