The following is a post from Brian Bagel, TIG Global Social Media Manager.
There are rapid changes taking place in the social media sphere. Just a couple of weeks ago we wrote about TripAdvisor’s Trip Friends tool, which uses Facebook’s Open Graph technology to help users see where there friends have traveled. That implementation joined Yelp and a group of others in fully embracing the Open Graph technology. And now, we’re seeing some residual benefits that Yelp and TripAdvisor have seen from implementing the Open Graph: Facebook SEO.
Through some random Facebook searches, we noticed something strange. For certain hotel and restaurant searches, we began finding search results with a “TripAdvisor” or “Yelp” tag. More than that, the results linked outside of Facebook to the respective Yelp or TripAdvisor page, not their Facebook pages.
Nick O’Neill over at All Facebook wrote a post helping to explain the situation a bit more. He believes that this is a result of the Open Graph implementation, but raised the question that these Yelp and Trip Advisor pages do not have the standard Open Graph meta tags. He will update the post as he gets more answers.
But what does all of this mean for us, or for you, in terms of marketing? For now, it looks like the results from Yelp and TripAdvisor are always below an official Facebook page. So having a solid Facebook presence becomes even more important.
Personally, I think it’s inevitable that Facebook will want to make implementing the Open Graph an even sweeter deal by letting your site link directly from Facebook search if you fully integrate the Open Graph API. And if you’re not ready to do that, it means making sure that your Yelp and TripAdvisor listings, for now, are as complete and robust as possible, including marketing on those sites, in order to keep in step with these new practices. Additionally, making sure that you respond to guests’ comments properly and effectively, so they are met with a high quality TripAdvisor or Yelp page, is also essential.
UPDATE
According to Nick O’Neill over at All Facebook, Facebook has confirmed that if you have the Open Graph implemented on your site, your site will be eligible to show up, with a direct link, in Facebook search. Essentially, Facebook is trying to usher in a new era of semantic search by making the “Like” the new link. So if you were hesitant to put the like button on your site, doing so is now even more important.
Have you noticed your Facebook page listing show up along with a TripAdvisor, Yelp, or other direct link? Do you think this helps or hurts the Facebook search experience? Sound off in the comments section.
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