For a while now people have been
speculating whether ‘social media’ sites, in particular Twitter, pose a threat to
Google search as people increasingly choose to ask their network for help
rather than search.
I can see this happening in a small way but it is certainly nothing like a Google killer.
However, based in part on our own experience, I have been wondering increasingly how social media could impact negatively on paid search spend, which might be some cause for concern at the search engines?
Charles Arthur at the Guardian yesterday posted his US media sites' traffic shows that Facebook is the new threat to Google piece. Worth a look if nothing else to see the 'Update' - an interesting way to deal with the "how can you/should you ‘change history’ online by editing something you've already published?” challenge.
It says that “Facebook was the #4 source of visits to News and Media sites last week, after Google, Yahoo! and MSN and that the proportion it sends to US media sites has grown dramatically from about 1.2% to 3.52% over the past year, while that sent by Google News has remained roughly static, at around 1.4%."
A bit of a non-story I think as it’s comparing Facebook to Google News. Try those traffic percentage numbers again but against the main Google search referrals, which no doubt top 60%. These numbers pale into relative insignificance when you consider the global search market grew 46% in 2009 or that YouTube is the second largest search engine, or that more than 30% of Google searches in Japan come via mobile devices.
I think there is very little prospect of Google being threatened by 'social media' from an SEO point of view in the foreseeable future but I do wonder about the impact on paid search which is, after all, where Google and other search engines actually make their money.
Taking Econsultancy as a small, and admittedly very niche, case study, we've now completely stopped doing PPC because a) it no longer delivers ROI b) it barely delivered any volume anyway and c) 'Social Media' (mostly Twitter in our case) delivers much more volume and ROI than PPC. Furthermore, social media for us is now much bigger in terms of traffic generation and ROI than Yahoo! or Bing. However, natural search via Google, still dwarves them all, and then some.
But I wonder how many other sites out there are starting to realise that the ROI from SEO, in terms of volume and value, is so much better than PPC that it’s worth focusing budgets and resources entirely on SEO? And that social media can deliver better ROI than PPC while - at the same time - doing great things for brand, customer service, and, yes, SEO through link building and so on?
And, if the above is true, this might be just the slightest bit concerning for the search engines?
One of the arguments for PPC vs. SEO has always been that PPC is ‘faster’ and has ‘guaranteed results’. You can use it tactically, and reactively, in a way that it is very hard to do with SEO. However, I wonder, now that Twitter et al are being integrated into the main search results, and with Social Search, whether, in fact, you can use ‘social media’ in order to do things very quickly and get them into the search engines via ‘social’? And, if so, whether the search engines once again are doing themselves out of paid search revenues in the long term?
It has already happened to us but I wonder whether others will think the same way: that ‘social media’ not only delivers on the SEO front, lessening the need for PPC, but actually is also the Trojan horse into the search results that allows you to communicate very quickly and effectively, further minimising the need for PPC?
With personalised search, social search and 'real-time web' integration it’s all about your network and your ability to communicate with it. That might be a brand network, a professional network, a social network. Google search will become a 'lens' or window for information discovery which has your social graph or brand network filter applied to it; a platform for you to communicate with your customers, and for them to communicate with each other.
I’m sure the idea is that these advancements will allow Google to target paid search ads even better. But I do wonder, if you’re good at this networking and communication, if you’re good at engagement and customer service, if you’re customers actually like you a little bit, then what will be the need for PPC?
Arguably individuals, via the likes of Facebook and personal connections and networks, have already ‘disaggregated’ Google. Maybe brands can do something similar using social media as the Trojan horse into Google’s main search results? Take all of the gain with none of the PPC cost? Invest in the brand, in customer service, in content, in social media and not at all in PPC?
Might this be why Google is looking at using Gmail to challenge Facebook? When push comes to shove, perhaps the Big G doesn’t want stuff in its SERPs that it doesn’t control or own in terms of social media?
What do you think?
[Image by Alaskan Dude via Flickr, various rights reserved]
Ashley Friedlein is CEO and Co-founder of Econsultancy. Follow him on Twitter (3,800+ followers) or connect via LinkedIn (4,500+ connections) or Google+.
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12:42PM on 9th February 2010
We have found much the same, that social media brings us more traffic than PPC, but organic search dwarfs both.
As for ROI though, social media (blog posts, twitter) take up some time. Have you calculated the cost of this?
Marketing Coordinator at One Financial
1:58PM on 9th February 2010
Great post, the most importantly is that as we are just realising that yes there is an alternative to PPC, Google is already getting into that market as you pointed out with Gmail. And as Google Chrome is being pushed with mainstream advertising and add-on just came out for this browser to have Gmail info on top. There is no surprise Google wants to cover all aspects of our online life. Natural growth of any company is to go sideways if vertically and geographically they already have everything.
7:12PM on 9th February 2010
I come at this from another angle, which I believe is complementary to what you're saying. I am a researcher and I like using social networks.
However, my clients are always in a big hurry. Using a paid service at the outset of a project saves a LOT of time! For example, in a recent project using social networks would have been a huge waste of time. Whereas in another project, my "paid for service" led me right to some great resources on LinkedIn, which probably saved me 10 - 20 hours on a putting a company profile together.
As a previously stated, it does take time to build up a social networking presence, and also to keep it up! You definitely need to factor that into the equation. The social networks keep evolving so you also need to decide which ones to keep up, to drop, and which ones are worth joining. All this takes a lot more time than I had originally estimated.
Best,
Ellen Naylor
6:44AM on 10th February 2010
Having read your post, I have concluded that all the efforts we make they cannot be in vain.
Managing Director at n3w media
9:03AM on 10th February 2010
An interesting article and I think most people will agree that search is becoming more complex. Perhaps it is difficult to consider the pro's and con's of different content discovery methods without also considering the context and the nature of the users requirement?
I would suggest that different technologies (PPC / Organic / Social) offer different value depending upon the type of content that is being sought, the time criticality of the search and also the subjectiveness around the definition of quality in the discovered data. But all of this MUST be evaluated from the end users perspective (the poor person trying to do the search) rather than the organisation that is desperate to be found.
With the increasing popularity of App Stores, emergence of TV widget stores and Internet / Cloud based data being stored independently of an HTML wrapper, I would suggest that search is set to become significantly more complex in the near future. I also wonder if there will be an opportunity for a new more impartial search brand to emerge?
Research Director at Econsultancy
10:14AM on 10th February 2010
The Marketing Budgets Report 2010 Report we've recently published (in association with ExactTarget) suggests that many companies are turning to social media more because of brand-related metrics than because of hard financial ROI.
If people are saying good things about your brand then they are more likely to click on your paid search ads (which are all about ROI). You could be highlighting a longer term trend but I guess for the short and medium term - for most companies - it's about the right balance of social media, SEO, PPC and other channels.
Research in the report mentioned above suggests that companies are most likely to be increasing budgets in SEO and social media this year, but paid search is still really buoyant.
Could it be argued that the increased visibility of social media (i.e. Tweets) in the search engine results pages (along with more prominence for things like video and news listings) actually makes paid search even more important ... especially to capture those who are close to purchase?
If your products or services feature so prominently in the natural search listings (including social media / real-time time search) that paid search spend is not so important .... then happy days.
2:05PM on 10th February 2010
another thing to think about, what if facebook created its own search engine???
3:22PM on 10th February 2010
Social sites such as Twitter are great tools for SEM. The amount of traffic gained using Twitter is immense and can easily be tracked using analytics - so when used right and to the best potential, sure it can replace PPC as a cheaper option.
Marketing Coordinator at One Financial
3:37PM on 10th February 2010
In reply to the farouk, I think the new facebook layout is going towards it with the prominant central location of the search section, and I did read somewhere (please point out if someone knows the source) that facebook is going towards the search engine feature on the page.
9:08PM on 10th February 2010
Why not social media PPC? Yep. Social media PPC. Some companies just don't have the bandwidth for social media, and that is why it doesn't work. How many Facebook pages, Twitter streams and blogs go dead or fail for businesses--even MAJOR corporations have their streams go dead. At WebPartner (webpartner.com) we have created a process where we help create a Twitter community that corresponds to a company’s desired demographics using a set of data points and qualifiers (no auto-following etc.). We then engage that audience with relevant content on behalf of the company. The content has trackable URLs (think bitly for example). We use a PPC model and charge based on how many link clicks we get for our customers. It works brilliantly and customers really love it as we can build (or add to) their Twitter presence and they only pay based on clicks (or our performance). Thanks Stephen Iacullo VP Sales and Marketing WebPartner
5:41AM on 11th February 2010
What has happened to your traffic?
http://trends.google.com/websites?q=econsultancy.com&geo=all&date=ytd&sort=0
6:41AM on 11th February 2010
Interesting post. In terms of actions for online businesses, it's foremost all about adding value for their user , just as google is trying to do. as part of that online businesses remembering to spread your eggs across many baskets from PPC, SEO, Social...
For a transactioning 'shopping' website over a subscription site such as Econsultancy, whilst Social Media will be very important (and is), the direct response benefits of PPC cannot be forgotten particularly when the searcher has purchasing on his mind.
Lets also remember that PPC results are above the natural (results of SEO/social/personalised...) ones. Also note the extra features like sitelinks to pull more eyes and clicks to PPC traffic.
Google Buzz and even their promo video for me hints that they feel like they are in catchup mode and that they wish they could have had the opportunity to buy Twitter.
9:08AM on 11th February 2010
Great post. I think it is a threat to paid search. However, a threat not necessarily to budgets, a threat to agencies and advertisers who do not have an integrated approach to online marketing. One of many reasons why social media has grown is due to developments in technology for its distribution. SEO is one of those tools, and as Econusltancy reports, has taken budget away from PPC in many sectors. PPC will 'naturally' come under scrutiny.
I would expect PPC budgets to put under the microscope a little. The challenge to agencies and advertisers is to ensure they fully understand its role in the purchase cycle and the true value of each PPC click. With advancements in analytical and cross channel attribution platforms this assessment is more readily available. The savvy client will want to know how to measure and attribute spend across all its online channels – Display, Affiliate, Email, PPC, SEO, and Social Media. PPC still has a large part to play. However, cross channel attribution and measurement will allow advertisers to have complete control and confidence that their whole ad-spend budget is being attributed, measured and tracked to optimal ROI.
10:00AM on 12th February 2010
Great post and a fascinating discussion.
In the days before Google if we wanted to know who we should be using to print our brochures or erect our TV aerial we'd look in Yellow Pages or, better still, ask someone for a recommendation. Then Google came along to replace Yellow Pages and we kind of stopped ask people for recommendations quite as much.
The Social Web makes it easy for us to do that again but to the power of hundreds. I believe the average Twitter user has 300 followers; that's a network of 300 people who will happily tell you who to go to for exhibition stands or green electricity or whatever else. OK, it odesn't produce the 1.2 million responses of Google but you only need one strong recommendation of one company to consider placing the business that way.
And here is the potential for companies: scanning the 38 million tweets each day to see who is requesting help around what their company does. It could be a "I need a..." or a request for a recommendation, but it's someone with a need who is requesting contact. It's a sales persons dream!
Read my Econsultancy Q&A for more on how to find those leads at http://econsultancy.com/blog/5408-q-a-ian-hendry-of-wecando-biz-on-social-media-and-lead-generation.
Ian Hendry
CEO, WeCanDo.BIZ
http://www.wecando.biz
11:40AM on 12th February 2010
Let's consider segmenting the tasks required to address social marketing and paid search - they are completely different. Loosely:
PPC provides:
Requires a specific set of expertise, provides immediate and flexible message/offer delivery, targeted to consumers who have a product/service/brand/problem front of mind, can be budgeted/ROI etc.
Social Media provides:
Requires a broad and (often) segmented set of skills: PR, customer service, blogging etc, provides dynamic/conversational, viral and (often) uncontrolled message/offer delivery, customer targeting varies greatly from "praching to the converted" to "tilting at windmills", is virtually impossible to budget/ROI, as success of a campaign can make it unmanageable and automated Social Media can result in negative feedback.
Let's be clear - both come at a cost. However, they are mutually exclusive practises that can be independently or mutually used to excellent effect.
Social Media will only impact PPC in the dreams of a few misguided "strategists" and PR types who don't get Search and feel more comfortable flogging Facebook Connect set ups and Twitter "campaigns".
Fortunately, experienced online marketing managers with a diverse set of experience and requirements would never do anything so silly. PPC is a proven model
3:41PM on 14th February 2010
Surely it depends on what type of traffic is delivering an effective ROI and this will depend on the sort of site you have? E-consultancy lends itself to social media as it's discursive and you might happen upon it via any sort of channel that is on topic, and this may or may not lead into someone taking out a paid membership but mostly I guess it's just people reading the info. But if you run an e-commerce site you need to be more certain that that traffic converts into a sale and PPC and natural search, whilst expensive, is probably more effective at delivering conversions.
CEO at Econsultancy
3:17PM on 15th February 2010
OK... a few replies:
@All:
To give context to what follows, have a look at http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4007/4358851135_382db586fb_o.png which shows our traffic and sales over the last week of January this year by 3 "mediums": social network-referred traffic, natural search and paid search. Crudely it shows that SEO trumps the other three both in volume and value; social media referred traffic trumps PPC in both volume and value. PPC basically isn't worth the effort.
@Wessel:
We did a survey/report called Social Media and Online PR Report and one of the findings was "The biggest barrier to better social media engagement for companies surveyed is the lack of resources (54%)". Time is the elephant in the room in terms of hidden costs for social media. Various sources at the moment, including an unpublished report we have coming out soon, indicate that 10-20% of marketing budgets for online are now being spent on social media.
@Ellen:
Yes, it does take time to build your networks. But worth investing in this I think as in the longer term it gives you an online 'voice' and distribution platform which you can quickly and cost-effectively use.
@Linus:
Yes, that's an interesting point about using PPC to complement and reinforce social media/SEO rather than the other way round. On average more people click on the natural search results (and, I assume, that includes the social search results, Twitter results etc) than on the paid ads. So perhaps having paid search ads on the same search results page as your social search results gives extra credibility with very little cost (if no-one much clicks on them). There's also the 'page saturation' argument that many brands use affiliates for - to muscle out competitors from the prime page space.
@Stephen:
An interesting model. So the Twitter accounts you set up are in the name of your clients? And I assume the customers don't actually *know* that their clicks are being charged to that client? (in the same way as most consumers don't know the CPC model that Google uses)
@Richard:
Our traffic? That graph is pretty accurate. You mean the big dip at the end of Dec / beginning January? It's called Christmas / New Year. Not many people in the office researching internet marketing then. Though more than you might think.
@Sri:
Our challenge with PPC and ROI is that to get ROI we need to bid on very specific terms e.g. 'Social media' wouldn't work but 'evaluation of social media monitoring tools', if it pointed at http://econsultancy.com/reports/online-reputation-and-buzz-monitoring-buyer-s-guide-2008, works very well. But about 2 people a year search on exactly that. And we can try and do 'long tail' keywords but Google often won't let us bid on them because they say there isn't enough search volume to do so.
@Ian:
Yes, liked your interview for us. Another interesting take on how social media can be used for lead generation. I've passed that on to our moderators for our Digital Cream event to be discussed as one of the emerging approaches to lead gen. That's two interesting new takes on social media in this thread alone (PPC and Lead Gen).
@Alex:
PPC is a proven model but, in our case at least, now no longer an effective one. And even where it is effective you are always having to juggle budgets and prioritise resources. So the question is whether it is effective enough given other options. And for a lot of publishers I believe they might get more bang for their buck through social media than PPC.
@Robert:
Yes, of course, it does depend on your business model. However, we make very little money out of people just 'reading our content' so really our commercial focus is to get people to pay for something (could be content, training, events etc.). In that sense all our metrics are like those of a retailer. And almost all publishers are going this way (witness Murdoch and his paywalls). At the same time, etailers are getting into content and experiences ("Magtailing" and "Blogtailing" are new concepts...). Net-a-porter has been famously successful by selling clothes through an 'online magazine'. So, yes, it depends, but I think it's not as simple as saying one thing works for one sector and not another.