It’s been bandied about for some time now in search engine optimisation (SEO) circles that social media must be part of any well-rounded search engine optimisation (SEO) strategy. But the need to implement social media campaigns has taken on a new level of importance with the announcement by Bing of the expansion of its partnership with Facebook.

You’ve Got To Like These Results

What’s happened is that Bing is introducing enhancements to its search results by including Facebook Likes. In other words, searches in the “new” Bing will include information shared by your friends on Facebook, if relevant to your search query, that is. This new feature is known as “Liked Results”, and the idea behind it is to spotlight items your friends on Facebook have expressed a liking for. For example, if you search for Indian restaurants in Bradford, the results will no longer just show restaurants delivered by the web, but also places your Facebook friends like. And they’ll appear in the top results, thanks to the social signal that returned them.

It’s supposed to be a more personal reflection of what takes place in real life, i.e. you tell a friend you’re looking for a good dentist, and they recommend someone to you. So, since these Liked Results come from Facebook friends of yours, the assumption is that the results you receive will act like personal recommendations for you for the search terms you entered and, maybe, as a result, help you discover new areas of interest you might also like. 

Bing states that Liked Results won’t appear for all search queries, but that the additional social information from friends will enrich the online search experience by helping the user make decisions that are more informed thanks to the shared experiences of like-minded people.

The Right Profile

Quite a few search queries (over 4 percent) involve trying to find people online, and most of the results returned are the same links for people with the same or similar name making it hard to narrow down the search to exactly the right person. This is where Facebook Profile Results comes in.

If you’re searching for a friend, say Brian Jones, you’ll see plenty of entries about famous guitarists, balloonists, etc., but where’s that old secondary school chum of yours? With your Facebook friends following you over to Bing, finding the correct Brian Jones will be much easier. And, once you’ve tracked them down, the Bing results will give you the option to add them as a friend in Facebook or send a message to them to make sure you’ve got the right Brian.

There Goes My Privacy!

Well, not according to Bing. Apparently, the results they’ll display are the same results available from content that’s designated as public, and, so, available to anybody looking directly at their own Facebook network. The advantage that having this information presented through Bing brings is the addition of relevancy to particular search queries.

And you’re not obliged to “opt in” to the new Bing-Facebook initiative, since Bing will allow you to disable this feature or learn more about it before deciding whether or not you want to take advantage of it.

Bing assures users that their search queries are private and will not be reflected back to Facebook, so no-one will be able to see your queries.

Even though Google began offering social search results about a year ago, Bing’s version promises to be a lot more powerful and accurate than Google’s with results being highly personalised thanks to the friends connection.

While Bing still lags well behind Google as far as overall search market percentage is concerned, it still represents a significant search volume, and if you and your internet business want to take advantage of this new initiative, the sooner you make your presence felt on Facebook, the better.

When it comes to maximising your business’s presence on the various social media platforms, as part of your search engine optimisation (SEO) strategy, there’s little doubt your best option is to enlist the services of a UK internet business coach, who’ll work with you to ensure your internet business is highly visible in Bing’s new Liked Results category.

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