Twitter can be the driving force for generating high amounts of traffic and creating loyal customers for businesses and entrepreneurs. That’s why it’s important to stay up to date with the latest changes and developments. In fact, Twitter has been on a deal-making spree. They recently teamed up with Google and acquired two other major ad companies, in addition to adding new features and capabilities to the platform.
I’ve been using Twitter extensively for business development, traffic acquisition and community building to build up two startups from the ground up. Today, Twitter is the second biggest traffic source after Google for all of our websites, including Search Decoder and Sumo Hacks. However, our growth has mostly been organic and — while we’ve tested various ad products on Twitter — we had hard time justifying the ROI. However, in recent months Twitter has added much-needed improvements to its ad targeting tools. Let’s explore the recent Twitter changes in more detail and see what it all means for you and your business in 2015 and beyond.
Twitter Teamed Up With Google to Index Content
As of May 19, 2015, Twitter content will be available in Google’s search results within the Google app and on mobile devices. What this means is when a consumer searches Google for your company name, the most recent Tweets about your business now appear in the search results.
The consumer is able to tap on the tweet and go directly to Twitter, where they are able to see the entire tweet along with additional content. This feature is particularly important in news verticals and on mobile devices.
Google your name. If you have established Twitter presence, your Twitter feed is likely to show up on mobile devices. Google has gained access to crawl the vast database of Twitter’s real-time content. Tweets and Twitter profiles present opportunities to get on top of Google and win more real estate with a sound Twitter strategy. News content is an obvious win, but businesses should also optimize for hashtags. The Google-Twitter deal is one of the biggest developments in SEO in 2015.
Twitter Acquired TellApart to Better Target Ads
TellApart is a firm that, “helps companies turn individual customer preferences into sales by predicting which items customers are most interested in.” Twitter acquired TellApart at the end of April for $532 million in stock. This acquisition helps business owners target the right users on both a desktop computer and a mobile device.
Twitter now has the capability to target ads more effectively to specific groups of people. The content consumers search for (or are interested in) is reflected in the ads they see on Twitter.
Twitter Acquired Niche to Get Creative With Ad Experience
Niche helps you hook up with creative people all across the globe to create moments that resonate with the people you are trying to reach. Your customers are more likely to enjoy seeing fresh and unusual ads that spark their interest and with the acquisition, you have now the opportunity to create such ads — thus getting more clicks.
Twitter is taking advantage of the collaboration between Niche and Vine. Niche’s software supports brands on both Vine and Twitter. Niche is working closely with Twitter’s brand marketing team to help create engaging ads for brands.
Twitter Made It so Users Can Now See Content Without Logging In
Twitter is the place to go for the freshest, most up-to-date information on breaking news and events. But, prior to April 15, 2015, if you were not logged into Twitter, you weren’t able to see what was going on. All that has changed.
Twitter has made it possible to view what’s trending and what people are tweeting about without logging into their account. By simply going to Twitter’s homepage, you can now quickly see the latest popular news in particular industries.
Twitter Updated Trends for Mobile Devices
What is a trend? It is a way of finding out what folks are talking about on Twitter. On April 8, 2015, Twitter came up with a way of explaining trends to its audiences. Now, there is a description below every trend and a feature that tells you whether the topic is trending up or down. This makes your tweets much easier to track – especially since the new system tells you whether or not people are responding to your tweet.
Which Twitter update do you feel is the most useful for expanding your reach and developing a larger base of loyal customers?
A version of this post originally appeared on Search Decoder here.
Matthew Capala is an Internet entrepreneur, SEO strategist, international speaker, trainer, and author of Amazon best-selling “SEO Like I’m 5.” He is the founder of Alphametic, an organic growth accelerator, with clients including L’Oreal. Matthew has launched several popular websites, including SearchDecoder.com, a place for SEO ideas for entrepreneurs. As Adj. Professor at NYU, Matthew teaches a graduate course on search marketing. You can find his online course at IWillTeachYouSEO.com.
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