SEOs wil need to change their strategies if Bing's new Facebook feature on search results pages wins over customers' queries.

Have you ever found yourself with multiple windows open on your computer because you are updating social media content while simultaneously performing searches? Bing doesn’t want you – or your site visitors – to have to navigate between different windows to multitask, so it introduced a new feature to its social sidebar. The result? Social media marketing and SEO blended into a single seamless experience.

“Starting today, you will see comments on a relevant Facebook post within sidebar, as well as the ability to add your own, all without having to leave Bing,” the search engine announced in a blog post. “Now you can see what your friends might know about what you’re searching for and engage with them directly without leaving the search page.

Bing social content results

Bing adds that users can also “Like” Facebook posts without navigating away from the search engine. This means internet users will be able to interact with social content without logging into the network first, which can provide brands with additional opportunities to reach prospects online. Immense reach, actually, considering that Facebook’s latest counts show it has around 1.11 billion monthly active users.

Brafton previously reported the social media giant’s domination remains unchallenged, despite talk that Facebook lost an estimated 10 million users between 2012 and 2013. While a larger portion of its growth now comes from emerging markets, Facebook still gained approximately 4 million North American users in the past year.

Bing’s betting that publishing relevant social media content alongside search results will improve the user experience enough to grab a more significant percentage of the search space. If consumers do find that social comments can better guide their queries and results, this new feature could have a widespread impact on SEO and brands’ content marketing strategies.

Lauren Kaye is a Marketing Editor at Brafton Inc. She studied creative and technical writing at Virginia Tech before pursuing the digital frontier and finding content marketing was the best place to put her passions to work. Lauren also writes creative short fiction, hikes in New England and appreciates a good book recommendation.