Coverage of SES Chicago will continue.  Stay with WebProNews for more notes from the event this week.

In the session “Social Goes Local,” the speakers offered tips on using social media and local search to promote businesses.

Gregg Stewart, President, 15Miles, said social and local go hand-in-hand. Growth from search engines are being outpaced by non-search engines. Growth I n search is driven by local.

Facebook is local in nature. It’s capitalizing on search with its search bar.

Google is getting more serious about localized search, cites Google Places as an example. “As local heats up, Google is making strides to own the local search space,” said Stewart.

Consumers are increasingly using more sources to find local information and content.

Google Maps is helping to drive local search. People are using other methods to search more frequently, not just searcg engnes, but on mobil and social networks.

Use of content management is vital for local search. A lot of development in digital word of mouth, such as reviews and reccomendations.

Adress, location and driving directions are important for local search. Get your base business identity correct.

Users are more likely to do business with a company found on a social network. Consumers need to see responses to posts on Facebook and Twitter. Social networking users are heavy shoppers and tend to buy more than generic search users.

Local business search on social sites will continue to grow and can’t be ignored.

Searchers are referencing company brand pages on social networks. As local search and social continues to grow, reviews and ratings will become even more important.

Gib Olander, Director of Business Development, Localeze, said mobile devices are driving local search as well. “No one has local and social completely figured out,”
said Olander. There is a lot of noise out there.

Mobile local search today is a combination of devices. People expect to buy within one hour on mobile, compared to 7 days on a PC.

By 2011 80 percent of mobile devices will have GPS. Sixty percent of mobile usage is spent on social networking. Get your business on Foursquare as well as Facebook and Twitter.

Business identity needs to be established online. It anchors the customer experience with your business. If your identity is not established online, your business does not exist.

CNN.com was the most visited TV network Web site receiving .61 percent of all U.S. Internet visits. CNN.com’s visits increased 146 percent on Tuesday compared to Monday. MSNBC.com was the second most visited Web site receiving .40 percent of Internet visits and seeing a 122 percent increase in traffic.

MySpace and Facebook both had a 6 percent increase in traffic on Election Day versus Monday. Twitter Election 2008′s visits increased 1100 percent and Twitter.com’s traffic increased by 43 percent on Election Day.

Barack Obama’s Web site received a 6 percent increase in visits Tuesday, while visits to John McCain’s Web site dipped 18 percent.

Google News saw a 58 percent increase on Election Day, while foxnews.com spiked 73 percent and the drudgereport.com increased 29 percent.

"Social cognitive theory suggests that we are always looking for different ways to behave," said Michael Stefanone, the primary researcher at UB. "When people on reality TV are rewarded for behaviors such as being the center of attention and gain celebrity from it, it communicates to the audience that these behaviors are good things."

The research found that by viewing such actions on TV, people are then more likely to adopt them as their own through social networking Web sites.

 "The more they watch, the more time they are likely to spend on Facebook gaining a larger network of friends, a good portion of whom they’ve never met and sharing more pictures of themselves," Stefanone said. "These activities are consistent with the media’s effect."

Stefanone says that age and gender are not factors when it comes to the likelihood of watching reality television, but woman are more likely to share photographs. "Gender roles are associated more with the value of image," Stefanone said. "Photos equal a type of social technology which is all about identity."