When we posted our SEO Plan for 2015, it got us thinking. We mentioned the importance of social media in your SEO strategy, but what’s the status of that much ballyhooed phenomenon of a decade or so ago, ‘social search’? (From the Wiki: Social search is a type of web search that takes into account the Social Graph of the person initiating the search query.) Remember these?

The point behind ‘social search’ was that folks in your social networks may be similar to you, so results they like, you may as well. Sounds good, right? But Techcrunch just posted that Social Search is dead. Is it? Well, to help arrive at an answer, we did a simple thing: we searched for ‘social search’ on Google. And here’s what we got:

Hmmm. Do you see any of those ‘+1s’? Author pictures or info? ‘Your social connection’ shared this? No siree. And it’s not just that search phrase, try it yourself. It just hasn’t caught fire, at least from a broad perspective. Why not? Well, some deals fell thru, like Google bringing in Twitter info. But also the fact that lotsa people don’t have very large networks to draw from, or simply that Google’s algorithms work just great as they are, drawing off of millions and millions of various factors.

So does that mean social media doesn’t matter to your SEO strategy? Absolutely not! Social search may be on life support, but the importance of social media in your SEO strategy is huge. You want your blog, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn & other social media links right up top by your website. It also adds credibility to your brand in search results. Hey, we eat our own dog food, here’s our listings on a search on our brand:

Bottom line, as social media pertains to your SEO Plans for 2015, continue being selective with your networks, stay very active, post frequently to your company blog. And use your chosen keyword phrases where relevant.

Oh, if you want some more information on the history of social search, here’s a great post from Wiki.