What is Social Media about? It is no longer about being in the top 5 friends on MySpace or adding your college buddies on Friendster. It’s not even just about your friends — Your businesses, your contacts, your followers, everyone — are all connected. All involved. We will examine why this matters in the modern SEO-driven web.
This is being posted to a blog. Once, a blog was a standalone platform that allowed some form of back-and-forth between the blogger and the audience, either via comments or email. Now, every blog platform is wired into numerous social media avenues (Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, et al. Maybe even Google+…! I jest, I jest), instantly casting a line out across a wide array of communication services. This is all well and good, creating numerous backlinks to the site which search engines love. However, it’s not the views that matter…
It’s all about interaction.
Making the audience feel part of the whole process is vital in this day and age. Twitter and Facebook feeds are often seen embedded on web pages — Less to promote the businesses own Tweets but to show the interaction between them and their audience. It’s a human connection and makes a company notably more approachable (and more up to date with technology). Additionally, with the increasing penetration of Facebook/Twitter login APIs, it’s easier than ever to integrate seamlessly into new digital environments. When people see their friends liking, following or interacting with a brand or other environment via those means, they are more interested than if an ad just popped up on their feed.
For example:
Google uses Google+ activity and reviews to personalize search results when the user is signed in. If you are connected to an individual via Google+ and that individual has reviewed a business, +1ed a page, or posted on Google+ about the topic you are searching for, that result is likely to rank higher for you because of the connection.
Take the example below, I searched for “craft beer bars in Denver” and the fourth result is from a person in my Google+ circles. When I toggle from personalized search, this result is not showing.
Source: Clickz.com
That kind of marketing is old hat now, but the communicativeness of a company still matters. Retweeting is beneficial, for example — Seeing someone else’s name pop up on a site’s embedded Twitter is hugely enticing as it encourages users to interact with the aforementioned company. This can be gamed to some extent and not in a manipulative way, for example having a running joke or a genuine discussion that you retweet the responses to. Establishing relationships with the community and improving the breadth of your audience in one go. Sounds great!
You Require More Resources, Commander
The real benefit of integrating social media feeds or login capability however is SEO. Google, Yahoo and co. have in recent years taken a dislike to static content. This goes beyond fooling them with periodic title updates or even a rolling news feed — You kill two birds with one stone. SEO likes social media integration and “mentions”, especially when using the appropriate official APIs.
Beyond that, social media allows a near-constant stream of updating content, backlinks and a returning audience with a lower bounce rate (the rate of which people visit a site and leave, returning again after time). This can be significantly improved by implementing a game-like attitude to interaction. As search engine ranks require both good SEO ratings and decent visit rates gamifying the whole thing would drastically affect the site’s placement on a search engine list.
Obtaining trust and designing in a way to directly engage (or indirectly in the case of seeing friends or those in positions of respect/authority interact) builds a captive audience, one that will always take interest in what you have to say. This in turn drives a consistent viewership number and a more involved visit to any given piece of content you deliver. Ultimately, driving users to generate content for you (Tweets, mentions, blog responses etc.) is the most beneficial outcome. However, how do you do that without manipulating the audience in a negative way? How do you involve them organically and with respect?
We will look at that in “Gamification in (Web) Design Part Three: Player 2 has Entered the Game!”
Previously in Gamification in (Web) Design:
Part One: It’s a-me, SEO!
Joshua Rousen studied Graphic Design BA Hons in University of South Wales. An avid life-long gamer, he completed his critical papers on the phenomenon of “gamification” (the process of applying videogame logic and rules to existing activities) and the existing/upcoming technology that already implements it or may do in the future. Gamification is increasingly popular, being implemented for the likes of exercise (Nike Fuelband & app, Fitocracy) or chores (ChoreWars) and other everyday activities, so Joshua perpetually monitors trends in the development and application of gamification in other avenues.
Bibliography:
- Reality is Broken — Jane McGonigal
- The Gamification of Learning and Instruction Fieldbook: Ideas into Practice — Karl M. Kapp
- Multiplayer Classroom: Designing Coursework as a Game — Lee Sheldon
- Gamestorming: A Playbook for Innovators, Rulebreakers, and Changemakers — Dave Gray, Sunni Brown, James Macanufo
- Gamification by Design: Implementing Game Mechanics in Web and Mobile Apps — Gabe Zichermann, Christopher Cunningham
- Fun Inc.: Why games are the 21st Century’s most serious business — Tom Chatfield