When Search Engines Meet Social Networking
I spent some time using Google Trends today. Google Trends is a tool Google created to measure traffic for terms and websites. For example, one can compare search terms such as “mountain bikes” vs. “road bikes”. Here are the results:
Mountain Bikes (Blue) vs. Road Bikes (Red)
As you can see the results are divided between search volume and news reference. The “A”, “B” etc. in the Search Volume index refer to cited news articles over the years in case you had in interest. These citations would be of a higher interest to something with a dramatic progression and decline, like the stock market.
As interesting as road and mountain bike publicity are, the publicity for search engines and social networking have officially met. Yahoo’s search engine and the social networking site Facebook have shaken hands. Here’s the evidence:
Not only have they shook hands, but Facebook has said goodbye and has continued to exceed Yahoo’s traffic. This information is breakthrough, it marks a new age in internet marketing. The primary heat is being taken off of search engines and placed more avidly on social media and networking websites.
Assuming that social networking is the next best things for internet marketing, in which basket should we place our eggs? Some of the top social networking sites include Myspace, Facebook, Twitter, Hi5, and Bebo. Let’s go ahead and compare the trends. Here are the results:
Current Results:
1. Facebook.com
2. Myspace.com
3. Hi5.com
4. Bebo.com
5. Twitter.com
As we can see Myspace was a leader in the past, but has been exceeded by Facebook in the past year. Twitter is small but is growing, along with Bebo and Hi5. Checking trends of the social media hotspots pertains to directing traffic, and finding the popular place to do so is all part of the greater picture in online marketing. Please refer to Online Marketing the Easy and Hassle-Free Way to understand how we relate information like this into our business. It will be interesting to compare these results in another quarter or two, and what we at BlitzLocal can do with information provided.
