Search is now going real time. This means that some of the social media platforms, particularly Twitter and Facebook, will be included in the new searches. Are your social media platforms prepared? There does, however, seem to be both an upside and a downside to real time search.
- One of the advantages is having greater exposure through your social media marketing efforts. It also allows for the opportunity to post at certain times of the day to grab a larger audience share and to immediately become engaged in the conversation. If potential customers are using Google as a search engine, they are more inclined to click onto sites in a SERP that have landed on the first page of the search. This is where your SEO strategies, as well as your social media efforts, can have a huge impact.
- One of the down sides to real time search is that you must make the time, or have a dedicated team, to be fully engaged in real time as the conversations and comments begin to come in. Even though this will be a time consuming proposition, it can quickly be turned to your advantage in that you can immediately rectify any false impressions and provide customers with new information they not know about your company. It also gives you the chance to drive them to your site and convert them.
- Being able to handle conversations on the fly is a huge competitive advantage. While many brands, especially small businesses, are not really doing this, it could give you the edge over the competition.
- Everyone will have to work together from your SEO team to your PR team. With Facebook in the mix, your marketing and content needs to become more strategic. It needs to be purpose driven. It needs to drive traffic to your site. In the end, you can’t ignore your SEO methodology out on your social sites especially Facebook. Because they are coming up in real time searches, your SEO fundamentals have to be there.
-Written by Kevin Sawyer
