Another network is helping to take the thought work out of search. Twitter recently announced the launch of two new features: Autocomplete and ‘People You Follow’ search results. In his post on the Twitter blog, Frost Li discusses the benefits to users, including spelling corrections, related search suggestions, real-name search for Twitter handles, and follower-only results.
Autocomplete is nothing new in the world of search. Since Google’s post-beta launch of ‘Google Suggest’/Autocomplete in 2008, enhanced features such as personalization and predictive search have become an expected part of the user experience. But in terms of online reputation management, suggested search on social networks can present several unique opportunities and challenges for businesses. Here are a few things you can do today to prepare, protect, and promote your brand through Twitter in light of the autocomplete update:
- Claim your Twitter account – Basic, but necessary. Don’t worry about jumping into the deep end with a social media marketing strategy. But make sure your company-controlled account is available in suggested results when users search for your brand name. Start small. Start today.
- Monitor suggested search results for your brand – While the feature seems to only be useful for big brands at the moment, we suspect related search will be a more useful feature as the algorithm becomes more sophisticated. Monitoring suggested search results may help you gauge sentiment and understand the neighborhood of topics where your brand is mentioned. Simply search for your brand, and related search terms will display above search results.
- Follow the experts – Twitter has always been a great tool for monitoring conversations happening within your industry. However, it’s easy to get caught up in the follow-as-many-people-as-possible frenzy with the goal of accumulating more followers. While building up a follower base is important, make sure the accounts you follow tweet quality information on a regular basis.
Following high-quality accounts will allow you to get the most out of the The ‘People You Follow’ search filter so you can easily search conversations in your industry for relevant keywords and get the best results. Once you know what the experts are talking about, you can adjust your messaging on Twitter to be more relevant to what’s happening in your industry.
Personalization in social media can create more engagement, click-throughs, and interactions with brands. However, without taking the proper steps to follow quality accounts and position yourself as an authority in your space, you may not enjoy the benefits of personalized social search. It may be worth taking a look at your follower list today. I hope we make the cut. ;)
