Google remains at the forefront of developments in many areas that could disrupt local search.
Artificial intelligence (AI), virtual reality (VR), the Internet of Things (IoT), voice search and cloud technology are increasingly being used by consumers and businesses .
Yet there is one area where Google is not in pole position: social media.
Google is far behind in social matters
Google has made several attempts to get some traction in social media: Orkut, Dodgeball, Buzz, Latitude. The fact that you probably do not recognize these names says enough about their success.
Google has not dropped Google, or more recently, "G +". With a major rewrite of the Android app as recently as last spring, Google has been striving to increase its use once by ordering the creation of a G + account so to use certain features of its most popular products.
On the positive side, those who use it seem to like it. Google+ dominated social media companies in the survey last year on the US Consumer Satisfaction Index (ACSI).
But when you look at the usage numbers, they are very late.
Google said that at the end of 2013 it had 540 million active users of Google+ per month. According to SmartInights, citing data from StaticBrain (paywall), in 2017, it was estimated that only 4-6 million were active.
<img class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-300432" src="https://businessdigit.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/1530289697_254_how-social-networks-usurp-the-dominance-of-googles-local-search.png" alt=" https://businessdigit.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/how-social-networks-usurp-the-dominance-of-googles-local-search.com "width =" 800 "height =" 288 "/>
Compare that to almost 1.5 billion active Facebook users a day.
<img class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-300405" src="https://businessdigit.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/1530289697_883_how-social-networks-usurp-the-dominance-of-googles-local-search.png" alt=" https://businessdigit.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/how-social-networks-usurp-the-dominance-of-googles-local-search.com "width =" 800 "height =" 454 "/>
In other words, the presence of Google on social networks is less than 0.4% from that of Facebook.
Why will the social gain market share in local research
A 2016 study by Burke's Local Search Association (I am affiliated with this organization) showed that word-of-mouth or friends and family references were linked to business websites for the second time. place among the resources on local products and services.
[Read the full article on Search Engine Land.]
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Marketing Land. The authors of the staff are listed here.
About the author
Wesley Young is the Vice President of Public Policy for the Local Search Association. He blogs on the industry on the Local Search Insider blog.