Google Will Force All B2B Companies To Tweet
By Kipp Bodnar
Tue, Dec 8, 2009
Communications, Examples, Lead Generation, Marketing, Sales, Social Networks, Twitter
Yesterday will long be known as the day that Google forced B2B companies to tweet. The search giant made an announcement about its new real-time search feature. See the video below for a quick look at the feature that will be rolling out to all users in the next couple of days.
With this announcement Google has forced B2B companies to care about Twitter and other forms of user-generated content that are published in real-time. In recent years B2B companies have relied heavily on search engine results for sources of lead generation and Web site traffic. Google has now changed the game when it comes to search engine marketing with this transition to real-time search.
I have written about the importance of social search, but this new real-time search data is a more immediate concern for B2B companies. It will be rolled out to all Google users in the next couple of days. Real-time data is now the first section of results a user sees in Google. It will be placed above traditional web search results. Being first in traditional Google search results is now less important.
All B2B Companies Now have To Tweet
The argument by B2B companies has long been that my customers aren’t on Twitter and other social networks, so I don’t need to be there either. Google has given companies on Twitter and other real-time platforms, like Yahoo Answers, a clear advantage over the competition. Research has long found that even if a person is not active on the social web, they rely heavily on search as a way to discover information. Now the information they discover first is going to be from the social web. This means that if your company doesn’t tweet, it is going to lose some search traffic. Regardless of the engagement that happens on Twitter and other platforms, companies are now going to have to contribute content to these networks to be included in search and to reap the rewards of referral traffic and leads.
It Is Like The Beginning Of Google Again
When the web and search were just starting, online data was only a small fraction of what it is today. There was less competition in ranking for keywords in search engines and generating traffic. The beginning of real-time search brings a similar situation to the web again. Because many niche companies have been reluctant to participate on the social web the amount of data and keywords for niche B2B keywords is small. If you are the only company on Twitter in your B2B industry, you can likely dominate real-time search results in the short term and are well positioned for long-term traffic growth and awareness.
Yes, You Have To Keyword Optimize Your Tweets
If you have been a company on Twitter for awhile now, then you are likely focusing on engagement for customers and leads. That is is still very important, but now you have to also think about the words you use in each tweet. If you have been involved in any type of search marketing, it is likely that you used Google’s keyword tool, or another tool, to look at popular search terms related to your business. If you haven’t done this, you should. Once you have done it, combined with other analysis, you can create a list of keywords to optimize for your web properties. Today, you now have to apply this same list to your social content.
For example: When tweeting about this blog during a day I would use different keywords each time to help this blog be included in a wider variety of real-time search results. To illustrate check out the same tweet that could be send using a variety of keywords:
Tweet 1: Great B2B social media article on lead generation: (insert link)
Tweet 2: Great article about generating B2B leads using social media: (insert link)
Tweet 3: Great B2B social media search example: (insert link)
Tweet 4: Lead generation article about leveraging business-to-business social media: (insert link)
These example tweets are only a few combinations that could be done in an efforts to maximize search relevance, but should serve as an example for how to think about optimizing social content, including tweets for Google’s new real-time search function.
The announcement of real-time search by Google is one of the most important social media announcements of 2009. It will change how companies look at leveraging social media and will likely speed adoption.
How will this change by Google impact your business-to-business social media efforts?
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Tags: B2B, B2B Social Media, Google, marketing, real time search, social search
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Good observation Kipp. With Google now going real-time and showing tweets companies who didn’t pay attention to Twitter now will. “Keyword Optimize Your Tweets” from a business stand point is a smart thing to do.
Wayne
Wayne, am not on board with the keyword optimizing at all. What really needs to be done is consistency and profile completeness. Businesses that just throw stuff into the “twitter wind” will be seen through immediately for what they are: absolute crap. Keywording is of importance, however; it seems to be useless next to the likes of consistency and a solid profile that quickly clues the reader in on who the business is.
While I love Twitter and the concept of this, I worry about companies just jumping on Twitter, setting up auto-posts full of keywords and calling it a day. I’m just hoping that type of tweeting doesn’t become widespread.
Some good thoughts here about what live search potentially means for B2B. But I think there are some other things to be considered as well… not the least of which was already alluded to by Mr. Douglass: “Now” changes awfully quickly. So consistency of participation and message, as well as profile context is probably more paramount than keyword optimization.
And that leads to the algorithm. Google is famous for constantly tweaking the search algorithm to stop folks from gaming the system. I can only imagine they’ve already taken that into account for live search as well… or will soon see the need to adjust out repeat content, links or spam-like comments (for instance, tweets and posts that simply repeat the same words over and over).
Again, great initial tips and food for thought in this post. Thanks for starting the conversation.
@johnvlane
Great post, Kipp and excellent comments. I agree that consistency and depth will please Google’s algorithm more than keywords. I’d add that this will up the ante for thought leadership, too. With little hard news to speak of in B2B, your Tweets will need to link back to good content to get and keep web searchers.
Kipp,
This is very timely and helpful. Clients I talk to will definitely be accelerating their plans for social media to be competitive in lead generation for sure as well as optimizing keywords across the different platforms. Thanks.
This isn’t anything new… it’s twitter search via google.. NOBODY should have to FORCE a B2B company to do social media… and most of them already are.
Except instead of worrying about what random people say on twitter, they are collaborating online with buyers, distributors, engineers, product managers, CTOs on their own NING communities, answering questions on LinkedIn, or other niche specific social networking websites FAR away from the “twittering obsessed” public and located where their peers or prospective B2B customers have been already.
MOST of the people who are “at work” on twitter are PR, Social Media, SEOs, Sales, journalists(bloggers), etc..
they are not the product manager looking to buy 100LOT of x34z transistors, they are not the CTO of a hospital looking to buy Encryption for RFID on the asset tracked medical equipment, they are NOT supplychain vendors looking for software to poll their transports via a VPN, they are not the person looking for an ETRM Solution.
IF you are the marketing director for a fortune 50 company on twitter, that’s MY customer.. NOT my client’s customers.. they are on Google Searching for MY client’s products and services and to quote a client:
“We don’t really care about the twitter (stuff), it’s your job to make sure our website pulls up where our customers are looking.”.
P.s. Google’s reaction time on Press releases posted on a well SEO’d B2B website was anywhere from 4 to 14 minutes, for AT LEAST the past year, BEFORE Google AND Bing made the deal with twitter to integrate tweets. Real time search has been here.. for a while..
I disagree with your headline. If anything, google results may increase cognizance and awareness of what someone might be writing, but unless there’s enough traction or trending on Twitter about the searched keywords, nothing will show up.
Ari,
I understand your point. However, thinking about it on a high level, this is really the front runner to true social search, which will force companies even more. In areal-time word, if you are not real-time you get left out…
Steve,
Thanks for your comment. though I must say that I disagree with you. This is not Twitter search via Google, because many other data sets are included Facebook, yahoo Answer, etc. Even if it was, I think it is important to understand the overall search volume of Google to Twitter search. This change opens data to a MUCH bigger audience.
Collaboration and community building are critical, I agree with you. Though i think it is important to remember that external tools like Twitter help that process and can attract new members to the community.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts!
In my opinion this feature will affect the SERPs, the traffic received, especially if they list the real-time results on the first page of Google search, but not only because some will love to use this new feature.
I fear real time search is just going to be treated like sponsored links very soon. Users might quickly recognize it as not trustworthy if people are going to abuse it and just “throw stuff into the twitter wind”. (I like that phrase!) I wonder if Google will be just as strict in terms of duplicated content and only show a few results per topic/keyword.
Kipp, perhaps a topic for our panel in May, but I actually think real-time search and integration with Twitter was a move Google is now regretting and they will pull back from soon. The beauty of Google was relevance. How they are displaying SERPs now takes away much of that legacy. It was a reaction to the innovation of Bing, but it won’t last.
As for your headline, you are correct, but not because of the Twitter integration, rather the recreation of their algorithm over time to give greater relevance to social media inbound links. All good B2B marketers should be aware of the changes now going on within Google (i.e. Google Caffeine) and how social media/networks will effect their SEO. This goes way beyond Twitter however and also gets back to many of the roots of Google in terms of relevance.
/kff
As a sales rep and blogger that writes on the effect social media and Sales 2.0 is having on the sales profession and the individual sales rep — I found your post very interesting.
I find most sales reps and sales managers approach using social media to increase sales from the wrong perspective, which ultimately leads to the wrong questions being asked, and then the wrong answers. Most typically hear the social media term and think Linkedin, Facebook, Twitter and nothing more. This is their world of social media and if their customers are not on these social media platforms it means social media is a waste of time for them.
I prefer a different viewpoint that includes the best of inbound marketing adapted to the sales rep that makes him or her more engaging, sticky, top of mind and valuable to the customers business. There are many platforms that exist to help sales reps do this — Youtube, Slideshare, and a personal website with a blog for starters. It is a big idea widely left unexplored, which means there is opportunity here for the sales reps that figure it out.
Different approach, different questions, and different answers.
Keep up the great work Kipp.