Social Factors - the End of Most Intelligent Content On The Web

[coachm]

I see that Google is now using social signals in their SERPS, and I'm quite stunned, in part as a business and also as a search consumer.

This is the single most evil thing I've seen in terms of its impact, if in fact social signals (in essence a measure of POPULARITY, not quality) play anything but a minor role in SERPS.

As social factors increase in importance, the point of creating original, thought leading, anything OTHER than simple mass content is removed.

The reality is that social media is a popular medium focuses on people (not a bad thing in itself), rather than content. The vast majority of the best and brightest in terms of subject matter experts in many niches, simply are NOT spending time pushing their ideas on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIN. They, in fact, we if I be a bit presumptuous, have better things to do with our time. Nothing wrong with social but if popularity (number of tweeted links/likes) is a deciding factor in ranking, those creating the best content in terms of "thought value" simply won't show up.

Apart from the fact that I've spend 15 years creating original content (I mean original, not some sad recast of what everyone else is saying), in print -- articles and books, and online (free, mind you), and that may now be worthless to me, it means that in my role of "content curation" (ok, finding and linking to the best content) is done.

There is now very little incentive to publish new ideas and thoughts to move fields forward, not only because it's hard to monetize, but because no one will see it because it won't have "buzz".

I work a lot with government, and have long wanted to open up a website on the topic, and have grabbed a few domains I might want to use. Now, there's no point.

If you look at social media, for example, what you will find is loads of stuff including the key word government from upset citizens, the political right, and so on....essentially contentless or worthless if one's interest is helping people understand government.

Project canned.

Finding the best content in niches from true authorities (scientists, academics, book authors that don't get buzz) has become harder and harder, and now the curation role is cooked.

And the kicker is, not only is content not king, replaced by "popularity", but the spamming of the SERPS and the pollution of an already polluted social media environment can begin aforce.

It's a trivial technical exercise to tweet every second on something, to vary the tweets, in order to boost SERPS. I have tools to do that, and they are openly available. I don't use them except to post occasional automated tweets for things I think are valuable and always spaced far apart.

Why shouldn't I just go completely black hat and do that?

If that's what it takes to be found, I won't do it, and not only that but there would not be any point in using the Internet anymore, EXCEPT to socialize.

I'm seriously stunned here. I hope I've got this wrong, but not only has Google crushed businesses like mine that trade in ideas and content, it has the potential to significantly damage the society at large by LIMITING (unintentionally) the spread of the very information that runs the economic engines of this planet.

I'm thinking that of course, social indicators will be only a part of determining SERP's, so the effect hopefully isn't as absolute as it could be.

Finally, perhaps this social factoring explains why my sales have gone to zero, my adsense income has disappeared, and what I worked to build is now almost useless to me, to those in my niches, and to the larger world.

Someone, tell me I've got this all wrong.

[coachm]

Thanks AlyssaS and Leosghost.

I'm not giving up. I'm starting a move to more fertile fields where I can do what I want, how I want with the people I want (erp, well, that's the hope).

Shutting stuff down is a business strategy, and a personal strategy so I can accomplish what I'd like in the years remaining to me.

As for using Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, you bet I'm feeding feeds, and in fact, I've "feedified" some of my pages this week to completely automate the entire process on STATIC HTML content.

I'm so shmart! Except that's a p*ss poor use of "social" tech.

By shutting down sites, it will allow me to keep my webwork time constant, or reduce it, by focusing on creating/modifying so my remaining sites are really top notch, or as good as I can get them.

But as Leosghost says, it's not much fun anymore, although right now, I'm determined to get my traffic back, and I'm a stubborn cuss.

But the plan is to do road warrior conference speaking and live training, where I'm hoping to command more in one hour than I could reasonably earn in three months of web income (at current levels). Then again, I believe in Pixies.

It's not all about the money. It's about ideas and real people too. I just don't care for the travel stuff.

So, we'll see. I have to market THAT live stuff in some way, but at least I don't have to pretend to enjoy the tweets of bozos who sound like refugees from a chinese fortune cookie writing school.

[Reno]

but at least I don't have to pretend to enjoy the tweets of bozos who sound like refugees from a chinese fortune cookie writing school.

"It is still not enough for language to have clarity and content... it must also have a goal and an imperative. Otherwise from language we descend to chatter, from chatter to babble and from babble to confusion."

~ French poet Rene Daumal

...............................

[HuskyPup]

But as Leosghost says, it's not much fun anymore,

I find it hard work to become interested in web stuff these days, I'm still incentivised when I attend real world trade fairs but after 17 years of site building...yep, not much fun any more.

[rlange]

If you don't like social, you can of course completely ignore it. It's not likely to be a significant factor, which means that if you refuse to take advantage of those signals (for whatever reason, right or wrong) you can make up for it by strengthening other signals that you are willing to take advantage of.

The fist-pounding is useless...

--
Ryan

[coachm]

If you don't like social, you can of course completely ignore it. It's not likely to be a significant factor, which means that if you refuse to take advantage of those signals (for whatever reason, right or wrong) you can make up for it by strengthening other signals that you are willing to take advantage of.

And by these words, in fact you make my point (see thread title).

[SmallP]

Say what you will about meeting this person or that, the majority of the top people in almost every field not related to Internet and social media, simply are NOT spending their time "tweeting" and "Liking" each other.

Here here.

I'm 40-something. I mix with a wide range of people in a wide range of professions, and nobody - not even one - of my friends and acquaintances, male or female, uses twitter. Some have Facebook profiles, mostly set up reluctantly to keep a quiet eye on their teenagers.

My teenagers "did" Bebo. They "did" MySpace. Now they "do" Facebook - but less than last year. My 17 year old tells me that most of his friends now use it only as a glorified photo sharing tool, or to organise meet-ups and cinema visits. They know not to click on any of the links (too much malware) and to ignore the ads (very low quality).

If I have something useful to share with my visitors, I add it to my site. I then add it to my RSS feed and (automatically) post it to Facebook and Twitter. It's a token effort, and I'm doing it because right here, right now, I know that a very small proportion of my visitors find it a useful way of discovering new content on my site. That's all. The fact that my "social presence" might be used to rank my site makes me cringe and reminds me of the "popular" crowd at my kids' school - the way the loud, noisy, aggressive, expensively dressed kids, usually full of fluff and bluster, get all the attention while the ones getting on quietly with their work, making real contributions and trying to do the right thing, get pushed into the background.

Google used to make it possible for the contribution of the quieter to be discovered and even to shine, which is why we all loved it. Now things are changing. I suppose I could buy some "likes" or hire in a "social media manager" (don't make me laugh) but that doesn't feel right to me. To keep up with the teenage analogy: I tell my kids to stick to their principles, maintain their integrity and do what they know is right, even if they are made to feel inferior, unpopular or even stupid in the short term. The fluff and bluster approach is sometimes successful, but it often results in burned out kids and regretful young adults. I tell my kids to take the straight road and their value will be realised and appreciated.

I'm taking the straight road. I publish my content for my visitors, in the best way I can. I don't, and have never, resorted to tricks, fluff and bluster or short-term tactics. Sadly, panda is making things difficult for me short term, and I've had to cut down drastically on what I buy in from my freelancers, which is making things difficult for them too. I've also shut down my smaller sites (I feel for you, coachm) and now just maintain my main site. But I still have faith in Google (everyone's allowed to make a mistake or two, as long as they learn from them), and I have faith in my content and I honestly believe that these few months (and this love affair with social) have been a blip from which good sites will recover. I'm a content creator and writer and publisher, and a good one. I will keep publishing online, and I hope people will continue to find my site for many years to come.

[And I guess if they don't find my site through Google, I will have to resort to old-world tactics and publish my content in the real world too.]

[Play_Bach]

> The fact that my "social presence" might be used to rank my site makes me cringe

"might" is the big question here -- what evidence is there that Google is doing this? I'm not seeing any and as far as I'm concerned, the premise of this thread is pure speculation about something that may or may not ever happen.

[Reno]

Very good post SmallP, though I must admit that your continued allegiance to Google ("I still have faith in Google") makes no sense whatsoever to me. I hope they are good to you, but given what I've seen so far, it's kinda' like having "faith" that Santa will fill the stockings ~ that ain't happening either, no matter how many cookies I leave by the chimney.

......................

[Swanson]

SmallP, then your world differs fundamentally from mine.

I am mid thirties and every single one of my friends, acquaintances and people I work with in business uses facebook extensively as part of their leisure and business. Not only that they use it primarily via smartphone and interact several times a day.

I even have a few friends that generate business and customers via facebook and twitter and they own manufacturing and/or production businesses. They then use those same methods to keep in contact with their customers.

It's like any other business concept - you go where your customers are.

Until you really work out how to leverage facebook and twitter to generate business and then communicate with customers then of course you won't get it. Just like people who try adwords and make a loss, or try print advertising and make a loss.

There are ways to use social media - and all the ways I have heard mentioned by people who are anti-social media absolutely miss the point and are using it fundamentally incorrect.

I didn't realise how to use twitter for business until this year when a local web designer did a presentation on the techniques you must use if you want it to work. And you know what, they did - and I haven't heard anyone give the advice he gave me, so until you really get that useful advice or get real insights into these platforms then to you it will be something teenagers do.

[Swanson]

I think what I am saying is that all the people who don't get how to use social media for business use it in a "passive" way - they see it as a way to put their RSS feed from their blog or something like that.

That is a one-way regurgitation of what you are already saying on your blog - RSS feeds to facebook and twitter should be banned!

Social media is two-way, it is "active" - you have to go out and find influencers in your industry and communicate with them. You have to do networking, just like you would at a business conference.

You have to identify methods to find customers that want what you offer - you may have to give information or help for free to gain trust. But you have to make the conversation.

You have to structure your accounts properly - 2 twitter accounts, one for support and one for communication with potential customers.

You should try facebook ads and send them to your facebook page - you could have special offers, you could ask people for feedback on your ideas, run competitions. Hell, you could get a facebook app done (cost $500+) to engage with customers, maybe a bit of fun or something like a calculator or anything relevant.

But you've got to do the talking. And the work.

All you guys are talking about is the "easy" way - write content and then not put in the real creative stuff to get anyone to that content and engage with it. You have been used to "la la" land where you publish content on a website and have search engines index it and people find that content via the search engine. That is a free ride that is ending/has ended - survival of the fittest. Now you will be like all those writers that try to get a book published and spend years trying to knock on doors to get publishing houses to listen to them - hard graft, creative thinking and above all a positive attitude.

I can pump out 10 quality articles a day. But so what, who cares? The clever bit is finding someone to read my articles.

[edited by: Swanson at 7:19 pm (utc) on Jun 9, 2011]

[StoutFiles]

My 17 year old tells me that most of his friends now use it only as a glorified photo sharing tool, or to organise meet-ups and cinema visits. They know not to click on any of the links (too much malware) and to ignore the ads (very low quality).

You do know that most teens are in constant denial about how much they use Facebook? For most, it's everyday. When smartphones are commonplace, it will be even worse. As for the ads, the targeting is getting better, but at some point Facebook will do what Google fears more than anything and build their own AdWords/AdSense for all sites to use. Google has no real competition in this, it's their bread and butter.

[coachm]

"might" is the big question here -- what evidence is there that Google is doing this? I'm not seeing any and as far as I'm concerned, the premise of this thread is pure speculation about something that may or may not ever happen.

Well, like, yeah. So you think it's not worth discussing? Or, what point are you making that wouldn't rule out 90% of the threads here?

[nomis5]

I agree with Swanson. Facebook is the agreed means of communicating lots of info between my friends and family and others who are part of my Facebook world. It's not the only means of communication and not the primary one but it definitely adds to the communication process.

Different strokes for different folks.

[Play_Bach]

> So you think it's not worth discussing?

Yes. This is just a big "what if" thread. If there was some evidence to support the premise, then by all means, discuss away.

[edited by: Play_Bach at 8:32 pm (utc) on Jun 9, 2011]

[coachm]

Social media is two-way, it is "active" - you have to go out and find influencers in your industry and communicate with them. You have to do networking, just like you would at a business conference.

Two common responses when I point out most businesses fail on social media are:

You/they don't get it. And
They use it wrong.

The first isn't even worth addressing, and the second is something we'll probably never know for sure, so I'm not sure it is useful.

But here's the question. Is what I quoted accurate? Well, for twitter it's not. Facebook, I can't say, and I suspect only Facebook has the data.

Twitter. Absolutly not. If you want to put together a business strategy, you look not on how people should act, or how you want people to act, but how people ACTUALLY BEHAVE.

The data is pretty conclusive, and you can hunt down relevant findings, but you have to look at the numbers, not the conclusions, which are often wrong.

Twitter is not used for dialogue, conversation and it's become more and more a broadcast medium as it is USED, and when you understand the real meaning behind a "stream", you will understand why it isn't used for dialogue.

It's not suited. The more people use it, the more they broadcast, and the less they "communicate". For good reasons.

Facebook is different because its roots are in communicating with people you already know, and now people are trying to use it for customer acquisition. That's why Twitter is not going to be with us in its present form, but Facebook is more likely to sustain.

And, the problem with "they are doing it wrong" is that one can never know. It's untestable.

[coachm]

Swanson:

I even have a few friends that generate business and customers via facebook and twitter and they own manufacturing and/or production businesses. They then use those same methods to keep in contact with their customers.

I'm willing to bet, not knowing anything about how this companies work, is that it's in fact NOT Facebook that is the critical factor in customer acquisition, but that Facebook is part of a larger "system" that probably includes website, email, print, etc, and that if you cut out Facebook for these companies, NOTHING would change.

I suspect it's an illusion of a sort.

I'd LOVE to take a look at what they are doing on Facebook if you are in a position to sticky me the details. You could be accurate in your interpretation, but I suspect not, but I'd sure like to look.

[coachm]

Play_Bach

I think you just made be laugh.

Yes. This is just a big "what if" thread. If there was some evidence to support the premise, then by all means, discuss away.

But, um...well, YOU are here discussing this. Or do I need better meds!?

[coachm]

It's like any other business concept - you go where your customers

Actually no. This is one of the business myths that comes from location, location, location, which IS valid) and that is invalidated by our technologies.

It's a huge over-simplification, and something I've written about on my own probably soon to be closed down site on social media. Along with a whole bunch of other myths about social media and behavior.

[Play_Bach]

> Or do I need better meds!?

Couldn't hurt. ;-)

It seems you're determined to promote this idea without any facts to support it.

[coachm]

Swanson, I forgot to mention:

I even have a few friends that generate business and customers via facebook and twitter and they own manufacturing and/or production businesses. They then use those same methods to keep in contact with their customers.

You've stumbled onto the outlier effect, outlined by Gladwell, and it's easy to mistake the exceptional with the norm. Social media people do this all the time.

Ever notice, you hear about the same companies over and over again when social media success is trumpeted? Dell, Zappos, whatever.

In terms of business, you have to look at singularity. For example, people talk about zappos, but the irony is there only ONE. You have to look at the NORM, not the exception to establish whether something is worth doing.

You might have heard about Dell selling x million dollars worth of computers via twitter. I've seen that hundreds of times. Only thing is the conclusions are wrong. They canibalized sales they would have had from other initiatives, ended up moving them to twitter, and made virtually nothing anyway.

I calculated the value I would gain if I got the same great results. The numbers got real small. If I was as good as Dell, and as effective, I would have made something like $42 dollars in a year.

Yet, people look at this, accept the conclusions of the trumpeters, and don't even try to figure out what the numbers mean, and how they got generated.

[coachm]

It seems you're determined to promote this idea without any facts to support it.

There's tons of data for a lot of stuff. I've learned there is no point putting it forth to people who believe. Praise the clicks. If you want to look a lot of it is there. If you don't want to look, you'll criticize any data I put in front of you.

But, fact! Google and Bing have announced they are using social signals. Not speculation. Or do you believe they are lying?

We're discussing what that could mean. As a webmaster, it's pretty important stuff, not to be sloughed off because there are no "facts" (when there are).

[Play_Bach]

Fine. Show me one site that's ranking better because of Facebook Likes or Twitter Follows. Just one. That's the premise of this thread.

[tedster]

Twitter is not used for dialogue, conversation and it's become more and more a broadcast medium as it is USED, and when you understand the real meaning behind a "stream", you will understand why it isn't used for dialogue.

That's not my experience. I find that Twitter can be excellent for at least starting dialogue, and many people and businesses do use it that way. It's also a great vehicle for customer service dialogue. Several airlines and telecoms have been doing ground-breaking work in this area.

[rlange]

coachm wrote:
Twitter. Absolutly not. If you want to put together a business strategy, you look not on how people should act, or how you want people to act, but how people ACTUALLY BEHAVE.

The behavior of the general populace is not your concern; the behavior of your target audience is your concern. If your target audience is intelligent individuals, then you don't have to concern yourself with how the plebs behave.

Can intelligent people not use Twitter intelligently?

The data is pretty conclusive, and you can hunt down relevant findings, but you have to look at the numbers, not the conclusions, which are often wrong.

Except for your conclusions, right?

Twitter is not used for dialogue, conversation and it's become more and more a broadcast medium as it is USED, and when you understand the real meaning behind a "stream", you will understand why it isn't used for dialogue.

Ahh. Meat. And something I actually agree with, too.

Yeah, 140 characters doesn't exactly allow for a significant conversation. But people passing your link around shows an interest, just like any other link on any other website indicates value. So, discussions centered around your content don't work in 140 characters; what do you do? Simply use Twitter to get people to your site and have the conversation there.

And if your target audience doesn't even use Twitter? Well, you're not really missing out on anything, are you?

And here's the thing. In the context of Google rankings, we're talking about pages shared on Twitter. To sit there and complain about how Twitter—and it's possible influence on Google SERPs—makes it easier to float crap completely ignores that it also makes it easier to float intelligent content.

If you're not already competing with unintelligent content in your vertical, Twitter's possible influence on rankings doesn't actually change anything for you.

If you are already competing with unintelligent content in your vertical, Twitter's possible influence on rankings isn't going to change anything for you, because you have exactly the same opportunities as everyone else... unless, of course, you choose to ignore it and don't strengthen other signals.

So, the best your unintelligent competition can do is to tweet links to their unintelligent content. You have the same opportunity for your intelligent content. It's the same amount of work for them to jump through that new hoop as it is for you. And if you're concerned that the unintelligent are the only ones willing to put forth that effort, then it becomes the active idiots vs. the lazy intelligentsia. Who's to say they shouldn't win?

--
Ryan

[tedster]

Businesses who just push out tweets with links to junk quickly find themselves unfollowed.

But if you Tweet useful stuff, then it pretty directly brings you more traffic. And if that traffic is happy with what they find, they bring you even more traffic via retweets and blog links and all kinds of word-of-mouth marketing.

It's not rocket science - but it is relational, not 1-way broadcasting. I love no-following the inane content pushers from my Twitter stream. It's like spam I don't need to receive.

[Swanson]

coachm, there is a lot of things you have written there that I disagree with but let me deal with just one quote:

Actually no. This is one of the business myths that comes from location, location, location, which IS valid) and that is invalidated by our technologies.

It's a huge over-simplification, and something I've written about on my own probably soon to be closed down site on social media. Along with a whole bunch of other myths about social media and behavior.

You mention "closed down site" and myths about social media as well as on other threads/posts how your sites have lost loads of traffic as a result of Panda.

Your posts talk about theory to do with social media etc. - in fact you talk about theory a lot. And I do find it insulting that I am giving the best examples i can of real businesses leveraging social media and you quote some guy - but you haven't done it so you don't know.

I can categorically say that my mates who are generating business via Twitter and Facebook would not have had that business without it. For example, one order for £20k of their products came because my mate found 3 buyers for retailers in the UK of his product - he didn't tweet to them, he found common "friends" and offered free services to them, they accepted and when they loved what he did they then recommended him via tweets and re-tweets to the 3 buyers. Two of the three buyers then contacted him directly and he got the deal without having to pitch for it as it was a strong recommendation.

Like I said, be clever. And in that case it was more powerful than a standalone website could ever be.

All I can say very simply is that there are two types of people to me - the first that is negative and battles against change and observes the world to be imperfect, and the second who embraces changes even if they aren't happy with it and uses it to be their advantage.

Whatever you may be saying here the fact is there are people making the web work for them using the hybrid social media and search model that we find ourselves in whether we like it or not.

Really "intelligent" people can find a way to "win" whatever life throws at them - and I don't mean necessarily the traditional view of intelligence. I mean you have to accept the way it is, you have no other option but to work within the system. If you don't you will have no visitors to your website.

And that is my point, there are many intelligent people ready to take your place and do well from the Internet while you tank and get zero visitors to your website.

I am one of them. I classify myself as intelligent, I have an audience on my websites - I have diversified my sites so that I withstand Google updates, I have learned how to add visitors to my websites from sources other than Google and have grown and grown over the past 12 years. I no longer need Google to send new visitors to my sites because I thought ahead and used old fashioned social media such as newsletters and subscribers to my sites, I created old-fashioned social networking mediums such as forums etc. But the mechanism was the same - I didn't sit back and expect Google to send me my customers.

If you have been creating content for 15 years and are so affected by Google and it's updates - then you will be replaced by smarter individuals nevermind corporations. You should have been looking at "social" back then - and I mean communicating via newsletters, subscribers etc. to keep hold of people who are interested in what you are saying.

Maybe they just weren't interested?

To be honest the more people like you the happier I am as I will have less competition - as I clearly do - I have more traffic, more visitors. I even gave some tips on how to use Social Media, and I have loads and loads more - but you have to want to listen.

[edited by: tedster at 11:08 pm (utc) on Jun 9, 2011]
[edit reason] added quotation box [/edit]

[coachm]

That's not my experience. I find that Twitter can be excellent for at least starting dialogue, and many people and businesses do use it that way. It's also a great vehicle for customer service dialogue

Well, no, since customer service is one of my niches, I might have some additional insight on that part. Too many reasons to explain, but the research suggests that the public perception (ie. customers) is that customer service has gotten progressively worse.

In fact, social media has on average made it worse, because it's an additional channel that has to be resources and for the huge majority of companies, it doesn't replace the need to allocate resources for other channels.

As for interactions, I'll present you with a challenge. Give me three hashtags where there is more discussion, dialog and interaction than there is broadcasting, and a) if it's obvious you are right, I'll say so, and b) it it's not so obvious, I do a little data count. I'd suggest you do it and document it but I can't see you doing that.

I'd also be interested in more than three hashtags, so we aren't looking at outliers. But I'll accept three.

So, tell me where to find these wonderful people on twitter, and how to find the businesses you and others talk about as being successful, because I can only find rare outliers.

...but we'll see. You have data? Let's look at it, or let me look at what you see.

[Swanson]

Anyway, back to the original post.

Google does not use facebook likes as it doesn't get the stream - they have publically said so.

They may be buying the twitter firehose or whatever it is called - for a cool £500k a year but it doesn't give the same data that facebook likes would. They could even be buying visitor data from ISPs.

At the end of the day, the sites I had that were effected by Panda had strong social signals - 10k twitter followers etc. and the ones that weren't had zero social signals.

So I wouldn't lose sleep over it.

[Swanson]

coachm, you don't find influencers on twitter by using hashtags.

That says to me you don't know what I mean by "influencers". There are free tools that help you find influencers relevant to your niche and search etc. - they show how much amplification one tweet can have if you reach your core influencers.

Influencers are twitterers that reach out to millions (or just 10) of the people that are useful to you.

There are tools out there to help you identify them and then you can start a dialogue.

[edited by: tedster at 11:16 pm (utc) on Jun 9, 2011]

[coachm]

Swanson, if you read The Shallows, you'll see that the hypothesis is that the Internet exerts a powerful effect on the ability to read longer things, such that people are UNABLE to attend to more than a few paragraphs in longer texts.

I think my posts are too long for some people. What do you think?

yes...yes...2.1 paragraphs. That should work.

I don't think you understood the very simple thing I was asking about hashtags. And by the way there's some new research on the myth of the influencer. Just read it not ten minutes ago. Might be worth a peek....er...well, maybe a skim if you do too much social media.