Your tweets just got a little louder.
Earlier this month, Twitter announced a partnership with Google, granting the search engine giant full access to user’s tweets. Starting in June 2015, tweets will appear in Google search results real-time. With an average of 6,000 tweets posted per second, Google will have access to an enormous amount of data.
This is big news for brands using Twitter in the social media marketing mix. With company tweets more likely to show up in search results, a strong Twitter presence will have more value than ever before.
The visibility of tweets also poses new challenges. SEO has always been a key part of a digital content strategy, but this partnership makes SEO a critical component when developing Twitter content and monitoring/engagement management processes. For instance, companies will want to respond to customer complaints even quicker than usual to minimize negative sentiment appearing in Google search results.
Although the details are still to be unveiled, it is possible that Twitter accounts with more followers, verified Twitter accounts and paid tweets may rank higher in search results. Here are some quick best practices to factor in to planning for June:
- Optimize tweets with keywords, but not at the expense of quality
- Consider posting additional tweets for SEO purposes specifically
- Continue to grow followers, foster engagement and connect with influencers
- Get account verified if possible (highly sought users only)
- Tweet often
- Respond to negative sentiment (e.g. customer complaints) quickly and thoroughly
- Link to your brand’s site and include a call to actions in your content mix