At the f8 conference in September, Facebook announced the addition of Timeline and Open Graph. These new tools let users tell a more detailed story of their life through a newly designed profile page. Earlier this week, Facebook launched Facebook Actions, an enhancement adding additional call-to-action tabs beyond the standard “like”. As this may at first seem as though Facebook is doing too much to let users indicate where they are and what they are doing, Facebook Actions actually benefits the consumer, marketer, and SEO firm.
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These Actions let users specifically indicate their interaction with a location, products, and more. For example, one may visit a local coffee shop and indicate they “bought” a particular drink. Immediately, that action is posted on their wall and their average of 130 friends can interact with that action. Others may comment, share, or even visit that store the next day to see for themselves.
That being said, since more than 50 percent of adult-consumers research products on social media platforms, the product has enormous ability to either significantly prosper from Facebook Actions (if it is a good product), or severely sink (if the product is not great).
The following are my top 3 impacts Facebook Actions will have on SEO:
1) Consumers declare their intentions.
First-off, let me digress from SEO. It is every advertiser and marketers dream come true to understand how customers interact with their product. For example, one may “watch” more than “listen” to a particular song on iTunes. Now the advertiser and marketer understands what people want out of the product. They may want to watch, more than listen, thus does it matter to enhance a music video? The impact on SEO lies in the fact that as the user engages and interacts with a webpage, for example “listens”, or “watch”, their social engagement rises. In addition, other website visitors see the number rising as more positive engagements are produced. Facebook will index a webpage’s social engagement and the amount of engagement with the user’s influence has immediate impact on SEO.
2) Provides an immediate route.
Those who interact with the product and post on their Facebook wall then generate a direct route (link) to the webpage of the company. Establishing this direct link is extremely beneficial as the company can design the specific landing page, including specifications, reviews, images, product demonstrations, and conversion information. The goal is to have a prospect or client interact with the product, and create a “direct and targeted” route to the product. Given Facebook users average 130 friends; there is a huge amount of exposure that can be gained from Facebook Actions. Website traffic can increase dramatically because 1 person in a network “listened” to your product.
3) Graphic.
The marketer has the option to design an individual landing page for the product with properly embedded keyword(s), Meta tags and Meta descriptions, amongst other SEO techniques. Design the image as they see fit, including indicating review ratings, specifications, and more. Studies indicate that people want to support brands they can engage with, thus this is expected to be picked up rather quickly. Since video content is over 50 percent more likely to populate over organic listings in the SERPs, videos that are “watched” can have immediate impact here.
Facebook has done a nice job in creating a more in-depth user experience while at the same time, benefiting SEO firms by making Facebook Actions make sense for SEO.
