August 2009 – Online Insights: Social Media

A Fresh Look at Social Search

By Lisa Wehr

Fred Meijer once said that the only constant in retail is change. I’m going to take a cue from Fred and say that, somewhat like retail, the way we search is constantly changing, as well. Years ago, we looked to the Yellow Pages to conduct our searches. Then, the little search engine that could–commonly referred to as Google–took search online. And today, search is changing yet again. It’s going social.

The Facts
People are spending more time on social media channels than ever before. From Twitter and Facebook to YouTube, Flickr and others, one thing is clear: social media is hot. Let’s look at the facts.

Facebook averaged more than three billion user minutes a day in February 2009, according to eMarketer. Search queries are up on Facebook, too, with the site showing a five-percent increase in May 2009. On the other hand, Google search queries are down two percent, according to ComScore. Online communities as a whole continue to grow. Seventy-two percent of American adults go online with the intent of connecting in online communities, according to the Ruder Funn Intent Index.

The more time a person spends on a social network, the more they interact with and begin to inherently use its features–including using that network to conduct searches for people, products, brands and more. And today, many networks have taken a cue from “old” search engines, offering advertising space on their search results pages. But that’s where all similarity ends.

Following the Gaze to Paid Search
In a recent eye-tracking study conducted by Oneupweb, we took a look at what exactly users are seeing when they are on Twitter, YouTube and Facebook. Specifically, we wanted to know if people actually look at ads when they are on these social sites (or, in the case of Twitter, if they are likely to look at these ads when they do begin to appear).

Past eye-tracking studies conducted on search engines showed that users only scan the top five search results in the order they are listed and had developed “banner blindness,” essentially ignoring banner ads. But search is changing, and our behavior and habits are changing with it.

In our social media eye-tracking study, we found that not only are users looking at paid ads on social networks, but they are often viewing them before they look at the third or fourth natural result.

Facebook
We asked study participants to log in to their Facebook profiles and spend a couple of minutes engaging with their pages as they normally would. Participants had no idea what we were looking for or tracking.

We found that the average Facebook user logs in to his or her page and looks at the first two results in their feed. They then abandon the feed, looking instead to the right and fixing their eyes on the paid advertisement that resides there. Even more interesting, there is no significant difference between the time spent looking at the first two feed results and the time spent looking at the paid ad.

We also asked them to search for a brand in Facebook. The results continued to show that users do interact with paid ads on social networks. In fact, we found that the average Facebook user actually spends more time fixating on the sponsored ads than on the second or third natural result.

YouTube
We asked our study participants to navigate to the YouTube homepage. We found that they heavily engaged with the first four videos featured at the top of the page. But when we asked them to search for a brand on YouTube, things got interesting.

Users actually participated with sponsored ads on YouTube in the process of completing the search task. A participant would begin by scanning the first video search result, then reading the description of the second video. But instead of their gaze moving down to the third video result (as it does in a regular search engine like Google or Bing), participants’ gazes moved to the sponsored videos. As was the case with Facebook, the average YouTube user spends as much (if not more) time viewing the sponsored video as they do viewing the first video search result.

Twitter
While Twitter does not currently offer paid advertising opportunities, it is growing at an incredible rate. Twitter has had a 400-percent increase in U.S. users since January 2009, according to QuantCast. We included it in the study to better understand how users approach a search task, with the idea that as it continues to grow, it will garner more attention from marketers, perhaps resulting in paid ads.

When we asked participants to log in to Twitter and spend some time getting caught up, we found that their gaze was the most intense on the right-hand column (where paid ads may someday go) and on the first four results.

Then we took a look at Twitter search. Now remember, Twitter search is in real-time. In other words, the Twitter search results show a list of the most current Tweets containing the search phrase and do not necessarily lead to a brand’s profile page. This is quite different from the way most searches are conducted. We found that 50 percent of our participants liked this type of search, commenting that they “liked seeing others asking the same questions,” and that Twitter would be a good place to “find real opinions.”

The Results
Overall, we found that in social media:

• 65 percent of participants engaged with sponsored ads within the first 10 seconds of their search.
• Scan paths do not follow the order of search result positions. Often, sponsored ads were looked at before the third or fourth natural result.
• There’s no significant difference in fixation duration on the first four natural results or sponsored ads on both Facebook and YouTube.
• 50 percent of participants were satisfied with their brand search on Twitter.

So what does it all mean? Basically, the way we view search results is changing. A social network presents a different kind of search environment and may encourage users to develop different scan habits with social media search results.

Synergy is the Key
Because those who enter social networking sites are there to be social, they have a different set of expectations for search results. On Facebook and YouTube, search results are socially generated. In the case of Facebook, search results are sorted in order of association within the individual’s social network. With YouTube, search results are based on generated tags and descriptions, as well as community opinion that includes video rankings and comments. It’s a different set of rules, and different behaviors have emerged as a result.

So yes, people do look at paid advertisements in search results on social networks. They also look at the first few natural search results. As brands move into these online communities, hoping to generate awareness and sales, synergy will be the key.

Lisa Wehr is CEO and founder of Oneupweb, a full-service digital marketing agency. She has been counseling clients on improving website ROI and search engine marketing since 1996. She can be reached at info@oneupweb.com or send her a tweet @LisaWehr.