How Big an Impact Does Social Media Play in Google Local Results?

[Linda Buquet]

Dang wish G+ would let me embed posts from my own community!​

How Big an Impact Does Social Media Play in Google Local Results?

That was a question asked by Tom Bristol in our Local Search Pros Community.
And the answers may surprise you!

<a href="https://plus.google.com/+TomBristol1/posts/S3LSgMLvVNw">How big of an impact do you think Social Media plays in Google Local results?</a>

Here are a couple quick excerpts from our VERY knowledgeable members:

David Kutcher
If you visit my profile, check out my pinned post on local search and progressive influence. I believe it can be huge based on personalized search in local, connected markets.

Bryan Heckler
I think it completely depends on who those users are that are sharing/commenting. If they have a strong social profile for the area I certainly think it helps with local relevancy.

Aaron Watters
Awesome topic Tom, I know you tagged #facebook but we're doing a small case study on Google+ Local posting frequency and looking for correlation with higher map rankings.

Eric from Stone Temple recently put out this post regarding Twitter links - https://www.stonetemple.com/tweeting-a-link-to-a-page-might-get-it-indexed/. We oftentimes share new links via social that we want to get indexed quicker.

Tom Bristol
Does anyone know of an easy way to inspect the actual Page Social Metrics from Open Site Explorer?

Those are just a few snippets. Click over to read the full thread.


What do you think???

Feel free to add your insights HERE or THERE!

(I'm trying to cross pollinate all the great info from both communities, because not everyone has time to read both every day.)

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[JacobMaslow]

As per a recent article I wrote, SEO firms tend to overstate the impact of social.
Personalized results and people that are actively engaged with you are outliers.


SEO Firms Overstate the Longevity of Social Media?|?Rapid News Network

 

[heckler]

As per a recent article I wrote, SEO firms tend to overstate the impact of social.
Personalized results and people that are actively engaged with you are outliers.

SEO Firms Overstate the Longevity of Social Media?|?Rapid News Network

I don't doubt some agencies overstate the importance of Social, but that doesn't change the fact that we can influence searches directly through social strategies (Google Plus circles, passive advertisement from engagements like commenting, sharing and liking). I would argue that more often than not they're not being overstated, but executed poorly.

Comscore circa 2013​

When you really start digging into these social networks, the outliers that you cite are the people your strategies should be targeting specifically. Typically they're the influencers that decide whether or not your local-social strategy will work.

Granted, that's easier said than done for some segments (namely blue-collar ones), but IMO anyone worth their salt is keeping an eye on Facebook's local search roll-out (which according to that Rain-man Zuckerberg will be ratcheting up over the next 2-3 years).

Zuckerberg's 3, 5 And 10 Year Facebook Plan - Business Insider​

 

[JacobMaslow]

Actually, I wrote an article about targeting influencers earlier today. Facebook should have that technology out shortly.

Facebook Patent Allows Advertising Only to Important People

In any event, if you are doing local for a client, Social should definitely be a part of the mix. We have close to 400 local optometry clients so we are able to have a social media and graphics team. As that is all the team does, they are able to concentrate on it.

Facebook has a couple of things coming out for local so over the long run, it will payoff. But my point is that if you were to focus on social expecting your SEO to be affected, you are going to be disappointed.

Social shares cannot replace links. And personalization is not going to bring you significant traffic.