1. A method of generating personalized search results for a search query generated by a selected user of a social network, steps of the method being variously performed by at least one computing device, and the method comprising: for respective topics, detecting an interest trend in the topic among the users of the social network who are associated with the selected user; applying the search query on a search engine indexing content items outside of the social network to generate a search result set comprising at least one search result that is not referenced by the users of the social network who are associated with the selected user; identifying at least one topic associated with the search query; selecting, within the social network of the user, at least one social data item that is referenced by the users of the social network who are associated with the selected user, associated with at least one topic associated with the search query, and exhibiting a positive interest trend among the users of the social network who are associated with the selected user; and providing for display to the selected user the at least one social data item integrated with the search result set.
12. The method of claim 1 : respective search results having a relevance score indicating a relevance of the search result to the search query; respective search results positioned within the search result set at a position associated with the relevance score of the search result; respective social data items having a relevance score indicating a relevance of the search result to the search query; and integrating respective social data items with the search results of the search result set comprising: inserting the social data item into the search result set at a position associated with the relevance score of the social data item as compared with the relevance scores of the search results.