SEO and Social Media

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.

Popularity: 39% [?]

After my divorce, I got lots of advice from single friends on dating.  I was pretty clueless.  I learned that waitresses weren’t really that into me (they were just being nice), and not all women are into video games.  They also didn’t seem to care about SEO.  Hmm…

But one friendly lesson stuck with me.  ”When in a club, don’t look too eager.  Women notice that!”  This hit me – not because I was necessarily being one of those Night At The Roxbury guys, but I realized I did notice it when I was out; single guys craning their necks to target every woman.  Like throwing a flurry of darts with reckless abandon.

Many businesses who get into social media remind me of this.  It’s a sea of people, and instead of learning to speak the language, make friends, and nurture relationships, they start aggressively firing shots at potential closers.  When they don’t convert, they blame the night club (platform), or the girls (customers).  It’s too frantic.  In online social marketing, your customers expect you to engage with them.  They know when you’re desperate.  They see businesses do it all the time – the only rookies in the social media space are the businesses still going for instant gratification.

Unfortunately, bad pick up lines with your customers are just as bad, if not worse.  They destroy your chances and put you in a much worse light.  Cheap engagement tactics and sloppy execution without sizzle and value make businesses look even more desperate, and turn a flat “no” on the dance floor to blatant giggling and pointing.  Put some thought into what you should really do when taking your chances.

I had to learn to shape my conversations to my new audience (and not talk about video games).  Businesses need to do the same.  Forget a conversion rate if you can’t do this.

Popularity: 38% [?]

I’m fascinated with Domino’s new campaign. The Crispin Porter & Bogusky backed push confronts – in an entirely public forum – their customer’s disdain for Domino’s Pizza. Brave move. Most companies who spend the time to learn what customers are saying, tend to keep this under wraps. Emails marked “confidential” start flying! But Domino’s are attempting to use it to their advantage.

This is a very social media thing to do. I think you should be doing this in the social world. It is, after all, still marketing.

The new world media gives businesses a face (if you didn’t create a face for your business in 2009, you’re already a year behind). This year I truly believe it’s about practicing your communication skills. When you’re writing your emails to your friends and colleagues, think about whether you can share it with your consumers. Does what you’re saying feed into the big picture? It’s probably valuable enough to have inspired you to write it – so should you share it? Possibly. That’s what your social consumers want from you anyway. They want to know how you feel about a market trend. They want to know if you have a plan. They want to know, well, if you realize your pizza sucks.

Popularity: 4% [?]

I sent out a blog recently and published a split second after I noticed a spelling error. So quickly, I jumped back in to fixed the error. To my surprise, my Tweetmeme system said I already had one tweet.

I like when someone finds my articles interesting enough to tweet/retweet.  Vaidhyanathan clearly has one of millions of Twitter scripts/sites that follow updates. This one (looks like Twitterfeed in this case) just syndicates through his account, building his tweets up to nearly 9k tweets.

Is this noise?  Or is there value?  Isn’t value what we all want?

I follow people in Twitter who do the same thing as this Tweeter. I end up scanning and ignoring the junk for the good stuff. If I don’t find it after a few tries, that Tweeter is history. I originally followed them because I was inspired by the wealth of information. But, in time, if it’s completely uncategorized, then it becomes noise.  It’s taught me to be a little more particular about who I follow.  The Twitter ‘newness’ isn’t there anymore.  We’re becoming power users.

Don’t get me wrong.  I’m not knocking Vaidhyanathan – I’m having a little fun.  I mean, hell, he has the right to do whatever he wants!  Plus he is an SEO per his bio, so it’s not like he’s just aggregating any old junk (like some of the people I followed).  I think he’s legit, and his intention for this account may be totally valuable in a way I just don’t understand.  That’s very possible.

But I’d like to know… what is that benefit?  More eventual followers? A better opportunity for sponsored tweets? A better Twitter grade?  Granted, Twitter is what you make of it, but it’s frustrating seeing some spammers wasting the opportunity.  I don’t assume he’s a spammer, but maybe he’ll tell me what his intention was.

I say this to clients about Twitter, “Don’t be static.  Be Electric!”  Yes. I wrote that.  I’m clever like that.  But it’s really true, especially a year after its original explosion.  People put up with much less on Twitter these days.

Popularity: 14% [?]

I provided an article to SmartBlog on Social Media. Check it out…

Click here to read the article

Popularity: unranked [?]

Why would you want these people to crowdsource for you? Look at them. Teenagers. Derelicts. Hippies!

Ok, that’s sarcasm.

I’ve been really into the idea of using other properties for marketing for a while.  I really got into a Twitter kick last year, and am still active.  I’ve played with every social bookmarking, social voting, image network, and tagging sites.  I’ve recently been working with my company on a social media marketing offering via Facebook.  It’s not a new concept, but it is.  It’s still very much fluid, and very much worth exploring.  A lot of companies turn their nose at it.  Yeah, but we’re used to that.

Remember when we used to try to talk CMO’s into letting us post on forums?  They were worried about negative responses (at the cost of the positive responses).  Then we had to convince the CMO’s that blogs were good!  We often got the go ahead as long as we had a dedicated moderator to cut out the negative stuff.  I admit it – I had that job once. But somewhereb thanks in part to the slow adoption from major brands like Dell, Zappos, and Amazon, the publicly posted negative feedback and reviews stopped getting censored.  When they would get censored, there would be a public outcry.  Progressive CMO’s were more worried about that outcry than the negative posts on their domains.  Good call.  If the products can stand for themselves, then let the social media prove it for you.  Now we’re talking about something truly valid.

The social media space really evolved this past year.  The community noticed the companies making these efforts, and taking these risk.  The companies were embraced for it.  Fans and followers became as faithful as NASCAR fans are to their brands.  And even when the quantity is few, their presence was very illuminating.

So here I am, getting really into marketing on Facebook, and finding myself excited about the opportunity of riding a wave that will either dissolve before reaching the shore, or smash into beachfront property like a tsunami.  My only regret is that I wish I had the foresight to jump on it sooner.  Actually, my regret is that more businesses still don’t have the insight to jump into it now.

It’s a tough sell.  I can completely relate to the business owner.  It’s very similar to convincing a CMO to try building a blog in 2006.  By the time they were all convinced, every company had one and none were being used properly.  A lot of noise.  But how do we convince the CMO’s that these teenagers, derelicts, and hippies are all extremely important components of your business, and not just because of their dollars?  It’s now officially a different world online, and I’m afraid business is once again way behind.  The CMOs are reading all the trades, and the “social media is where it’s at” articles, but it’s not sparking enough passion in the CMOs to pick up all the Lego pieces and start building.  How big does the bang need to be this time?

But what about the content, cross-channel implications?  They’re huge.  Maybe Facebook marketing doesn’t seemingly pass as much SEO value based on the structure of the Facebook platform, but SEO is so much more than algorithms.  It’s marketing.  It’s content.  It’s helping search engines adore your business, content, and value.  Facebook (and the content it provides) means more than most people think.  To me that’s the hurdle you have to get over first and foremost.  With passion.  Show that it’s rock n’ roll, yeah, but it’s not dangerous.  It’s cultural.  It’s last year’s next big thing.  Let’s get a move on, already before the crowd actually moves on!

Popularity: unranked [?]

With real-time search being rolled out, I asked questions about how Twitter would be able to handle the volume.  I don’t want to see the “Twitter is over-capacity” whale in Google results!

But however they’re handling it, it looks like Twitter finally made some money by opening their tweets to Google (at the cost of about $15 million) and MSN (at the cost of about $10 million).  Beats the hell out of the limited calls us regular folks get!

I was so sure it was going to be the Paypal-esque money transferring model first.  At least it wasn’t as cheesey as buying and sending virtual gifts for a dollar (I don’t care if it worked, Facebook – it’s cheesey!).

For more check this out.

Popularity: unranked [?]

Update: Since this post was written, many things have changed.  You don’t need this Greasemonkey script to see Tweets in Google’s search engine result pages.  It’s now baked in as a Google feature.  Here’s what Google’s Twitter powered real time search looks like.  Pretty smart move since Twitter is now the second largest search engine.

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Oh Twitter, I love thee more than bourbon for breakfast (what?!?!).  Thanks to a cool new Greasemonkey script, I love you even more.  What is Greasemonkey?  Only the coolest Firefox plugin ever built by human hands.

I always like talking about the value of vertical and social searches.  There’s also a concept of ‘real time search‘ that I really like.  Twitter is essentially that – information is available to find immediately after it’s been posted, and the usual Google delay is history.  Is Twitter going to show the same results as our trusted friend Google?  No, certainly not.  But with thousands and thousands of Tweeters out there, you’re sure to find something pretty cutting edge for many of your queries.

So this new script for Greasemonkey creates a block for Twitter results, and I couldn’t be happier.  Best of both worlds if you ask me.

Pick up the script at MT-Hacks.com.

Real Time Search via Twitter… on Google?

Click To Read More...

Popularity: 10% [?]

In today’s online climate, you constantly hear about how brands should be monitoring social media for conversations.  Most brands don’t do this now though many agencies and vendors are offering services to do the monitoring, and providing recommendations to effectively act on these conversations (whether it’s damage control or customer acquisition). I have seen brands like Zappos pay attention to my social media posts on Twitter, and reach out to me personally – well, maybe it was an agency. Still I couldn’t help feel a unique connection with this otherwise faceless brand. From that reach-out, I now have a one on one connection to Zappos through Twitter. I’m a perfect target for their marketing.

I found a great online tool who’s goal is to “deliver the most relevant and current conversations happening in the world of social media.” - Whostalkin.com . It’s a bit like BlogPulse, though I’m not sure who has the deeper spider. Whostalkin does let you segment different networks which is a useful feature.

Popularity: 2% [?]

Twitter is a great marketing tool if you use it right.  Like any social media, it’s a relationship building tool.  When you earn the love and loyalty of your network, you find your stage has a pretty bright spotlight.  The more you use Twitter and contribute useful content, the more you find followers will find you.  There are many tools where your authority can be found (Mr Tweet and Twellow are my favs), aside from just surfing Twitter itself.

Twitter offers the ability to send a direct message to people who follow you.  Have you ever noticed on occasion when you opt to follow someone, you immediately receive a direct message with something like “thanks for following – check out my site at www…”  For that direct message to be sent, the Twitterer is either doing it manually (unlikely, especially if they’re busy) or using a web 2.0 tool like Tweetlater.  This Twitter auto respond tool lets you schedule your tweets, but also has a convenient “auto-reply” feature:

click for larger view

Pretty useful to market yourself a little further.  Just make sure you have something to say in your Twitter auto messages.  It’s a great way to Twitter clients specifically, as well.

For those who were curious but didn’t ask, my Twitter obsession also hits Tweetdeck, Twhirl, TweetEffect, TwitterGrader, TweetBurner, Tweepler, MyTweeple, and TweetVolume pretty often.  I’m about as addicted to these as I am Firefox extensions. Click To Read More...

Popularity: 12% [?]