Chris Brogan shared this article that described how Facebook is increasingly becoming a search engine:
“In contrast, on the day that the sale began, almost 26% of all traffic that came to Apple came through social networks, compared with about 16% the day before. In particular, traffic from Facebook increased five times, to the point that one in every 200 UK Web surfers who left Facebook went directly to Apple’s site.”
This quote references the announcement of The Beatles archive becoming available on iTunes.
The last sentence of the quote is most poignant:
“In particular, traffic from Facebook increased five times, to the point that one in every 200 UK Web surfers who left Facebook went directly to Apple’s site.”
The biggest shift that this quite captures is from EXPLORING information (typing in a word or phrase into google and combing through the results), to DISCOVERING information (seeing an interesting piece of information in your stream (most likely the homepage of Facebook or Twitter.
Facebook (and Twitter) are creating an expectation in their users that interesting and relevant information will find them.
There are many implications but a couple significant ones for ministry leaders to think through are:
Assuming people are looking for you online instead of developing content that is shareable and strategically placed for discovery.
Sharing fun and “light” information about themselves and their ministry in addition to “heavy” stuff like vision and doctrinal statements, and serious biographies or About sections
More and more people will be saying “I found this…” rather than “I searched for this…” in the near future. What will you do to prepare?