Once upon a time, Twitter tweets often showed up in Google’s search results. But then, bam. They were gone. But now, revealed in a recent announcement from Google outlined on the Wall Street Journal, we know that we can look forward to getting real time Twitter results in the search results again. Tweets have been quietly integrated into search results on mobile devices for a few months now. But now they’re making their way into desktop search results again, too.
So whether you’re jumping on Twitter to share an opinion about Donald Trump’s newest controversial statement or you’re a business owner tweeting an upcoming sale on your newest product, just know that it may be seen by anyone searching for something relevant to your tweet. On the surface, that sounds like great news. But that road can be traveled in both directions…
You Have the Power … Use It Wisely
So now that tweets are finding their way into Google’s search results, there’s an even bigger reason that business owners should be staying on top of their social media presence and it can affect their overall reputation. All the press your business got for that charity fundraiser you recently hosted for a local non profit? Just a few customer service mishaps could lead to a tidal wave of tweets that fill the search results when someone searches for your company.
On the contrary, if you have a few negative comments, reviews or articles about your business showing up on the first page of Google when someone Googles you, they could likely disappear from the top of search results… with positive comments taking their place in the form of recent tweets.
So yes, you have the power and the responsibility to use it to your advantage. Make sure you have properly set up your Twitter profile (Here’s the Orange Fox guide for Twitter accounts for businesses) and start preparing now to use it effectively.
Tweets to Replace or Supplement Reviews
You probably know how important online reviews are. But are your customers leaving those reviews for you? If not, there are many ways you can nudge them to do so. Just don’t try to offer incentives or buy fake reviews. It will likely end up costing you dearly if you do.
Instead, include links to either your profiles on reputable review sites or even better, link to your website. The trick to the latter is to use a two step process… find out if the experience was positive or negative. If positive, then they should be directed to where they can leave a review. If not, the they should be directed to a simple form or way to contact you you can fix what’s wrong. If your site runs on WordPress this can easily be setup with something like this plugin.
Either way, you can include a gentle request to share their experience on receipts or follow up emails. Unfortunately, if they’ve had a good experience, they probably wont’ even think to leave any review or feedback unless you do something to remind and ask them to do so. On the flip side, if they’re upset about something, they probably won’t hesitate to jump online and share it with the world out of frustration.
But with the recent Google change to include Tweets in search results, it’s a good idea to do something similar for Twitter. Gently urge them to give a quick Tweet about the great customer service, fast delivery or product that exceeded their expectations. And again, on the flip side, try to intervene to solve any possible problem before a negative Tweet gets sent out for the world to see.
