Bing and Facebook Team Up to Bring the "Friend Effect" to Search

Author: Danielle Caird

Bing recently introduced the “Friend Effect” to search. This isn't a totally new concept but Bing is preparing to take friend referrals and testimonials to a whole new level.

"You can now receive personalized search results based on the opinions of your friends by simply being signed into Facebook while you search Bing. New features make it easier to see what your Facebook friends “like” across the Web, incorporate the collective know-how of the Web into your search results, and begin adding a more conversational aspect to your searches. Decisions can now be made with more than facts, now the opinions of your trusted friends and the collective wisdom of the Web".

Bing and Facebook's partnership promises to help you make decisions faster. Lets say you are searching for an internet marketing company (smile) for your business using the Bing search engine. You type in your search term and up pops the SERP (search engine results page) and then what? You scan down through the first three, maybe four links and then you have to decide which one to click on first. Now imagine if you see your friends smiling faces below one of the links on the SERP. Life just became a little easier!

Here is how the feature works:



Statistics show that 90% of us ask family and friends for advice before we purchase a product or service. This feature can save us a lot time and guess work. There are many more unique ideas that go along with Bing's new "Friend Effect" feature that all revolve around your friends helping you make decisions on travel to shoe shopping.



My associate, Tommy Grobmyer wrote a post about the "Oprah Effect" in which he talks about the importance of social rapport in the future of search engine optimization/internet marketing. Make sure you check it out.

Have you had a chance to use this search feature? I think the "Friend Effect" will make our searches go a lot smoother. What do you think?