Well, it’s finally here. Google is now integrating real-time results from Twitter, Facebook and Myspace into it’s search, giving users the most update information on any given subject. This is sure to give social media a real awareness boost amongst those yet to embrace them, especially Twitter.

Watch this short video about Google real-time search:

What does this mean for brands and marketers?

Although in constant use by the technorati and celebrities galore, Twitter has yet to fully enter the mainstream. As marketers we know the potential of Twitter to reach out and engage, but for most people, its still an unknown. At MTD, we look to create innovative ways of integrating Twitter into our campaigns. Our recent Christmas campaign for Jarlsberg allows anyone to post a message about their best bit of Christmas on the Jarlsberg Sweet and Nutty Season website via Twitter. This encourages a deeper interaction with the brand and keeps the website fresh and interesting.

Real-time search will also encourage brands to start using Twitter more as a channel in its own right to promote products and services. Twitter, of course, knows this. It’s soon to launch a set of paid for business services which should hopefully make it a more professional tool for marketers.

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For those of you who remember our old website, you’ll remember that it needed revamping for various reasons. Our new site is fresher, more dynamic, feature laden, and content managed. But perhaps more important than any of those, it’s much more findable in Google.

When we compare the old and new site, we find a dramatic increase in search engine traffic. For example, in the four weeks from November 5th to 30th 2007, the old site attracted 174 hits via key-phrase searches. In a similar four-week period between November 3rd and 28th 2008, the new site welcomed 729 hits. That reveals a whopping 419% increase in organic search traffic.

The old and new websites both benefit from a strong bank of inbound links, so how have we achieved this large traffic increase? The answer is very straightforward, it’s down to great content and best practice SEO. Our case studies, news items, industry news, articles, blog and general pages all contain content which is relevant to a very wide range of marketing related search phrases.

Of course this all takes hard work, intelligence and know-how to get right, but the fundamental principles are simple. If you want the same success for your business, why not get in touch?