Google and Twitter rekindle their partnership

Google and Twitter have recently announced a reinstatement of their partnership to allow for real-time access to Tweets.  Data sharing between Google and Twitter is likely to increase the importance of social signals in search. Your tweets will now have a larger audience than ever before.

Since the expiration of Google and Twitter’s agreement in 2011, Google has only shown a very small selection of activity in Twitter.  In February 2015, they announced that real-time access to Tweets will return.  This is a great win-win for both parties as Google gets real-time content & Twitter will probably receive a massive increase in activity and traffic.

Previously Google used to crawl Twitter in order to pull out relevant tweets for search results, and at a velocity of 8,766 tweets per second, you can guess it wasn't an ideal situation.  The new partnership will mean that Google will access to the stream of tweets.

With this new arrangement we will most likely see an increase in Tweet indexing, which can have a positive effect on search rankings.  Google is analysing Tweet metrics, such as tweet volume and interactions, and these variables will most likely be signals that will determine how the Tweets display in search and form the regular search algorithms.

Links to third party websites from tweets, links from third party websites to user profiles, the amount of times a post is retweeted and by whom, and how many times a tweet is 'favourited' and by whom, including recent activity in Twitter are all social signals that may dictate the value of a Tweet.

As mobile use becomes dominant, social networks offer the most valuable advertising space.  In the fourth quarter of 2014, 69% of Facebook’s advertising revenue came from mobile ads, up from 53% a year before; and revenues were up 49%. Maximise your levels of engagement and social activity now, it could make a difference.  Make sure you make the most of relevant hashtags in your Tweets, create relevant posts that work with your brand and build genuine relationships with your target audience for increased engagement.

But don't start to get anxious about where your tweets are appearing now in search results. It is rumoured that it could take a few months for us to see any results.  To date we are unaware that Google even has a method of featuring tweets in search results.  However, Twitter CEO Dick Costolo said to expect the integration to be rolled out in May.

Top tips for using this partnership to your advantage:

1.  If your tweet does not contain the correctly optimized content, it will not be seen. Brands need to ensure their search and social teams are closely integrated to optimize tweets and social messages that will contain high-value key phrases.
2. Have a call to action in your tweets or direction to a landing page or brand site. A simple tweet is not going to get your user to take action.
3. With the integration of real time into the search results, it's all about to get very dynamic and brands need to be aware of negative comments and deal with them in an appropriate fashion.
4. In a Google+Twitter world what was said on Twitter wont stay on Twitter and move further down the timeline so it disappears from view.  Make sure that what you say is appropriate and can be read long after it was relevant.
5. Having tweets in the search results will impact both your paid and organic traffic so monitor what is showing for your key terms and adjust your bidding accordingly.

 

Twitter is the quintessential real-time news feed and real-time marketing is at it's peak now.  The bonus of this partnership is that users don’t need to be following you on Twitter in order to see your tweets.  It is crucial for brands to have integrated strategies, executions and delivery in order to achieve success with today's digital consumers.