Alberta Business Marketing

Are you thinking about the use of Twitter in your small business?  How can this micro-blogging service help me promote my business?  Why is it important?

My views on the overall importance of Twitter for business varies each day.  Some days I am on the bandwagon and some days I am not.  I believe effective use of Twitter has some importance for a business and your presence on Twitter can help with your overall online fishing.  I often speak on “casting your net” during our Calgary Online Marketing Courses.  In the same breath it is important that business people don’t consume all their time and efforts using Twitter as a tool to share information and events.

This is where a great blog comes into being an extremely strong strategy for your business.  Using your blog as a centre point and then leveraging Twitter (automatically) to help share out your information can be a very effective strategy.  Set it and forget it.  My blogging strategy is to offer my insight on popular topics, simply not to retweet other peoples stuff.

Google announced this week that searchers have the ability to go back in time, eventually to March 2006 to see archived tweets from Twitter.  This is pretty cool feature from Google.  Google calls this search technology “Real-Time Search” and it has been around for  few months now.  This week Google announced enhancements to real-time search, you can read about it on their blog by visiting Google Real-Time Search.

Do you really want to see its effectiveness? Google “Iceland Volcano” to see how it works on trending topics.  Real-time search is great, but it is really the archived Twitter search results that are impressive.

To see how the archived Twitter search works, just check out what Strathmore Realtor, Kevin Baldwin is doing on Twitter.  His Chestermere Real Estate blog feeds Twitter every time he posts information on his blog, posts a video on YouTube or lists a home on the MLS system, check out his Twitter archive at Chestermere Real Estate.

The next big thing around this search technology is also the “Top Links” section.  As a blogger, my goal is to share information with people they find interesting.  The Top Links on the right side of the Real-time Search results shows some of the top URL’s based on a particular search term.

Is your Search Engine Optimization firm helping you understand the importance of Real-time search?

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Who said Social Media was for teens or kids?

Well the importance of social media in the business world took a huge leap forward.  Google on their official blog announced they will be showing real-time search results for Facebook information such as your fan pages.  It appears this will only be US-based for now, however once it starts gaining some momentum I am sure it will spill across the border to us here in Canada.

Real-time search results was released in December and so far it is showing up on a number of searches.

Here is an example of Google real-time search in action.  Searching for the Canadian Hockey Team on Google today showed some very interesting search results in real-time.

Social Media services are now critically important for your business.  Especially with this integration of search results from services like Twitter and now Facebook now showing in Google search results.  What opportunities is your business missing?  If you are would like to learn more about Canadian search engine optimization for your business give me a call at 403.775.2205.

To learn more about Facebook and Google search, check out the official Google blog.

Tags: Blog hosting services, canada, Criticism of Facebook, Facebook, Facebook Inc, google, Google Inc., Google search, Google's hoaxes, Online social networking, real time search, real-time search results, search engine optimization, search results, Social information processing, social media, Technology/Internet, Twitter, Twitter Inc, web 2.0, World Wide Web
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Google Real Time Search:

Today we see what Google has been working on with Real Time Search.  Integrating search results from Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, and other news feeds, Google search results show a small scrolling bar of results.  The importance that Google attributes to the real time results determines how high the scrolling real time results display.

Try it yourself at http://www.google.com/webhp?hl=en&esrch=RTSearch

Links:

• Marissa Mayer introduces Facebook and MySpace to the real space inventory of searchable data.
• Google also introduced Google Goggles for Android phones. In it’s infancy, Goggles will make your head spin with the possibilities for the future of Visual Search.

Tweet This

Tags: google, google news, real time search
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Microsoft search engine Bing inked a deal with Twitter that includes tweets in search results.  Microsoft announced the deal onstage at the Web 2.0 Summit today.  The non-exclusive deal made it easy for Google to piggyback on the Bing announcement with their own announcement of a commitment to feature Tweets in search results.

Significance of the Bing / Google Twitter Announcements for Travel:

Tweets aren’t just for your followers on Twitter any more. Travel regions and tourism businesses will need to post relevant tweets and links to benefit from higher visibility among search users whether or not they are users of Twitter. Tweets will show up in Search results.

The upshot: Get tourism businesses in your region tweeting!

Twitter on Bing

Using http://bing.com/twitter will reveal relevant real time Twitter search results.  Microsoft also announced that soon Facebook status updates will also be featured on the search engine.  What is interesting is that Bing sample results page features the tweeted link title and sample tweets featuring the avatar (photo) and text of the tweet!

Twitter on Google

Surely the enlightenment of embedding Twitter in search results on Google was overdue.

In May this year I reported how Google was not invited to the Twitter Party, and that Twitter search was indeed a critical piece of the search puzzle for Web 3.0 – the Here and Now Web.

It appears now, Google and Twitter have come to a financial agreement  that will result in tweets being featured in Google search results.

News on the Twitter deal from the Google Blog

“Given this new type of information and its value to search, we are very excited to announce that we have reached an agreement with Twitter to include their updates in our search results. We believe that our search results and user experience will greatly benefit from the inclusion of this up-to-the-minute data, and we look forward to having a product that showcases how tweets can make search better in the coming months.”

What will Tweets in Search Results look like?  We don’t know yet.

Some users of Firefox have been using a Greasemonkey script which embeds Twitter search results at the top of any Google search result as shown below.

Google itself highlighted the importance of travel regions and tourism operators making effective use of the Twitter platform on its blog post:

“The next time you search for something that can be aided by a real-time observation, say, snow conditions at your favorite ski resort, you’ll find tweets from other users who are there and sharing the latest and greatest information.”

Impact of these Twitter announcements from Google and Microsoft:

• The Here and Now Web (Web 3.0) is here.  Real time search results and location relevant search results will take on greater importance.
• Twitter will Grow in adoption as tweets get greater visibility beyond the Twitterverse.
• A new era of search engine innovation will come about as engineers figure out how to identify relevant tweets from spam.
• With access to Twitter search results, Google and Microsoft will need to rethink their search result algorithyms and determine how much relative importance to give to tweets.

Share your thoughts?

Tweet This

Tags: bing, google, google news, microsoft, real time search, research / trends, Twitter, Web 3.0
Posted in Alberta Business | | Comments Off

Microsoft search engine Bing inked a deal with Twitter that includes tweets in search results. Microsoft announced the deal onstage at the Web 2.0 Summit today. The non-exclusive deal made it easy for Google to piggyback on the Bing announcement with their own announcement of a commitment to feature Tweets in search results.

Significance of the Bing / Google Twitter Announcements for Travel:

Tweets aren’t just for your followers on Twitter any more. Travel regions and tourism businesses will need to post relevant tweets and links to benefit from higher visibility among search users whether or not they are users of Twitter. Tweets will show up in Search results.

The upshot: Get tourism businesses in your region tweeting!

Twitter on Bing

Using http://bing.com/twitter will reveal relevant real time Twitter search results. Microsoft also announced that soon Facebook status updates will also be featured on the search engine. What is interesting is that Bing sample results page features the tweeted link title and sample tweets featuring the avatar (photo) and text of the tweet!

Twitter on Google

Marissa Mayer announces Google deal with Twitter at Web 2.0 Summit (youtube)

Surely the enlightenment of embedding Twitter in search results on Google was overdue.

In May this year I reported how Google was not invited to the Twitter Party, and that Twitter search was indeed a critical piece of the search puzzle for Web 3.0 – the Here and Now Web.

It appears now, Google and Twitter have come to a financial agreement that will result in tweets being featured in Google search results.

News on the Twitter deal from the Google Blog

“Given this new type of information and its value to search, we are very excited to announce that we have reached an agreement with Twitter to include their updates in our search results. We believe that our search results and user experience will greatly benefit from the inclusion of this up-to-the-minute data, and we look forward to having a product that showcases how tweets can make search better in the coming months.”

What will Tweets in Search Results look like? We don’t know yet.

Some users of Firefox have been using a Greasemonkey script which embeds Twitter search results at the top of any Google search result as shown below.

Google itself highlighted the importance of travel regions and tourism operators making effective use of the Twitter platform on its blog post:

“The next time you search for something that can be aided by a real-time observation, say, snow conditions at your favorite ski resort, you’ll find tweets from other users who are there and sharing the latest and greatest information.”

Impact of these Twitter announcements from Google and Microsoft:

• The Here and Now Web (Web 3.0) is here. Real time search results and location relevant search results will take on greater importance.
• Twitter will Grow in adoption as tweets get greater visibility beyond the Twitterverse.
• A new era of search engine innovation will come about as engineers figure out how to identify relevant tweets from spam.
• With access to Twitter search results, Google and Microsoft will need to rethink their search result algorithyms and determine how much relative importance to give to tweets.

Share your thoughts?

Tweet This

Tags: bing, google, google news, microsoft, real time search, research / trends, Twitter, Web 3.0
Posted in Alberta Business | | Comments Off