Nordic survey confirms: Social search? Thanks, but no thanks!
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Nordic survey confirms: Social search? Thanks, but no thanks!

31st July 2012

The numbers from the latest Nordic search survey speaks clearly: In the Nordics we don’t want to mix social and search. In fact, 49% disagree or totally disagree that it is helpful to see recommendations from friends and family in search engine results. 

The annual Nordic survey from iProspect clearly comfirm that we are not on board with social search (yet) in the Nordics. 54% of us don´t want search results based on interest and search history. Only 19% want it.

we dont want to mix search and social in the nordics

49% disagree or totally disagree that it is helpful to see recommendations from friends and family in search engine results, even though 46% get inspired to search by their friend`s recommendations.

recommendations from friends search nordics

Facebook largest social player by far

So what about the social media, are we present in the Nordics? Yes we are, but there is no good news for Google yet.

Only 16% of the consumers in the Nordics have a Google+ profile. 14% don’t know if they have a Google+ profile or not. This makes Google+ around the same size as LinkedIn in Norway, with their 12%.

The Facebook numbers are totally different. 2 659 400 Norwegians are registered users on Facebook by May 2012, making up more than half of us and way more than half of the Internet users (we are just around 5 million Norwegians in total at the moment). This is an increase of 200 000 user profiles from June 2011. In other words; Facebook is still growing in Norway and don’t have to fear the Google+ impact just yet.

(Source: http://www.halogen.no/tjenester/losninger/sosiale-medier/norske-brukere-i-sosiale-medier/)

So what does these numbers tell us about the Nordic consumer?

We want recommendations from friends, or at least, that`s where we find the inspiration to search. But we want social to stay out of our search results! At least for now.

Personally, I think these numbers will change a lot over the next year(s), we are just a little bit slow up north, and we don’t want things to change too much or too fast.

What do you think about these numbers? Will the Nordics also get on board with mixing search and social? Or are we already in sync with the rest of the Internet world?

 

 

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Written By
Agnete Tøien Pedersen is Head of SEO in iProspect Norway and has years of experience within SEM, SEO, web publishing and journalism. She is also chairman of the Board of Ethical SEM in Norway, BraSøk. On a daily basis she is working with customers of all sizes, in Norway, the...
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