Think Twitter doesn’t impact lead generation and inbound marketing? Well, think again. The social media giant recently announced a partnership with Google that’s rocking SEO/SEM strategies by making tweets more searchable. With this new collaboration, more people will see promotional and organic tweets – even if they don’t have a Twitter account.
Prior to this arrangement, Google would previously have to crawl throughout Twitter’s stream. With approximately 8,885 tweets shared per second, there was a significant delay between when a tweet was posted and when it appeared on the search engine’s results page. In addition, with the saturation of posts on Twitter, brands could only reach about 10 percent of their followers – much less for those who do not directly follow them. Now, tweets will be visible in Google search results as soon as they are posted to anyone with Internet access.
A mutually beneficial relationship, Google will improve its content and user experience while Twitter will reach a larger audience of unregistered, or “logged out” people – a goal of the social media platform as its growth has slowed. Twitter estimates that its syndicated tweets – or those that appear on other platforms, like television – account for 185 billion impressions per quarter.
According to Google, they process more than 3.5 billion searches per day, giving the 288 million active Twitter users a much larger reach and visibility for users and logged-out users, and yet another opportunity to position themselves as thought leaders. While engineers are working on the technical details, there are some proactive tactics that brands should consider before the Twitter+Google deal goes live at the end of Q2 2015.
Preparing your brand for the big time:
First and foremost, if your brand isn’t already on Twitter – now is the time to get with the program. Both B2C and B2B companies have the opportunity for brand awareness, thought leadership and lead generation on social media, and this opportunity will increase tenfold once Twitter’s partnership with Google is realized. If you do already have an account, make sure you have a strong presence in the Twittersphere.
While the exact algorithm for the Google+Twitter collaboration has not yet been revealed (and probably won’t ever be), we do know that SEO keywords will play a factor in the ranking of posts in search results. The opportunity exists for a tweet to be featured at the top of search results, but a poorly optimized tweet may not be seen at all. Therefore, it is important to know your keywords and use them in your posts when appropriate – don’t just flood your posts with keywords to optimize your ranking, as you still want to engage users.
The amount of organic reach is about to increase, as well. Therefore, instead of sharing just news and company culture posts, having a call-to-action will create positive gains from people not following your brand or not even on Twitter. Similar to the current best practices for Twitter ads, call-to-actions can include directing people to visit your blog, sign up for a newsletter, or take advantage of a limited-time offer. Simply put, your tweets are about to become a stronger channel for inbound leads and conversions.
I cannot stress this one enough – think before you post! Before this arrangement, a silly mistake on Twitter would have a limited shelf life. Sure, a larger brand may get some embarrassing notoriety (check out these 10 tech company social media bloopers), but now Google has the ability to archive each tweet – so it can continue to show up at the top of search results, and it will live on forever.
At Alloy, we’re stoked about the new Google+Twitter partnership because it promises to help our clients #makenews and boost sales. Got questions? Contact us today here or on Twitter!