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The panel titled
"Social Search: A little help from my friends" this morning at SXSW Interactive was one of the more interesting sessions so far, opening my eyes to some new tools and ways that the search landscape will continue to evolve beyond what
Google Caffeine is already starting to unveil.
The panelists included some pretty interesting and accomplished folks:
- Max Ventilla, @ventilla, of Aardvark, 'a subjective search engine,' which was recently bought by Google
- Ash Rust, @ashrust, of OneRiot, a real-time social search engine
- Scott Prindle, @prindlescott, of Crispin Porter, a full service ad agency, helping with the monetization part of the story
- Brynn Evans, @brynn, a social media researcher
- Marc Vermut, @mvermut, moderated the discussion, but the Q&A at the end really got at the core of what it means to inbound marketers.
The premise of the entire discussion was that search is no longer a question inside a search box. There are a lot of searches that we cannot solely rely on Google Search to resolve -- we want context, advice and information that is ultra timely.
The Aardvark team approaches the problem by allowing you to get answers to subjective questions, like "What is the best bar for margaritas in Austin?" from your network in a virtually frictionless fashion. For example, Google would send you to Yelp, but what if you really want YOUR friends' opinions? The tool figures out who in your network is most likely to know the answer to your question, asks them, and also includes your info so they have context to frame the response. This format supplies more authentic and more relevant responses to virtually any query. The Aardvark team also offers ‘sponsored' answers and transparently asks searchers if they want them to appear. About 50% of folks opt-in, making it a very welcoming environment for discovery of new products and services.
OneRiot's approach is more about buzz monitoring of social networks. For example, if I were to search on Lady Gaga, I wouldn't just get her home page and latest album. OneRiot would supply me with video or paparazzi shots that are currently the hottest based on what is going on in the social sphere. This is less personal, but very timely.
Scott Prindle summarized well how he could see companies taking advantage of these two platforms and any others that may emerge:
- "Something like aardvark is phenomenal for companies that have a large base of employees with divergent knowledge bases. One could allow prospects and customers to ask questions and have the best answer get to them based on routing and expertise."
- "OneRiot's model, on the other hand, is great for more campaign-oriented models where you might want to build on-the-fly content that melds your campaign message with some emerging trends in a meaningful way, so that you can get picked up as part of the buzz."
But Scott also shared that it is still a bit too early to know what metrics should be tracked on these platforms. His team is just starting to have conversations with their clients about this, and they plan to evolve measurement of social search in the coming months. For marketers, this will be the next conundrum to mapping ROI.
Ultimately, the audience asked what this means for keywords, SEO and SEM. Isn't that what we're all wondering?
All of the panelists unanimously agreed that it will be less about keywords and meta data than it is about creating interesting, valuable content that people want to consume ... and you will 
be rewarded. Awesome! Inbound marketers who are getting good at listening, blogging and creating interesting content will be poised to continue driving real results in terms of traffic and leads as the tools and search norms evolve.
I also thought it was interesting that most of the questions at the end were for @ventilla. See the group gathered around him on the left?
First Photo Credit: Rebelot
Second Photo: My own from SXSWi
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