Search vs Discovery

An uncomfortable fact is uncomfortable!!

Today your website is the last place people go to in order to find out about your brand, products, and services.

While Google is still the best at directing visitors to sites, you can’t look at those numbers without being impressed. Turning to social media for extra traffic is a very worthy investment — if you play your cards right.

Let's take a fairly simplified view of the key differences between 'searching' and discovery;

Search is awesome??if the person carrying out that task knows what they're searching for. Of course 'semantic' search helps to refine that search - try searching for 'hat' and see how many terms come up for that one keyword.

So, by making sure your website and related pages are technically optimised, and its able to be indexed by our friends at Google (its their bat and ball after all) then you may well win out over your competitors based on how well you 'rank' but as with anything in business its an ongoing process.

We all know gaining #1 organic position for your keywords is the goal of every business, because coming 4th and thereafter means very few people will visit your site.

Social media (without the intrusive adverts) is really about how we naturally 'discover' things that we might not be 'searching' for, it's the stuff that 'interest us', intrigues and informs.

Its stuff that our friends and work colleagues have found of interest, and some of their interest sparks our curiosity, its just social right?

The chart below shows that over time, people are increasingly going to social media rather than search engines to find their information and the product they'll purchase. Perhaps it’s because younger people are wise to all the ways that search rankings and product reviews can be gamed, and they trust their social contacts more.

If you utilise social as a most amazing Superpower, leverage employee, and customer advocacy to a greater level than your competitors, guess what happens?

Yes, your organic ranking also improves, you magically 'own' that space, not just for keyword terms, but all those matched terms, and long tail keywords that also add up to the value recognised by the Google algorithm.

Social media when done within the context of a brand strategy creates conversations with people who are more inclined to 'listen' and 'engage' in those conversations if they are coming from our friends and peer groups - not the corporate bullhorn!

If brands started to create (not corporate) content, empowered by employees (who tend to have more followers than the CEO btw), engage in conversations, create conversations, and above all 'listen' you will be surprised at how your spend can go down, your sales can go up, and you can create, and join in with some very loyal communities.?

Arguably, it’s easier than trying to rank in Google since you’ve already done most of your work elsewhere — namely, on your own website.

That doesn’t mean it’s a total walk in the park, especially if you aren’t already a big and famous brand. But if others do it, and you want to do it too, why run from the challenge?

Stop measuring reach, and start creating and involving in 'engagement'.