As I write this the Internet is buzzing with the news that search engine results listings are now to include live or real-time data from sites such as Twitter.
Speculation is rife as to the effect this will have on those businesses who work hard to achieve good search engine listings and only time will tell whether or not these entries are popular with the actual searcher.
For the time being at least, it is safe to say this move by Google is going to make reputation management interesting.
The organic search engine listings have already been pushed down the page by Google Local results along with images and videos. If the live data entries are to have a further impact it is only going to be the most determined of searcher who will ultimately scroll down far enough to seek ‘regular’ web site entries.
The worrying thing for all businesses, but particularly the large organisations who can dominate search results for certain key phrases, is that the most prominent search results are now likely to be Twitter tweets perhaps highlighting an instance of bad service or complaining about a product. There is no doubt that Twitter and other social media sites are used to express dissatisfaction – wise companies monitor their reputation closely on such services to instantly respond to and rectify complaints. It all becomes a bit more difficult to manage when it is plastered across the front page of Google.
It will be interesting to see how this settles down but, in the meantime, every business should be making use of the Google alerts service to enable them to instantly respond to any whiff of negativity concerning their brand or their influence in a niche.
