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Search marketing, Twitter-style

August 31, 2010 |

By now, plenty of businesses get the concept of search marketing: ensuring that customers can find you when they do searches on major search engines like Google or Bing. But you can do search marketing on Twitter, too. You just have to think differently about your approach.

At the major search engines, people are constantly asking for answers. For example, someone searching at Google is basically saying "Hey Google, do you know the answer to..." whatever they're interested in. Google responds by providing a list of possible answers, a list of search results.

How do you get to be one of the answers that Google or Bing provides? If you have a great website, perhaps helped by a little search engine optimization, you might be included in the top results for free. Alternatively, or in addition to free listings, you might also try paid search ads.

Like search engines, people are also constantly asking for answers on Twitter. The difference is that they don't expect Twitter itself to provide those answers, in most cases. Instead, they're asking friends and people they know for help. Sometimes, they're also asking specific companies for help, even if that cry for assistance is hidden within a complaint.

The beauty of Twitter is that anyone can "listen in" on the questions that are being asked. This listening, and reaching out with relevant answers, is also search marketing. You're still seeking to be an answer to a question, as with "regular" search marketing. But instead of answering with a web page or a paid ad, you're answering with an honest-to-goodness real response, all contained in 140 characters or less!

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