Google’s Knowledge Graph Now Showing Facebook, Twitter and Other Social Networks

Having apparently learned from its mistakes, Google’s Knowledge Search now shows the icons for other social networking sites, along with its own results on YouTube and Google+. This change on the service now gives the full spectrum of results and potential knowledge paths for its users, as well as businesses and marketers, to find out more about their preferred subject, company, product, person or service.

If you had asked Google what social media networks are current and popular among various people in their search results up until this year, they might have had you believe that Google+ was the only one. Unfortunately for Google, Google+ is more of an afterthought in the world of social networking, with more people, celebrities, and businesses doing most of their networking on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube, among many others.

When conducting a Knowledge Search on Google, say for example on Starbucks, one would be able to find the usual results in terms of links, but in terms of their social media pages, they’d be hard-pressed to find out what the latest drink is on their Instagram page, or how their Facebook Page community interacts. In 2012, when it launched “Search Plus Your World,” the most controversial part of the feature was that while it would show links and content from Google+ on its search results, it would completely ignore other social networks that might have more salient and active results. In essence, it was promoting its own brand and service over efficient and relevant results for its users—not the best way to provide the best search engine experience.