Google recently announced on its Google+ page that internet users will now see different results when they conduct searches for bars, restaurants and other local businesses. Instead of displaying seven to 10 queries in an ordered list, the page serves results in an interactive "carousel" at the top of the screen. This update might force marketers to revisit their SEO strategies to ensure their website content remains visible in SERPs.

Users can scroll to the right to see additional results and hover over displayed thumbnails to highlight locations on a map shown directly below. By clicking on listed places, consumers will see review scores, photos and addresses. Web users can also restrict their results by zooming in on the map to show only businesses in certain communities and neighborhoods.

The page displays the majority domains below the fold, incorporating a mix of local search results and related news articles.

Brafton previously reported that internet marketing professionals noticed Google displaying "in-depth articles" in local search results, bringing longer reviews from respected publications into the fold with listings optimized for local queries.

Now, a search for "BBQ" shows a carousel with 24 local listings (in the Boston area) at the top of the screen, a handful of local domains, articles about the best regional barbecue from The Boston Globe and Zagat and featured ads appear below the fold.

It seems Google is even delivering similar results for search terms that aren't directly related to local bars and restaurants. A query for "vegan" serves the carousel along with a mix of local search listings and educational web content.

The Google+ announcement says the feature is currently only available in the United States and for English queries, but it plans to roll out the same results for other languages in the future. Perhaps more importantly, Google says this is not the end of the line for its changes to local SEO. It plans to bring more features and local places into the new search experience.

As part of Facebook's ongoing efforts to streamline paid advertising on its social network, the company recently announced changes to its Page post link ads that make it easier for marketers to customize their social media content. The latest revamp, which intends to improve conversions, includes three updates:

The first is the ability to upload preferred images. Facebook originally sourced its thumbnail images from brands' websites, but marketers can now select pictures that best display products and services.

"[This] means more flexibility for advertisers … [who] can upload any image they believe will drive the most conversions to their website," the Facebook Studio blog post states.

The second is the option to construct unpublished Page posts in the ad create flow. With this new feature, Facebook gives them more control and flexibility when creating tailored messages for target audiences. In the past, advertisers could only promote existing content.

Page post link ads on News Feeds perform better, generating a 53 percent return on investment in seven days.

Finally, marketers can choose whether they want Page post link ads displayed in their News Feeds or the right-hand column before they're published. Previously, ads were automatically posted to the right of News Feeds. However, an analysis of conversion rates proves that Page post link ads on News Feeds perform better, generating a 53 percent return on investment in seven days.

Brafton previously reported that brands can generate impressive results from Facebook's paid social marketing options. A Triggit report found Facebook Exchange (FBX) ads generate 5x higher clickthrough rates than strategies that display ads in the right-hand column.

Paid ads can be wise for brands that want to strengthen or kick off their social media marketing campaigns, but businesses should use these practices to build momentum for organic social engagement. If companies have solid social visibility, they won't need to pay to get into prospects' News Feeds.

​With newspaper companies experiencing financial troubles and watching their acceptance rates plummet, businesses are discovering the value of content marketing on the web. Brafton reported on an Edelman study that found overall trust in media increased 5 percent year-over-year in 2012. Search engines topped the list with 61 percent of Millennials favoring online content over traditional media outlets (59 percent).

A few months later, and a Gallup poll of 1,529 adults conducted between June 1, 2013 and June 4, 2013, found that only 25 percent of Americans express a great deal of confidence in newspaper content. This metric is down from 28 percent in 2011, and from 51 percent in 1979.

Surprisingly, Millennials expressed the greatest deal of confidence to Gallup, with 30 percent of them saying the offline publications will continue to influence news coverage in the foreseeable future. Americans aged 30 to 49 (22 percent) and 50 to 64 (17 percent) show the least amount of interest in newspapers.

While these publications didn't receive overwhelming support from the American people, they still generated a higher confidence rate than Congress (10 percent) and big business (22 percent).

Either way, companies that want to build public presences and grow brand recognition should do so online, as web content and social media marketing can expand business' reach much farther than newspapers. Developing a content marketing strategy that includes online press releases, regular blog content, social media updates and video posts can spread newsworthy information on the web and increase search discovery via Google and Bing.

Brands that traditionally relied on offline marketing channels for exposure shouldn't delay moving to the internet for much longer - there's too much money to be made online to still depend on offline media outlets for ROI.

Marketers who use social media content to spread branded messages to target audiences will continue to widen their reach. A recent eMarketer report revealed that approximately one in four people worldwide will use social media by the end of 2013. Brands must be on networks where their prospects are active in order to start conversations that lead to conversions and build loyalty.

Social media's growing global presence

Last year, 1.47 billion people around the world used social media, the report found. eMarketer just revised its original projections to accommodate for faster-than-expected adoption. It upped its original prediction for 2013 by 100 million - so the number is forecast to hit 1.73 billion this year.

It's likely that many of these users are on Facebook because the social network is attracting billions of global users, Brafton previously reported. In fact, 915 million of the company's 1.11 billion monthly active users were outside of the United States and Canada.

While the majority of social media growth is expected to take place overseas, figures are still climbing in North America. eMarketer reported there are currently 163.5 million social network participants in the U.S., but that number will climb up by 6 million in 2014 and hit 183.8 million in 2017.

Listen in for social marketing success

Brands that use these channels to their advantages have opportunities to tap into social chatter unavailable anywhere else on the web. Today, marketers can hear what their prospects are saying in real time, and then deliver timely responses that satisfy their needs. Social monitoring can similarly advise businesses about which channels will generate the most content ROI.

"Each social platform will work differently for each company based on its industry, product and marketing tactic."

A recent report from SumAll estimates the average value of a Tweet is $25.62, but it advises companies against putting all their efforts into the most popular social networks simply because they assume that's where money can be made. Instead, marketers must listen to the conversations taking place across channels and determine where meaningful dialogs happen.

"Each social platform will work differently for each company based on its industry, product and marketing tactic, making the understanding of which specific digital marketing efforts drive results even more valuable," the SumAll report states.

For some B2C companies, Pinterest and Facebook will generate the most engagement, leads and conversions, whereas B2B enterprises thrive on Twitter and Google+. Ultimately, marketers must know their target demographics well enough to reach them wherever they're most active online.

​Twitter may be best known for its 140-character Tweet feature, but the company m​ight​ have some other communication ideas up its sleeves for future rollout. In a recent Tweet, Twitter CEO Dick Costolo plugged a new handle @Magicrecs, saying it's "a product of some great work by the team here." But what exactly is this Twitter account, and can a handle be a feature in and of itself?

Marketing Land's Matt McGee published a nice summary of what people know about @Magicrecs at the moment, writing that the account promises to provide users with targeted social media content related to their interests, connections and engagement. The account's bio states:

"Follow me to get personalized real-time recommendations of users and content, delivered instantly as they happen, via direct message to you. At most three per day."

After connecting with the handle, McGee received a direct message that informed him of his friends' recent activities on Twitter. The social media network's engineer Tim Trueman tweeted a few days ago that @Magicrecs will send users direct messages full of content that could compel them to engage with brands and users in more personalized ways. More, @Magicrecs tweeted in May 2013 that it can receive direct messages from any account on Twitter, an option not traditionally available to the average user.

Perhaps Twitter is testing a new way to increase communication between users online, preparing to release a direct message function that adds more content marketing value to the social hub. Brands could use a new DM option to interact with influencers in more meaningful ways, providing followers with access to deals and discounts, or personally thanking new connections for support.

Marketers have been alerted about the benefits of setting up Google Authorship, which links online content to authors' bylines via Google+ profiles. Rich snippets that feature writers' pictures and names next to domains entice clicks and provide better visibility in SERPs.

A recent study from Search Mojo's Janet Driscoll Miller found that Authorship might not be limited to website content, and brands may be able to build authority with other indexable filetypes as well.

Miller told Search Engine Land that her experiments revealed Google can infer Authorship in PowerPoint files, Word documents and even Excel Spreadsheets that contain the term "by (author's name)."

Documents might not even have to use the term - "by (author's name)" - to display Authorship information in search. Miller found a white paper formatted in Word will appear in SERPs with an author snippet even if it doesn't include an explicit byline. This suggests the search engine might be getting better at picking up context cues to infer authorship.

Google is continually making strides toward a more transparent web that gives content writers credit. 

This is in line with a recent Webmaster Help Channel video, in which Google Search Engineer Matt Cutts relays his excitement about Authorship's potential. He says the search engine is continually making strides toward a more transparent web that gives content writers credit and makes it harder for people to anonymously post spammy content. Cutts suggests Google is moving away from basic ranking signals and shifting toward complex algorithms that provide internet users with better search experiences.

If Google recognizes online content published outside of website articles, it might become easier for writers to establish authority around their work. Brands that set up Authorship for their contributors can achieve better online visibility and showcase their internal talent.

Marketers who publish content for SEO know creativity and originality are key to SEO success. Google's search algorithm updates have been revised to weed out spammy online content more effectively - i.e. unoriginal articles, blogs, product descriptions that do not provide internet users with value. Still, Google's Search Engineer Matt Cutts' latest Webmaster Help Channel video says the photos attached to news articles don't necessarily have to be original... yet.

Cutts explains that as far as he is concerned, the leading search engine does not use any signals that rank domains higher in SERPs for using original photos in content. Conversely, he reports there's no algorithm that punishes sites for posting stock photos with their web content.

However, he says the question sparks fodder that could eventually turn into a new ranking signal.

"That's a great suggestion for a future signal that we could look at in terms of search quality," Cutts says. "Who knows? Maybe original image sites might be higher quality, whereas sites that just repeat the same stock photos over and over might not be nearly as high quality."

"Maybe original image sites might be higher quality, whereas sites that just repeat the same stock photos over and over might not be nearly as high quality."

Although Google hasn't announced any algorithm updates that target brands' photos, the search engine has been updating image search results with end-users in mind. Brafton has reported on two changes that could impact website traffic. One provides high-resolution images directly in image search results, so individuals don't have to visit host sites to see larger images. The other includes navigation arrows to the left and right of images, enabling users to easily sift through photos without clicking on images and redirecting to publishers' pages.

If there's truth to Cutts' response, marketers need to become more vigilant about the graphic content they publish.

Skeptics that usually refrain from adopting buzzwords like Tweet and big data into their lexicons should take note - even the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) has officially accepted both terms. Marketers who have been reluctant to fully embrace the social network should take this as a signal that Twitter is more than a flash in the pan, and social media content produced for the channel is an important part of branding efforts.

The 2013 OED release will include "Tweet" as a noun and verb, referring to use related to the social network. While most words must be current for a decade before OED will consider them for the book, it made an exception to the rule for the term. Also in this round of inclusions - OED added crowdsourcing, redirect, stream (verb), e-reader and mouseover to its vocabulary.

This makes sense, considering Twitter now has more than 200 monthly active users, and the site publishes 340 million Tweets every day, Brafton previously reported.

To remain competitive, marketers must invest in social media marketing on Twitter and other major channels to deliver real-time updates to customers and prospects.

​Ever wonder how much a Tweet is worth? Analytics firm SumAll has the exact dollar amount.

According to analysis of Twitter traffic through conversion, SumAll found that a single Tweet generates approximately $25.62 in revenue. A ReTweet produces a return of $20.37. While these values may seem substantial for 140-character posts, SumAll CEO Dan Atkinson explains that the content ROI rarely matches the amount of resource dedicated to social media marketing in today's highly digital marketplace. More, data found that additional Tweets don't necessarily mean more revenue - it takes approximately six to eight extra Tweets to double ROI.

The same analysis also compared Twitter reach to Instagram returns. The report noted that one Instagram follower is worth 10 times more than a Twitter follower.

"Usually, the vast majority of people will get more advocacy from Instagram than they will from Twitter," Atkinson said with a caveat. "It's a hard channel to develop a big communications strategy around."

However, other brands see just as much success with Twitter marketing than across any other channel. The social media network recently published a success story to its blog that showed how Lenovo was able to create demand for its products using strategic Tweets in the U.K.

The computer giant wanted to generate interest in its products during the Gadget Show Live, and it used a variety of Promoted Tweets and Promoted Accounts to achieve its goal. By targeting specific user bases with custom social media content, @Lenovo_UK​ ​generated $27,000 in revenue, which represents a 4:1 sales to spend ration, according to Twitter. In addition to noticeable ROI, Lenovo's UK Twitter handle increased brand mentions by 700 percent and acquired 2,500 new followers throughout the event.

While SumAll suggests Tweets can't produce the type of ROI companies want to see, data from the social network offers a different story. Brands that want to increase interest in their products and services can benefit from Twitter, but they must produce engaging content and maintain a consistent presence online to produce a flywheel marketing approach that delivers returns on a regular basis.

Nearly all businesses recognize the value of social media marketing. Brafton previously reported that 86 percent of brands think social media content contributes to their success, and 97 percent use social networks to promote their products and services. Still, some marketers are leveraging social media better than others, according to the recently released 2013 Social Brands 100 report from Headstream.

The findings show brands are more successful when they have presences across major channels, but focus their efforts on the networks where target audiences are most active.

Travel industry flying high with social media marketing

Travel companies performed well in this year's evaluation, dominating four of the top 10 positions on the list. Overall, the travel industry represents 15 percent of top ranking social marketing efforts.

The report found airlines, travel agents, bus and train operations use Twitter to stay at the pulse of trends and quickly respond to customers' issues. As a result, they received top marks for response time and response rate performance. All surveyed travel brands are active on both Twitter and Facebook, but only 89 percent currently have YouTube channels. They also had a bigger digital footprint on Foursquare than other sectors because of the channels' focus on location.

Likewise, travel brands must respond to in-transit customers using internet-enabled devices to resolve complaints and mitigate real-time social concerns. Adobe Systems' Hotel Benchmarking Metrics report shows that consumers use tablets more than PCs to visit hotel websites. Companies can reach smartphone and tablet owners through social networks to prompt last-minute bookings.

A social strategy success story

American Airlines, which secured the No. 2 spot on the list, earned the highest score in the travel sector. Director of Social Communications Jonathan Pierce said the company began taking social media marketing seriously a couple years ago when it became apparent that customers were highly active on the networks, thanks to the proliferation of mobile devices. They were using networks to resolve both pre- and post-travel issues, which inspired the company to develop a strategy based on a two-pronged approach with online content.

"There is a long way to go, social is constantly changing and the way our customers use social is constantly evolving."

"From our business perspective, having the reservations people, who tend to deal with pre-travel issues, in the same space as the public relations people, who often handle post-travel issues, can speed up response," Pierce states.

Still, the key to success is agility, he says. "There is a long way to go, social is constantly changing and the way our customers use social is constantly evolving."

Brands' social marketing strategies must evolve to remain effective in today's fast-moving culture. Marketers can use social monitoring to evaluate when followers' behaviors are changing so they can adapt practices around evolving demand.