The Changing Web Communications Environment
Since traditional advertising techniques are on the downturn, and developing more Internet content that is both relevant and engaging is highly popular, the move towards Internet-based marketing is rapidly occurring.
Corporations are moving their communication tactics to the employee-level so that communication is no longer the primary job of a public relations or marketing department. For example, IBM decided to merge their marketing, public relations, and corporate responsibility functions into one department. IBM saw this as a move which would combine the company culture with the brand, with IBM values at the core of both.
One-way communications from company to consumer no longer works, and even large, more traditional corporations are realizing this. “The web is blurring the distinctions between corporate communications and individual employee communications with customers and stakeholders now” (Debruyn).
The most important way that companies can engage in two-way communications with consumers is by utilizing social networking sites. Social sites now have extensive search capabilities that may even revolutionize searching habits. Steve Rubel from Edleman said, “Social networks are going to start to make it easier for you to search content at point of information” (Convertiv).
What does this mean for Google? Even though Google embraces social sites being on the uprise, they are terrified of what it may mean for the new age of searching. Twitter allows users to search for any topic, person, business, etc., and shows real-time results of what is being talked about. While Google will still dominate searches for years to come, with over 37% search domination, they do fear what social searches will bring (Convertiv).
I think that Google must quickly develop a competing strategy so that they can stay on top of their search dominance on the web. With the rise of social media searches, Google must make a first mover advantage in the search engine industry to keep social searches less used than Google.
What do you think Google should do? Should they allow social searches to rise, or should they do something to keep their dominance of searches worldwide?
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