Facebook Graph Beta Offers Multidimensional Social Search, New Networking Capabilities

Facebook’s Graph search introduces a new multi-dimensional tool for discovering people, places and things filtered by your personal friends and likes. The concept isn’t entirely new — Bing has been integrating social data into its results for over a year now now, and the Google Hotpot experiment (failed though it was) featured location- and personal recommendation-based place discovery, as well as a host of Foursquaresque features such as check-ins and reviews. However, Graph offers social search on an unprecedented scale, with access to likes, posts and preferences of users’ entire social network.

Read This! January 2013

Every month, Search Influence brings you an array of directly applicable DIY solutions to help you compete online with our Read This! feature. See something that we missed? Let us know in the comments!

Five Steps To Successfully Navigate Negative Online Reviews — Search Engine Land

Has your business recently been victim of a negative review on a social platform such as Yelp? Don’t take legal action just yet: check out this article from Search Engine Land’s Neg Norton on the best ways to assess and address a bad review, merited or not.

5 for Friday — Links, Stories & Posts For Your Weekend

• How To Blog Successfully About Anything — SEOMoz

Blogging is one of the key aspects of keeping your site fresh and your knowledge cutting-edge, but even the most experienced blogger occasionally has the well run dry. As a corollary to his recent Mozinar, Blogging Like You Mean It, Tanner Christensen takes us through the steps to approaching topics you may find uninteresting or distasteful and spinning them into a sparkling post that’s sure to wow your audience.

• Cover Your Backside in Social Media — Search Engine Journal

Read This! — December 2012

Every month, our Read This! series brings you the best in practical web marketing and online presence-building pieces from across the net. Read on for this month’s selection:

• Forget Linkbuilding, Do A Groupon — Local SEO Guide

The Groupon system can have its headaches for the vendor when improperly-applied, but there’s a surprising SEO benefit that many people overlook. Andrew Shotland tells the tale of a company whose organic traffic drop was remedied with one wave of the Groupon wand.

• 3 Tips for Email Gold — Search Engine Journal

Read This! — November 2012

We’re back with another edition of Read This!, our monthly series exploring the DIY tips and tricks you can use to succeed online today.

• So, Foursquare is a search engine now? How do I get my business to the top of the results? — AboutFourSquare.com

Foursquare is on its way to becoming a hot name in local search, so what can you do to make sure your business is capitalizing on the action? By focusing on check-ins, likes, and community engagement, you’ll be on top of the game and the search results!

Read This! — October 2012

Spoooooky October greetings to you, faithful SI readers! We’re back with another Read This, our monthly roundup of the best news you can use to take to the Internet and support your business. Let’s dig in!

• Content Recall: Stop Creating Great Content and Produce Memorable Content Instead — Blind 5 Year Old

The mantra of the Internet is “great content floats to the top,” but the exact definition of “great” is a whole ‘nother rodeo. Instead of flailing around trying to define your content’s greatness, focus on a more advertising-centric metric: memorability. AJ Kohn of Blind Five Year Old takes us through just how you can tweak your efforts to make them more “sticky” and fundamentally appealing to the reader. It’s worth point out that the post itself is a great example!

Search Influence Joins Forces With Youth Rebuilding New Orleans [VIDEO]

The whole Search Influence team was thrilled to host a meetup in honor of Mashable’s Social Good Summit at Oak Wine Bar last Monday. In addition to enjoying the delicious drink specials and appetizers by the talented chefs and mixologists, we spent a lot of time talking about social media, the digital global action movement, and how we can start leveraging the Internet for greater good. On that note, we’re proud to announce that Search Influence has adopted the local New Orleans non-profit Youth Rebuilding New Orleans.

Read This! — September 2012

Hey there, Influencers! Have a back-to-school edition of Read This!, our monthly series exploring the best of the web’s DIY articles that you can use to succeed online today.

• Ultimate WordPress Guide for Small Business [Infographic] — Search Engine Journal

If you run a small-scale website for your business, chances are WordPress has everything you need for content updating, blogging and presentation. Learn more about it with this newbies’ guide to the powerful and intuitive system over at Search Engine Journal!

• Common Technical SEO Problems and How to Solve Them — SEOMoz

Will Scott Speaks on Google Places and Maps Optimization at Pubcon 2012

Your Google Place page and Maps location are flagship representations of your business, and often the first information potential customers will see. Our CEO Will Scott will contribute to a panel on optimizing these crucial pages at Pubcon 2012, and you can get a preview of the action below! Will has previously spoken at several Pubcons, and he’s honored to be included in the lineup again — be sure to check out the video after the jump.

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SI Around The Web — Mentions & Quotables!

Search Influence has been getting a lot of love in the press lately, and we’re here to share the good news with you! Our CEO Will Scott lends his expertise to several publications, Olympic frenzy takes the Internet by storm and more, right after the jump!

• A New Social Media Strategy for the Olympics, Future Sporting Events — Forbes