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Questioning the Future of Search By Mike Grehan, ClickZ, Jan 26, 2009 Related Reading New Signals to Search Engines Ajax and Search Engines SuperPages.com Combines Local Search with Social Networking Search Engines Are Allowed to Reject Ads Suggested Searches search engines - social networking - reject ads - static link Subscribe to newsletters Subscribe to RSS feeds Post a comment (0 posted) Last week I presented a Webinar based on the "thought paper" I wrote called, "New Signals To Search Engines." As it was a long read at 23 pages, I highlighted the more salient points, but mainly wanted to try and answer the hundreds of questions I received following its publication. The top question was about social media. It seems that many companies already have barriers to entry. Amy Labroo, associate director of online media at Advantage Business Media, asked specifically about any backlash due to unmonitored content in the social media space. I've come across this situation quite a lot recently. Many companies worry about negative commentary and therefore don't accept comments on their blogs or social network sites. In fact, many haven't started a blog or a dialogue space at a social networking site. This is simply hiding from your audience. If people have negative commentary about you and they can't make it known at your Web site or blog, they'll make it known somewhere else. I advocate putting yourself out there and listening to your audience. Marketing has changed from a broadcast-my-corporate-message medium to a listening medium. The voice of the customer is very, very loud online. And those companies that still believe they own their brand and the message may well be in for a bit of shock as brands are hijacked by customers. Let your customers have their say. Keyword-driven marketing is all about understanding the language of the customer and creating marketing messages in that language. From time to time, I meet with creative agencies and almost always end u