Social Media Power Profiles: Is Google In Your Mix?

Building up an authoritative status on social media profiles is a very important element that users spend hours doing daily. Usually it’s with some of the most popular social communities like Digg, Flickr, YouTube, Facebook, etc. How many social media enthusiasts and search marketers actually stop to consider their Google profiles though?

When I discuss Google profiles I’m not talking about optimizing a current Google Profile page. I’m talking about increasing your trust and authority by delivering value and contributions.

Google is increasingly creating and testing new channels of social media throughout all of their offerings. Some of the most notable and recent ones have been:

What’s Popular
Social Search
OpenSocial
SideWiki
Experimental Search
Google Wave
Friend Connect
Orkut
Real-time search
And many other sharing features being incorporated into things like Google Reader and more.

As Google continues to keep expanding and exploring the social media realm the importance of starting to build up powerful and authoritative profile(s) with Google is even more important than ever. Establishing trust in your profile now ensures being able to take maximum advantage of present and future social developments by Google.

Why is this important?

Google tends to have so much going on that it has very little follow through in marketing and finishing products. However, this won’t always be the case. Let’s say they were to make the “What’s Popular” gadget into a social voting site that competed with Digg.com. If they promoted it heavily people would be clamoring to build up authority and trust to their profiles to promote content there. This same theory applies to all their social products and services including reviews.

Reviews are one of the most powerful things you can do with your profile. Google’s OneBox maps provide a handy way for anyone to do so. Endorsing or condemning of another company’s products or services can make or break someone else’s decision to purchase or use them. The social element of local SEO is a very important one in the algorithm. Other people’s thoughts, opinions, and experiences with businesses and websites are going to be considered more and more in the future for rankings in organic search, mobile applications, local map search and more.

Aside from the algorithmic aspect, the more authoritative users are going to be trusted more by other users making careful consumer decisions. I wouldn’t be surprised to see Google Product Search adding significant social aspects in the future like so many other social shopping sites do.

We don’t know what Google’s next move is going to be. And when it may seem that their next move is significant, it could fall flat on it’s face. What we do know is that Google is ambitious, innovative and has plenty of money and resources to do whatever they please. The time for marketers to start preparing themselves to reap early rewards is now.

Opinions expressed in the article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land.

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http://btzweb.com/blog waltgoshert

Everyone seems to forget or dismiss Google in the Social Space. While others are concerned that Google knows too much about them or their business.

One thing is certain: Google isn’t going away and social elements ARE going to play a big role in local search.

Every local brick and mortar biz would be wise to saddle up, get on the Google horse and start riding.
http://www.audettemedia.com Adam Audette

This is absolutely right on, Jordan. Think of Knol for example – http://knol.google.com – which rewards steady and quality contributions with clean followed links: http://knol.google.com/k/follow-vs-nofollow-links-in-knol. Knol never really became what some thought it would – a Wiki killer – but it’s still there and it still works to pass pagerank when used correctly. There are so many social ‘touch points’ Google has, great job outlining that point and reminding us that social isn’t just about Digg, Stumble, etc.