It appears we might be rounding the corner toward social search experiences, as a number of major players have moved in the same direction. Facebook just announced users can now repurpose social media content shared within the network to external sites via embedded posts. The social network will roll out the feature to all users shortly, giving members the ability to publish shared posts on other websites and blogs.
This news proves that brands’ one-dimensional internet marketing efforts will no longer show meaningful results. SEO strategies, social practices and content marketing efforts must work together to drive success.
In a Facebook newsroom blog post, the world’s largest social network explains its new feature empowers users and brands to share breaking news, valuable updates and meaningful comments with people outside of the network. This move also enlarges Facebook’s digital footprint, assuming that users populate external sites with social content.
Facebook is not alone in its mission to bring social data to wider internet audiences. Brafton recently reported on a patent Google secured for technology that brings social collateral to search results.
As the two channels diverge, brands’ social media marketing collateral has heightened potential to reach new prospects and nurture leads as they cross channels. However, there is inherent danger in synthesizing these efforts. Search engines reward companies that produce original custom content throughout the ‘net because these brands provide internet users with valuable experiences every time they cross digital touch points. It could be detrimental for search rankings and UX if brands were to scale back their efforts in light of this shift, producing just one stream of content and then redistributing those same materials across channels.
