Twitter Search Queries Up 33%, 24 Billion Searches Per Month (SearchEngineLand) – that’s pretty huge! Just a few months ago they were up to 11 billion. What a leap. Why? Well because Twitter isn’t going away; Google’s bringing it a lot more visibility, and it’s so easy when you give it a chance. It’s a human run search engine. Whether you go to search.twitter.com, or search through any one of Twitter API powered apps or sites, you’re going to quickly find fresh results.
Last week at a friend’s party, a drunkard mumbled, “Twitter is for idiots. Nobody cares what you’re doing!” Well, I don’t get offended that easily. But I wasn’t about to bother explaining – he clearly enjoyed his obstinance. But what I could have told him is Twitter is only what you make of it. It’s a connecting tool between friends (like a status update on Facebook), or a news aggregator (follow those who post nothing but up to the minute news). Maybe it’s an entertainment tool? I know I like to follow people that make me laugh every day. Maybe it’s a customer service tool (@ComcastCares). I practically IM my coworkers with DMs using ChromeBird.
Granted, the 24 billion searches are probably from Twitter power users, of which I am one. I routinely search for content and links via Twitter. I think Twitter is one of the most useful social properties on the web, hands down. You get used to the 120 (oops – 140… thanks Jack… I was asleep at the wheel there) characters, I promise. Besides, we all have short attention spans anyway.
Are you a power user too? Follow me @bill_sebald
Update:
So the word now is that these searches are inflated. Apparently sporadic API calls from all the apps (like my ChromeBird) that ping the search command are included in this announced total. Well, yeah… technically that’s a search, but really Twitter? A little deceptive to put the number out there without that caveat. You still have an incredible achievement to be proud of.
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Bill Sebald - Ex-big agency guy, now focused on helping small and medium sized business. I've been practicing SEO since 1998. I started the SEO practice at a major digital agency owned by eBay and helped develop SEO products for one of the largest ecommerce platforms. I'm a proud member of the Philadelphia SEO scene. I'm passionate about search, writing, UX, CRO, and psychology in marketing.
Jack Bremer
140 chars u mean
I agree though, it’s such a shame when people don’t get it – I genuinely think Twitter has a place in every person’s professional, social and personal development, as well as every company’s customer service, marketing and reputation strategy!
Jack Bremer
140 chars u mean
I agree though, it’s such a shame when people don’t get it – I genuinely think Twitter has a place in every person’s professional, social and personal development, as well as every company’s customer service, marketing and reputation strategy!
Wil Reynolds
The question is are people conducting commerce from these searches? If I am searching for cust service, or something else there’s value there too, but until I start seeing more referrals from search.twitter.com conducting micro and macro conversions on my site, I don’t think I’ll pay tooo much attention to Twitter search. I use twitter search a LOT, but I know that I’m in that 1% of web dorks, but for the vast majority of people twitter search won’t have a lot of value for them.
.-= Wil Reynolds´s last blog ..5 Traits of Successful Internet Marketers =-.
Wil Reynolds
The question is are people conducting commerce from these searches? If I am searching for cust service, or something else there’s value there too, but until I start seeing more referrals from search.twitter.com conducting micro and macro conversions on my site, I don’t think I’ll pay tooo much attention to Twitter search. I use twitter search a LOT, but I know that I’m in that 1% of web dorks, but for the vast majority of people twitter search won’t have a lot of value for them.
.-= Wil Reynolds´s last blog ..5 Traits of Successful Internet Marketers =-.
Bill Sebald
@Wil – That’s a great point. As a revenue driver, I don’t think it’s mature. Direct SEO for ecommerce goals probably doesn’t sync with Twitter yet. If you’re building content that feeds into passing authority and trust to your ecommerce page (off or on domain), I think that’s a different story.
To me it’s a niche search engine – if you’re looking for something in your niche, and Twitter is rich with it, it’s incredibly useful. Today I used it to find out what people were thinking about the movie Inception (seemed like my kind of movie). In this case it satisfied my need faster than Google did.
Bill Sebald
@Wil – That’s a great point. As a revenue driver, I don’t think it’s mature. Direct SEO for ecommerce goals probably doesn’t sync with Twitter yet. If you’re building content that feeds into passing authority and trust to your ecommerce page (off or on domain), I think that’s a different story.
To me it’s a niche search engine – if you’re looking for something in your niche, and Twitter is rich with it, it’s incredibly useful. Today I used it to find out what people were thinking about the movie Inception (seemed like my kind of movie). In this case it satisfied my need faster than Google did.
SQL Training
Twitter is one of the best invention to happen online
I think it a great place to hang around socialize with friends, market our products. It is pretty useful
SQL Training
Twitter is one of the best invention to happen online
I think it a great place to hang around socialize with friends, market our products. It is pretty useful
jayp
Twitter is getting bigger and bigger each day and no wonder if it’s going to be a competitor of any leading search engines today like Google or Yahoo!. I agree with what you said, twitter is what you make of it.
jayp
Twitter is getting bigger and bigger each day and no wonder if it’s going to be a competitor of any leading search engines today like Google or Yahoo!. I agree with what you said, twitter is what you make of it.
SEO Expert
For me I only use Twitter to market my business. Some people enjoy using it for personal reasons, but I don’t. I think that social networks in general consume enough of my time for business reasons let along if I did them for personal reasons.
SEO Expert
For me I only use Twitter to market my business. Some people enjoy using it for personal reasons, but I don’t. I think that social networks in general consume enough of my time for business reasons let along if I did them for personal reasons.