In a previous article on this site, it was revealed that Google and Twitter were working on a plan that would make Tweets more relevant to SEO. Last week, Twitter and Google officially began their collaboration to put live Tweets back into Google search results by adding them to the Google Search App. Live Tweets in the Google Search App feed will increase the value of Twitter for marketers and give website owners.
“We’re excited to team up with Google to bring Twitter’s unique, real-time content to Google’s search results,” wrote Jana Messerschmidt, the Vice President Global Business Development & Platform Twitter. “Starting today, U.S. users searching in English will see relevant Tweets in their search results within the Google app (iOS and Android) and mobile web.”
This will be useful for business owners and marketers who use their Twitter accounts as a way to promote themselves. Searching for that individual on Google will show their Tweets in the search results.
For example, people interested in hearing more from Taylor Swift, can do a quick search on Google to pull up her most recent Tweets. Similarly, people can use the hashtag for a show to get the latest news from the show or conversations about the show if that’s more relevant.
Tapping on a Tweet in Google search will take the searcher directly to Twitter where they can view the Tweet and discover additional content. This means that content publishers don’t have to worry about the new system reducing the number of people who visit the Twitter page.
Right now, real-time content only works on the Google Search app for iOS and Android. Twitter says that a desktop web version will be available soon. Similarly, there are plans to bring this feature to more countries in the coming months.
As of now, the system is only available for Tweets in English and it’s unclear if support for different languages will be made available as real-time content starts to show up in different countries. It’s likely the functionality will expand to other languages if the program works out for Twitter.
This new collaboration between Google and Twitter has several applications for business owners and marketers. It becomes more important for marketers to use Twitter because they can’t get the benefit of real-time content on Google by using Facebook or LinkedIn.
The plan also significantly increases the importance of hashtags. Using popular hashtags will increase the likelihood that people will find a brand’s Twitter content during a Google search. There are several sites online that marketers can use to see the best hashtags for their industries.
And it’s important to remember the SEO benefits of this new feature of Twitter and Google. Tweets give a new avenue for website owners to get their links shown in Google search results. A link that may not have shown in the traditional search results may get shown as part of a Tweet from a search on a subject trending on Twitter.
For more recent news on Twitter updates, read this article on the changes to the direct message feature.