Real-time search makes social media (more) important
On Monday, Google made a giant leap to the front of the real-time search game by adding "Latest Results", a real-time search result box, to the first page of search results. The "Latest Results" feed pulls results from major news sources, blog posts and social networks including Twitter and FriendFeed.
Here's an example from Google:
Try it out for yourself: Google real-time search for 'Pearltrees', a French social network.
The "Latest Results" box gives you the option to pause the feed, or to click the "Latest Results" link for a full list of updates. Also notice that real-time search results are not available for every search, only popular keywords... yet.
Here's a video demo from Google:
What does this mean to businesses?
Monitoring your brand in social media just became essential. Google has essentially unleashed tens of millions of tweeters, bloggers, and social networkers onto the top of their search engine results. Imagine what a few unattended bad reviews would do to your company's image now.
Social media is not a fad. It is a movement in the way people are communicating, and it's changing the marketing game once again. Plus, if Google does it, you should too. Even Eric Schmidt, Google's CEO, is on Twitter now.
Social media is even more important to your search engine presence. While Google will still keep ten organic results on the first page, it is getting much more important to diversify your presence between the different mediums. This means utilizing videos, photos, and now more than ever, blogs, social networks and Twitter to stay on top of the search engine results.
This move towards real-time search from Google is only the beginning. Deals are rumored to be pending between several social networks and major search engines to provide real-time social data within search results. If your company is not participating in social media yet, it's time you got a social media game plan outlining how to effectively find, engage and reward your audience to drive conversions and increase sales.
Contact Sales & Marketing Technologies today to get started on your social media game plan.
Follow me on Twitter: @jonnegrini