You’ve always heard ‘Watch what you Tweet’, right? Well, hopefully you’ve heeded the warning, because Twitter announced last week that The Library of Congress will begin archiving tweets.  From the Twitter Blog:

“Since Twitter began, billions of tweets have been created. Today, fifty-five million tweets a day are sent to Twitter and that number is climbing sharply. A tiny percentage of accounts are protected but most of these tweets are created with the intent that they will be publicly available. Over the years, tweets have become part of significant global events around the world—from historic elections to devastating disasters.

It is our pleasure to donate access to the entire archive of public Tweets to the Library of Congress for preservation and research. It’s very exciting that tweets are becoming part of history. It should be noted that there are some specifics regarding this arrangement. Only after a six-month delay can the Tweets be used for internal library use, for non-commercial research, public display by the library itself, and preservation.”

If you are a public tweeter, congratulations on making it to The Library of Congress.

Well, it was bound to happen eventually.  Twitter, the micro-blogging social media platform, has finally began monetizing their service.  Announced yesterday, Twitter has begun to incorporate ‘Promoted Tweets’ in user’s search results.  From the Twitter blog:

“Promoted Tweets will be clearly labeled as “promoted” when an advertiser is paying, but in every other respect they will first exist as regular Tweets and will be organically sent to the timelines of those who follow a brand. Promoted Tweets will also retain all the functionality of a regular Tweet including replying, Retweeting, and favoriting. Only one Promoted Tweet will be displayed on the search results page.”

So what does this mean for the general user?  Not too much. For now, Promoted Tweets will only appear in a user’s search result.  Eventually expect to see Promoted Tweets contextually or locally placed personal Twitter feeds.

Today, I was buzzed at work.  Okay, forgive the terrible pun.  The office mates and I were discussing whether or not we like Google’s latest venture into social media.  Carly, our SEO Manager, has the mobile version on her phone and likes that it shows people nearby.  However, we are all fairly unimpressed with the Gmail version.  It feels like a mass Instant Message and G chat status.  It’s nice that it automatically follows friends, but it’s also odd that you cannot be voluntarily anonymous like on Twitter.  Also, how are we encouraged to find and follow more people?  On the mobile version, we can find people near us.  On the Gmail version, we are talking to the people we already talked to.  With Twitter; however, I can search by area or trending topic and find people interested in the same things as I am.  We’re all unsure which category to fit Buzz into.  Isn’t it going to drive me crazy to see everyone’s constant flow of Picasa, Flickr and Google Reader activity?  I already turned on my filter so that my inbox won’t be flooded with replies from friends.  What is your opinion of this latest craze?  Will it fade in and out like Google Wave or be the proverbial “Twitter killer”?

Lisa Barone of Outspoken Media found that her Twitter trending topic feed was slightly different last week.  Since we are in Charleston, we hadn’t yet seen the new Local Trends on Twitter.  Basically, it’s a breakdown of local trends which will be great for reaching the appropriate demographic when marketing on Twitter.  You can now see what is relevant in your direct area as opposed to the entire Twitterverse.  The cities that are currently experiencing Local Trends include L.A, NYC, Chicago, D.C., the UK, Atlanta and Dallas.  Here is a look at local trends side by side (courtesy of Lisa Barone):

On today’s Twitter trending topics, you will see Haiti and Yele in spots number one and two.  Twitter has become instrumental for getting the word out about worldwide crises and how to help.  The American Red Cross has joined in by assigning a number for people to text and donate.  When you text 909-99, you will donate $10 to go directly to the aid of the Haiti earthquake victims (showing up on your phone bill for that month).  The updates can be quickly seen on Google Real Time Search Results:

Yele is a program developed by recording artist Wyclef Jean committed to keeping the spirit, heart and pride of the Haiti people intact.  He, too, assigned a number (501501) to automatically donate $5 to the disaster relief of Haitians after the 7.0 magnitude earthquake.

Photo courtesy of Bing

Bing has had a deal in place for the last week to integrate Facebook status updates and tweets from Twitter into Real Time Search Results.  Google announced their deal with Twitter last week as well, also announcing that Facebook updates would also be made available soon.  However, today Google released their deal with Facebook and revealed that only status updates from Facebook pages would be available in their search results (ie: not personal pages, but company pages).  Bing will also have the personal status updates, not just public Facebook pages.  The reason?  Facebook says, “The terms of the Google deal were specifically related to public updates on Pages. But our conversations with both companies are continually evolving regarding ways in which we might work together in the future.”

Sources: Search Engine Land, Bing.com

Photo courtesy of Search Engine Land

Yahoo! announced that they were adding tweets to News Results, but now are putting them in organic search results as well!  The tweets might be minutes or hours old, depending on which tweets the algorithm finds the most relevant to the search terms.  This becomes important for companies with social media accounts to maintain their feeds, since this traffic from Twitter could drive more traffic to your site.  Google announced that it was instituting this same practice just this week with its Real Time Search Results.  Both search engines are attempting to provide customers with up-to-the-minute results while also maintaining relevancy.

Within the next few days, the company announced that it will start displaying real time search results about midway down the results page.

Photo courtesy of SearchEngineLand.com

There is a “Pause” button if you wish to stop the news from streaming but you cannot remove the tool all together.  Instead, let’s discuss what you could utilize in the search to filter what you want to see.  There is a “Latest” toggle which will give you tweets from Twitter.com, news results and web pages as they come in.  The “Updates” toggle will allow you to filter even more, simply receiving tweets.  In the future, Google plans to also release Facebook updates (for those who have public profiles), but not just yet.

Visiture is excited to see the even further exposure of social media into the Google Real Time Search results.  This can only benefit your company if you update your Twitter pages, Facebook fan pages and LinkedIn pages consistently.  We have the tools, especially with this onslaught of social media and Google Real Time Search results to market your brand effectively and improve your ROI.

Source: Danny Sullivan, SearchEngineLand.com

Photo courtesy of greatdance.com

In case you were wondering, Social Media is taking over the world.  Facebook statistics are astounding!  Over 350 million users with 50% of them logging on daily.  What does this have to do with marketing? Well, the fact is simple.  If you create a Facebook Fan Page, you are sure to promote your product or company in an organic way (through people “liking it” and sharing with others).  Facebook is comprised of the younger and older, friends, siblings, parents, grandparents, colleagues, students, and the list goes on!  Essentially, it reaches everyone.  With people actively using it every day, it is easy to see why it would be a great marketing tool.  Visiture can help you create profiles on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, or help you optimize the ones you already have.  Because these sites have so many pages pointing to them and are being updated so frequently, they are often at the top of the natural results on Google and Yahoo!.

I have witnessed many websites using Twitter to promote e-commerce in a variety of creative ways.  Most recently, I participated in a ModCloth.com giveaway.  ModCloth sells vintage items from dresses to apartment decor.  They do not have a physical store, so they have had to rely on Internet Marketing and word of mouth to expand their customer base.  When they got to a large number of followers on Twitter, ModCloth “celebrated” by giving away a $1,000 gift certificate to their site.  It understandably got a lot of press on Twitter, with new people following them to participate in the contest.

Read the rest of this entry »