This post was prompted by something I read on an email list and on Linkedin the other day where the author seemed to have the view that Twitter was more about Search Engines than People. His argument was that Twitter is far too ‘noisy’ for people to actually read and interact but that Google could find it’s way around Twitter a lot easier and index content from it. It was therefore good practice in the author’s eyes that businesses auto feed to twitter in the hope of getting indexed and neglect the social aspect altogether. Here is the author’s summation at the end of his article:
the most important readers of your Twitter Business posts are the Search Engines
Here’s my own conflicting and simple opinion on the best way to use Twitter:
- READ other people’s tweets and get excellent and relevant info for free.
- Return the favor and give your own valuable content to your followers.
- Interact with people on Twitter and make valuable friends and business connections.
- Brand your business effectively.
I think the above will guarantee longer lasting benefits to your business than simply hammering twitter for SERPS although this is beneficial too of course! Google has publicly stated that it will be indexing ‘live’ content from social networks even more in the near future. Here’s a recent article from the Google Blog about this:
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/12/relevance-meets-real-time-web.html
What’s your opinion?
Reverb Studios Design 
Hi Leon,
Just a small correction!
I never said that Tweeters should “ignore the social function all together”. Real tweeting is important if you have the time to do it. But what percentage of tweets are actually read by a human is the real reason that I am posing. More on the actual article at http://www.linkedin.com/groupAnswers?viewQuestionAndAnswers=&gid=1483487&discussionID=14232175&goback=.anh_1483487
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Stuart, tons of people read tweets constantly. I check Twitter before my email these days! Twitter wouldn’t exist and people wouldn’t have followers if tweets didn’t get read by humans. I think you’re missing Twitter’s main functions..
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