What Real Time Search Means for Local Business
With both Google and Bing striking deals with Twitter to index tweets and include them in search results, the natural question to ask is “How does this affect my business?”. A lot of local businesses are having a hard time understanding how Twitter specifically fits into their marketing plan, and this deal with the major players in search will hopefully make that picture seem a bit more clear.
As with a Facebook fan page for a local business, Twitter is nothing more than a communication channel to send out updates, promotions, coupons and news to current and prospective customers in your area. While the rest of the world uses it to tell you what they are doing, follow celebrities, or get the latest news, Twitter for local business has the ability to be a great marketing tool to actually sell something. The goal is to muster as many followers as possible through social networking, as well as by promoting your social media avenues through other channels (like flyers, emails, offline ads, etc) and in your physical store locations. This audience uses the web (and increasingly mobile devices) to stay abreast of all the things they deem important, including information and deals on the products they buy and services they use. With one of the biggest trends in 2010 being location based marketing, the true potential of Twitter has yet to be seen. But real time search can begin to show benefits right away.
As Twitter increasingly integrates with search, the opportunity to expose your promotions and coupons to active users goes up dramatically. A person who previously searched for “austin furniture sale” may have clicked through to a site optimized for that search term, but not actually having a sale. The person either realizes that, or shows up expecting a sale and is left upset at the fact that there isnt one. Now, the ability to “broadcast” sales and promotions through Twitter and have them indexed by Google makes that actively ready to buy and Google using customer far more likely to find your business and visit your location.
Thats just one example of how Twitter can change marketing, and how the lines between social media and search will blur. The ability to find people on Twitter by location and keyword is already here and makes starting to garner a local following possible right now, no matter what the local business. One thing is certain…these things will happen and those who have built a following will be best prepared to take advantage of this exciting new avenue.
