Google is apparently in the process of rolling out an update to their search engine, which will allow social information to be displayed more often directly in their SERPs. When a Knowledge Graph is displayed, for example, it will include links to multiple social networks for that result. The Knowledge Graph is the results for searches on specific people, places or other well known items. It will display pictures, facts and other things.
For example, if you do a search for “Barack Obama” it will show several images, give his full name, his position, age, spouse, office, and much more. New to the results, however, are links to the president’s Twitter, Facebook and Google+ accounts.
In addition, in the other part of the search results, it will give a link to his Twitter account as well as the normal results that you would expect to see.
This can be helpful to marketers as well. When people search for a particular brand or product, there are many additional options available. Of course, the main site can pop up, but the social media accounts can as well. This will give marketers the opportunity to get their products out in front of customers in a variety of new ways. It will also help keep customers and marketers better connected.
This move by Google is hot on the heels of Twitter announcing that they have indexed all of their Tweets, giving people the ability to search them much more effectively. In the past, most social media information was kept in its own little bubble, but today it is quickly becoming easier than ever to search for it and access it from anywhere.
