In mid February Google launched Google Realtime and Twitter is going to play a huge part. Twitter has been driving changes to the way the web is searched, and now Google is pulling in real time from Twitter. Google Realtime includes up-to-the-second social updates in search results.
Twitter has become a major source of information as it happens. Whenever someone tweets, it is posted to twitter.com and is searchable as soon as it is posted. People and businesses have set up searches for key words and phrases on Twitter, so that whenever someone tweets with those words or phrases, the person/business that set up the search is notified.
And now realtime feeds from Twitter, Flickr, Blogger, and LinkedIn are included in Google search results.
This is huge, and it means that if you want to maintain an effective web presence you had better think about how Twitter fits into your online marketing strategy. Google now has personalized and social search – everyone who searches will see a different page of results, based on their location, search history and their connections across the social web.
Twitter is really important for an online marketing strategy because you can see beyond your social graph (who you are already connected to) to tap into conversations occurring around events, topics and other people anywhere in the world. It has become a major source of information real time, whether it is a political happening half way across the world or a customer complaining about your business.
Google is still the major player when it comes to search engines, and by pulling in tweets in realtime, it will shift the dynamics of being found on the web. Keywords and search rank are becoming less important and social reach (your “connections” in your social networks) are becoming more important. Google will show real-time content updates from social networks in the search results pages.
To launch Google Realtime, go to google.com/realtime. You can now also set up Google Alerts filtered by Realtime too.
Exciting times online! Time to get more social on the web by tweeting, blogging, and connecting!