Although many people and marketers are turning to social media for a variety of reasons, at least one expert says there will always be a need for "navigation" and therefore a need for search engine optimization (SEO).
Writing for the Search Insider blog at MediaPost, Rob Griffin says that the popularity of social media will create a "major evolutionary shift" in search, but says that there will still always be a need for search as people try to navigate around the web.
But Griffin notes that he – and potentially many readers – would much rather get information from friends, family, or even other internet users who have been looking for the same knowledge – something that can be done easily through social media. And here is where the combination of search and social media has real value.
"You can never underestimate the power combination of immediacy and word of mouth," he wrote. "But given the nature of what social search can be, it will never add a lot of value navigationally – so I see that search activity staying at an engine."
With sites like Twitter and Facebook incorporating search functionality into the world of web 2.0 to give users real-time search results, companies and other users of these sites may want to consider making sure they are using search engine optimization for their tweets or posts.
