Search Engine Optimization for Twitter Part 1

As Kevin mentioned in his blog post a couple weeks ago, the addition of Santosh Jayaram, the former Google Search Quality Operations Manager, to the Twitter staff likely means that Twitter is gearing up to compete with Google in real-time search.  This means yet another engines for marketers to potentially worry about.

When we start thinking about how to optimize for real-time search in Twitter, we notice a lot missing.  In search engine optimization, content is king.  Twitter limits the content down to 140 characters.  This leads to the question, will Twitter results contain simply the tweets in their entirety, or abstracts and links to the the Twitter user page?  I would go out on a limb and say to keep with the real-time theme of the search engine, Twitter will likely list the most recent tweets from authoritative users.

Notice above I mention authoritative users.  This brings us to the question of Spam, and how Twitter will try to eliminate the noise and get to the good stuff.  I have to say that I have never seen a new medium get so much Spam as quickly as Twitter has.  I get a few Spam comments per week on my tweets, and I get a bunch of people following me, only to drop off 24 hours later when it becomes clear that I’m not going to follow them in return.

Most Twitter marketing schemes seem to involve gaining as many members as possible by using tricks and automated software.  I have seen numerous attempts by sad excuses for online marketers at boosting up their Twitter followers by using these systems.  This means they really don’t get Twitter.  Having a bunch of users whose exclusive reason for following you is in the hopes you follow them, or that it will lead to followers is silly.  The point of Twitter marketing is to gain influence, and have a clear line of communication that was created by the customer.

Google relies mostly on links to decide what websites to trust most.  But it’s not just the pure volume of links, it’s the quality, and relevance of the links.  So how will this transfer over to Twitter?  They won’t rely on links, we now that much.  I would suggest that Twitter is going to rely mostly on followers, and the authority of the followers.  There is also the idea of keeping out Spamers who are picking up followers simply to game the system.

If you take a look at the top followed Twitter accounts, like Oprah, Ashton and CNN, you will notice that these accounts have millions of people following them, but follow very few (14, 166 and 9, respectively) in return.  These accounts have a tremendous amount of influence.  If Oprah said that Holsted Jewelers sold the best David Yurman costume jewelry, Holsted would run out of inventory within an hour.  If Ashton mentioned that he decided to get an online degree from Capella University, Capella would likely become one of the biggest colleges in the world, at least for a few weeks.  One needs to only look at the Oprah Book Club to see how much influence a well respected celebrity has.

So in a real sense, we’re comparing followers to links.  In one opinion, linking out (of following others) is bad.  But what if you link (follow) out to an authority account?  This is a good question.  If I link out to (follow) Oprah, Ashton and CNN, does that give my account more authority?  I don’t think it will.  Unlike links, following doesn’t require you to post content.

But what about getting links (followed) from an authoritative account?  We know that when you get a link from a respected site within the Google index, that has a big impact.    So what is the equivalent of a link in this scenario?  I believe it will be a mention.  As I have watched the way savvy Twitter users post, I notice that they are conservative, but do use re-tweets, and mention people.  What does it say about your Twitter account if Oprah or CNN re-tweets something you said?  It makes you appear to be an authority on that subject.  So it is likely that a re-tweet, or a mention on on a popular user account will equate to a significant boost in your authority, much more than simply being followed.  Being followed will not as good as being referenced.

As for keeping out Spammers, Google currently doesn’t penalize websites for what sites link to them.  Will Twitter penalize accounts that pick up a bunch of Spam followers?  The difference is that you can block Spam followers, you cannot block incoming links.  But does that mean that Twitter account holders should go through the steps of examining the each followers to gauge the veracity of the account?  That would be insane, especially with the bigger accounts that have millions of followers.  Plus, this would create a path to possibly screw a competitor by simply adding a bunch of Spam followers.  I think it more likely that Twitter will just not give any value to those followers.

In Part 2, we will examine the idea of tagging and what you can do to get authoritative status in Twitter.