Five things worth sharing from the last week or so, brought to you by a different member of the Browser Media team every Friday.
This week’s My Five is by Ali.
1. Twitter in Google Search Results
Bloomberg announced yesterday that Tweets will now show up in Google Search Results thanks to a deal between the two companies allowing Google direct access to Twitter’s firehose feed (rather than having to crawl the site for information).
Twitter investors will be rubbing their hands with glee as the partnership will significantly broaden the reach of the social network at a time when questions are being asked about how it will sustain growth.
The user base, however, may become more disgruntled if the deal results in a very obvious uplift in monetised and promotional activity on the platform.
2. Google’s plan to inject tiny robots in to your body
In an announcement reminiscent of the 1987 film Innerspace, several sites were reporting a story this week from Google X (the company’s sci fi division) about its ambition to fill our bodies with tiny robots in order to detect early signs of diseases.
Good job they didn’t release this one on 1 April instead of 1 February otherwise we might have thought they’d done it for PR purposes only.
3. Leave a review at your peril
When it comes to customer service, the pre-web mantra was always no news is good news, meaning that a quiet customer is usually a happy one. Companies only ever heard from the disgruntled customer trying to get recompense.
When web 2.0 exploded on to the scene, heralding the dawn of user generated content, reviews became de rigueur and Google even launched it’s own review platform which dovetailed with its search algorithm.
All review sites are open to abuse in one way or another but if the case reported in the Daily Mail becomes the norm, it will be a sad day for free speech. Unhappy with a review, a London dentist decided to sue its customer, claiming the review they left on Yelp was unjustified. Poetic justice seems to have been served with coverage of the debate going viral and the dentist practice looking rather like they used a sledge hammer to crack a nut.
4. Simultaneous paid and non paid activity can be beneficial
Inbound Marketing (earning the attention of your target audience rather than begging, bugging or buying your way in) is often thought of as an uncomfortable bedfellow to paid search. We would disagree, which is why I liked this straight talking article from Search Engine Watch about why the two should be run in parallel.
There’s a lot of knowledge sharing that can be done between traditional SEO, Inbound Marketing and Paid. Paid is obviously a faster way to get results but if it is switched off the second SEO starts to deliver, you won’t be harnessing the potential possible from an integrated approach.
5. Are the political leaders showing their age with mistargeted Facebook debate?
In an attempt to engage with a younger demographic (56% of 18-24 year olds didn’t vote in the last election), Sky News has launched a Stand Up Be Counted campaign involving the political leaders taking to Facebook for a debate this week.
My only query is whether 18-24 year olds still hang out on Facebook?
I’ve no doubt they all have a Facebook account but this is surely just to placate their parents and the real action all happens on Instagram, Snap Chat and Vine? Maybe gamification of the elections is the way forward… Clash of the Clans adaptation anyone?
