Google recently announced a new component to its search engine: real-time search.
This means that in addition to traditional search results — Web pages, blog posts and other articles, in addition to photos, videos, maps and news — Google’s search spider will stream real-time results from Twitter, and public pages on Facebook and MySpace.
This means that in the past, new content may have taken several minutes to get indexed by the search engine; that waiting period is no more. As soon is content is posted and linked, it’s searchable.
Here’s a quick demo video Google released:
Google’s real-time search means several things for brands:
- Social media presences for both brands and companies are now at center stage.
There are many companies actively engaged in the social space. They’re out building relationships, educating consumers and creating brandadvocacy. They have a stake in the conversation about their brand, because they’re a part of it every day.
On the other hand, many brands are not engaging, whether it’s about risk or just about expertise.
Companies both large and small must create an active presence on the social web; it doesn’t matter if your social media monitoring efforts tell you that there are 20 or 200,000 relevant conversations each month about your employees, brands or products. The more content a brand is able to create, the more often that content will appear in Google’s real time search results.
Are you still comfortable with an intern running your corporate Twitter account?
- Search engine optimization (SEO) is now even more closely tied to social media.Previously, search engine optimization experts have used social media in the following ways, among others:
- blog posts, YouTube content to drive organic search rankings
- relationships forged to generate backlinks for key terms
- Social bookmarking sites to drive links, trafficLook for SEO to play an even bigger role in real-time search. One scenario: use of a hashtag will appear in search results, and the conversation itself can drive additional coverage or awareness of the hashtagged topic.
- Every customer experience is public — and amplified.More than ever, everyone has the potential to be an influencer. It doesn’t matter whether a person has 500,000 Twitter followers or just five — they have the ability to influence the conversations around them, both online and in real life.
If a customer has a negative brand interaction, they may vent about it through Twitter or Facebook. Brands that are highly engaged in the social space will then reach out to the person to resolve any issues, while brands that are not so engaged may let those issues linger.
Those minor issues are now searchable, and negative brand experiences have the potential to show up on the first page of a Google search for your company, which is bad for business.
Obviously, brands can’t roll out the red carpet for every Tom, Dick and Harry they meet online, but brands must treat everyone with respect. If they don’t, they don’t just run a risk of losing that customer — they run a risk of that customer’s complaints becoming public, and quickly.
Companies with stellar customer service, a sound digital PR strategy and social media engagement protocol will reap long-term rewards.
- Content will rise to the surface quickly through your audience.Remember that great viral video you created several years ago that nobody watched? It now has a chance to be found more easily.
A big part of social media planning revolves around content. What will your brand say, and when? How will you promote your new Flickr photo contest? How do your brand’s objectives drive what goes into your YouTube channel?
As brands work with their partners to create sustainable content plans, remember that what you do, and what people have to say — or not say — depends on your audience.
How else do you think Google’s real-time search will affect companies? Please feel free to jot down your thoughts as comments on this blog post!
clairec12003
• Dec. 9, 2009 at 8:30 pm
A really interesting post. I think it will make you, if you are tweeting for biz much more aware of what words you use and how that links to your overall SEO and web and other marketing activities. I noticed for instance, I don't have any search results under my company name, and that's because it isn't in my twitter name, and I don't tweet about the name. Nor, really, will I probably change that much on twitter. However, it wil be valuable to help build passion and intent around your top keywords and key phrases.
I do think it's important that people stop and think how they use this so it is still balanced and human, in the way that we've become aware of the best practice and things not to do with other areas of SEO
Claire
Frank Locust
• Dec. 9, 2009 at 10:15 pm
Wow, I had no idea this was so close to launching. You're right in stating that this will change the face of SM for businesses. Strategies will become more focused and developed. I'm excited!
sravan
• Dec. 10, 2009 at 7:46 am
Hey! Not sure much about the business .brand stuff, but for me it looks like disturbing my results what I'm expecting to see with my keywords. As these new real-time results are staying on top of the results, how will these results help me to find what I need, as these new stuff comes from pages those are added yesterday or today.
I guess people will just skip this top new section and go on to the o actual next section.
Daniel Honigman
• Dec. 10, 2009 at 1:30 pm
Claire: Thanks for the kind words. It'll be interesting to see how much more SEOs will start asking each other for Tweets as well as backlinks. They're already doing it to a certain extent, but it'll be fun to watch. The trick for them is to not be too spammy.
Frank: Will be fun to watch.
sravan: Not so sure about that. I think a lot will have to do with the interface. Google is known for its simplicity — can they provide an experience that doesn't deviate from what the brand has done thus far?
Thanks for stopping by, all!