Social networks have begun to play a much more important role in the world of online marketing and SEO, and they’re finding their way into the mainstream components of social network features. Since the Bing and Yahoo! merger, Bing has become a trendsetter in establishing a variety of cutting-edge features. The additions it has made related to Facebook as outlined below are just a few of the things that they’ve rolled out to continue their growth in the new year.
Facebook Like Annotations on Bing
Over the past year, Facebook has really pushed its ‘Like’ feature to new levels, allowing it to be integrated directly onto a business’ website. Following its increased use, Bing decided to include social annotations which means liked pages can have an impact upon the Bing rankings of an individual. Social media does influence search engine rankings minimally, but with this addition, Facebook activity can have a great effect, especially since ‘liked’ pages are public in most circumstances while a lot of other Facebook features that they could use for ranking reputation are kept private (like a user’s Wall, for example).
The incorporation of ‘Like’ data by Bing will also serve another purpose beyond rankings. It creates greater networking opportunities by showing the websites that friends have liked each time an individual logs into Bing and a query is made. The idea of customized search results using friend Facebook data is an interesting one and it can definitely allow medical practices to get greater exposure amongst their target audiences. As friends start liking the websites, their friends will have greater exposure to them in their search results and that can encourage them to like the page. In a way, it’s a modern referral process that the medical community already relies upon greatly!
We can help you work with Bing’s new functions and develop a social media strategy that will allow you to benefit from these recent changes and evolve your strategy with others in the future.
