Search Engines like Google and Bing…do you trust them more than you trust your friends?  When was the last time you felt like the home repair advice you got from Yahoo was more reliable than the advice your Father, the building codes inspector, offered you.Probably never… you’ve probably never felt that way, and the reason isn’t because you feel like search engines are dishonest.

The reason is that you don’t have a personal connection with a search engine…no matter how sophisticated.

This is the reason people’s attention is shifting away from search engines and towards the personalized social networks can be summed up into two words: Referral Traffic.

When 82-year-old Jean Evans needed help with her hot water tank, she asked a neighbor.  When Brandon Rutherford heard Evans’ dilemma he asked his friends on Facebook for help.

“That’s why social media is there. It’s not just to say, ‘Oh look, I can join this group today, yippee.’”  ”It’s where you can actually meet up with somebody and say I need this or that…can you help me?” Rutherford said.

Offers came from all over the state. Some willing to give money, others willing to give their time. ”Phenomenal. It is nice to have people still care and they’re not so greedy,” Evans said.  Four days later Evans has a new hot water tank. It was installed Thursday afternoon free of charge.

When asked about the value of social media Jean Evans talks about how nice it is to know that people still care, that they aren’t all that greedy.  Notice that she doesn’t talk about search engines, or how well Google understood the semantics of her search.  It was the altruism of people.

Social Media Traction | We work with companies to implement & integrate Social Media into their business operations.

•