5 Social Media Changes that May Impact Your Business Soon

Social media and search engine optimization change constantly, and it can be difficult to keep up and adjust your company’s strategy to compensate for this. Surprises that negate your online marketing plans are the last thing any company needs, but few businesses have the time to stay up-to-date on the latest nuances while also managing all of the other factors that go in to running a successful company.  Few businesses also have the time to determine which changes and updates are significant enough to require them to adjust their approach, and which are of little importance.

To make understanding these changes more manageable and actionable, below are five recently announced SEO and social media changes that may impact your business in the near future. These changes, once they are implemented, will mean new strategies and new ways of conducting your online marketing campaigns could be necessary.

Facebook Graph Search Going Mobile

Facebook is currently testing a mobile version of Graph Search, the new search function that’s currently only available in English and on the Facebook webpage. After launching in August 2013 after months of testing, the main reason why a mobile rollout has been slow is because the company is working to index over 1 trillion connections and 1 trillion status updates (and counting).

Although there’s no official date for the mobile release, Graph Search for Facebook mobile will have the biggest impact on local businesses. Graph Search can utilize the GPS in a user’s phone to determine, for example, “restaurants that my friends visited nearby.” Although it currently isn’t common for users to share every single restaurant and business they frequent on Facebook, this behavior may change as the information becomes more valuable to other users. Search queries like this example may trump other review or check-in sites as people would rather see a friend’s preference or recommendation over a stranger’s.

Google Search Displays More Information about Results

For Google Search on desktop only, certain search results can now include a website description. When Google announced this feature in January 2014, the company said the information will be available on sites that are “widely recognized as notable online, when there is enough information to show or when the content may be handy for you.” The information is put together using the company’s new Knowledge Graph, and although it’s only planned to be available on the desktop for now, the company said that mobile and app versions may be available later this year.

This feature is still in its early stages. Preliminary research showed only non-profit organizations, major news outlets, and a few large brands had descriptions. The research also found that the information for every entity came from Wikipedia, so it’s possible only results from businesses with a Wikipedia entry will be eligible to have the additional information appended to their results. The descriptions also only appear for normal web searches and not for news articles searches or image searches. This change to Google’s search results seems helpful for end users, but it’s not something that small businesses need to worry about until it becomes more prominent in use and scope.

Facebook Launches Paper

Paper is a new iPhone app from Facebook that allows users to discover content through an immersive design. When a user opens the app, the first section is always the Facebook News Feed. Subsequent sections can be customized to follow certain interests. These sections are filled with content curated by human editors as well as an algorithm specific to the app. The new design also allows for longer posts and better visuals for photos and video.

This app is completely different from the social network itself as well as the original Facebook app, and delivers an experience predicated on content. Most companies will be fine sticking with the “original” Facebook that they have been using, since Paper doesn’t allow companies to engage specific users, such as those who follow your brand, but companies that are already creating a lot of content may want to consider sharing it more heavily on Facebook, especially videos and photos. It’s those two types of that the Facebook Paper app emphasizes.

Pinterest Has a New “Interests” Category

Following its move to make recipes easier to find, Pinterest is testing a new tool called “Interests”, where users can search pins based on specific interests. So, someone who’s interested in traveling would want to find more travel pins for worldwide destinations, while someone who’s interested in traveling to New York City would be interested in New York City travel pins exclusively, and the tool is designed to identify and differentiate niche interests like this. Prior to this addition, pins were sorted into general topics, where users then had to scour the site to find the pins they wanted.

For small and medium-sized businesses, this new feature means you have to think a little bit differently about the pins you’re posting and how they are organized. You have to consider the interests your audience has and post pins that match those interests so that they can find your brand through those pins. The new feature also means thinking about interests that would match your products and services, which may be easier for some industries than others. For example, a financial services firm could categories its products and services under the interests of money, financial planning and economics.

Facebook May Feature Its Ads Outside of Facebook

If your business is already spending money on Facebook ads, then those ad dollars could start to go much further in the coming months. Facebook is currently testing the possibility of having its ads follow users off of their site, partnering with third-party mobile apps to develop an external ad network. Facebook is taking this direction with its ads as a way to improve the reach of Facebook’s advertisers as well as to provide a way for developers to monetize their apps. The idea of an external ad network has been rumored for almost two years, but this is the first sign that those rumors may be true. It’s possible that current testing may show there isn’t much in an external network for advertisers to get excited about, but it’s unknown when the public will know the results of this testing.

How do you feel about these updates? Do you think any of them would be good for your business? Continue the conversation in the comments section!