'Net Features : buzz

Google's Realtime Search for Business

Mike Phillips — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 16:45:00 GMT

Google has tuned up their Realtime Search and is letting it loose on the public. The greater Web world, including consumers, might not yet be aware of this search revolution but marketers and Web business need to take notice -- now.

Upon entering a search query, Realtime Search pulls in updates in real time, as fast as the user on the other end clicks a button. Currently, Twitter posts are being indexed but Google says it will be including updates from Facebook, Buzz, blogs and, inevitably, updates from Google's own rumored social network.

So what does this offer Web workers and marketers? Sentiment analysis.

With one simple search, you can get an intimate look into the minds of Web users -- what they are saying about a particular topic, breaking story, product, company or anything else you can imagine, as it happens. This is incredibly valuable. Instead of sifting through pages of search results and visiting dozens of blogs, social networks and forums, you can sit back and literally watch the results roll in. Then content, products and services can be built, tailored and launched at the best possible time. Let's take a look at a few potential strategies with Realtime Search.

Consumer Research

Below you will see an image of a Realtime Search result for "iPad." At top you will see the volume of tweets happening on this particular day. You can also sort by month and year. This is a good way to schedule tweets, press releases or blog posts about this particular topic to help get the most attention at the right time. Continued below...

The second result, "@pranavkanoria for someone who travels as much as you an ipad is a must," is particularly interesting. From this one sentence it can be inferred that; @pranavkanoria is a frequent traveler; @prgthoughts is tech savvy and an Apple enthusiast; the two individuals have a relationship; the iPad is considered a good travel tool. As such:

Did you write a recent blog post about popular travel destinations?
Have you developed an iPad app to help travelers?
Do you sell travel packages?
Are you a tech writer?
Would it be a good time to write a blog post about the best travel apps for iPad and iPhone?

Any and all of these options (and more) are viable, and with one tweet you now have a built-in target audience. Maybe you want to let them (and hopefully their followers) know about your offerings?

Competitive Analysis

Realtime Search is still Google search. That means you can search anything -- including competing products and companies. Find out what's being said about your biggest competitors and get ready to send counter-offers. Perhaps a consumer is not happy with their purchase? Send them a code for 10 percent off your product.

Reputation Management

What's being said about your company? Did your big announcement draw praise or criticism? Does one of your customers have a problem that needs to be solved before negative sentiment goes viral? You can find answers to all of these questions with a few simple searches using keywords. Also, try searching @YourCompanyName (or whatever your twitter handle might be.)

Local Opportunities

On the left-side of the page, you will see options to search "Anywhere", "Nearby" and "Custom Location". This is a great opportunity to find information, gauge sentiment and target prospects based on individual markets. You can search just about any location on the planet. Obviously, the more localized you get, the fewer results.

Below is a Realtime Search result for "lunch" in New York. The third result states, "I'm starving & no idea where to eat lunch..." That sounds like a good opportunity to mention that your local restaurant has a great lunch special. Continues below...

Other Realtime Search Features

You might not want to sit in front of your computer all day watching streaming results. You don't have to. Sign up for Google Alerts for the keywords of your choice and choose "Updates" under the "Type" drop-down menu. You can then choose to receive a daily or weekly e-mail that includes Realtime results for your selected queries.

If a particular update is in response to a previous conversation, you will see "Full Conversation" at the end of the result. Click that and you will see the entire thread of the conversation, however far back it goes. This is an excellent way to follow the progression of sentiment and find more than one prime target for your product, content or service.

To the right of the streaming updates are "Top links". These are more traditional search results but very recent. Expect this section to grow over time. It's still unclear the criteria for these results, but it’s a good bet that they have been discussed on the realtime Web somewhere along the way.

Google's Realtime Search is looking like a true search revolution. And, it's only getting started. For marketers and website owners, this is a critical research tool. It also points to the importance of your participation in the social media environment.

How will you use Realtime Search for your business? Share your thoughts by leaving a comment below!

The Complete Publisher's Guide to Yahoo Buzz

Mike Phillips — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 14:35:00 GMT

Yahoo Buzz has opened up to all publishers, meaning that - like it or not - you need to get involved. The big bonus for publishers is not in getting a few thousand hits at a time, but millions. Yahoo Buzz gives you the opportunity to get your story - your website - on the front page of Yahoo. Whether for 10 minutes or 10 hours, that kind of exposure will garner significant traffic and could make a huge impact on your online enterprise.

How it Works

You submit stories, videos or photos and the public buzzes (votes) them to the top. The top buzzed stories can appear on Yahoo's home page. However, it's not totally automated. While Buzz is determined by voters (among other factors) and not editors, Yahoo editors use Buzz to help determine what's worthy of a cover story on the home page. According to the website, "We also have members of our team comb through all the top content on Yahoo! Buzz and select items to appear on the Yahoo! homepage."

Submitting

Before you do anything, make sure your website can handle a huge spike in traffic, just in case. And think about placing Buzz buttons in your posts so those viewing your story elsewhere can buzz it. The larger buttons will probably work best, especially those with vote numbers if you get significant views. Consider placing one at the top and one at the bottom to give your readers more chances to buzz your story. There are many to choose from and even some custom options. You can find the buttons by clicking the link "Publishers: Get your content on Buzz!" under the submit button.

On the right side of the home page you will find the button to submit. Next, enter your story URL, title and a short description. Select your category and media type (text, video or photo) and click "preview." Here, look over your submission carefully, as you cannot edit the post after submitting. Enter one of those wonderful captcha codes and click submit. And this is what you will see:

Sharing

Now you need to make sure your story gets some attention. Click the "Send" button to open a window where you can enter email addresses to send the story. Keep in mind that it's coming from whatever Yahoo ID you are currently logged in with, and that corresponding email address is what the recipient is going to see. So you might consider setting up a corporate Yahoo account (if you don't have one already) and using that for submissions. This way, your brand will appear every time you submit and every time you email. The email recipient receives your personal message (if any), title of the article and a link - unfortunately a very, very long link. After clicking the link, they get the page with your story, including three different places/opportunities to navigate to your website.

Of course, you don't want to swamp people with emails all the time, but there appears to be a serious benefit. According to the Buzz website, "The Web's most remarkable stories, determined by people like you. Stories are ranked based on your votes, emails, and searches." So, the more friends that forward your email to others, the more likely it's going to get buzzed and move that much closer to Yahoo's home page. And Yahoo must be paying attention to the number of times a story is emailed.

You can also click the "Share" button to submit your story to Delicious, StumbleUpon, Reddit, Propeller, Digg and Facebook. Take advantage of that. And don't be afraid to promote your story and ask for votes. In fact, Yahoo encourages it: "Tell your visitors what Yahoo! Buzz is and encourage them to vote for your stories (and send them to friends)."

Some Tips

Like anything social, get active. You need to submit several different types of stories and not only your own. Yahoo is pretty mum on the details, but you can be sure that like Digg, StumbleUpon or Mixx, the more diversified and active you are, the better chance of exposure for your submissions.

There is not a "friend" feature on Yahoo Buzz yet, but that will likely happen. According to the website, "In the 'beta' version of Yahoo! Buzz, we do not yet ways for you to connect with other Buzz users. Please stay tuned over the coming months as we layer in more features." By being active, you'll gain a reputation with Buzz. If/When a friends feature is added, you'll want to have some clout - others will seek you out to befriend you and begin the whole process of building communities - just like on Digg, StumbleUpon, Mixx and other social sites.

Be vigilant and patient. As you can imagine, the stories at the top of Buzz and those that appear on the home page of Yahoo are overwhelmingly from big-time sources like CNN, The New York Times, Time.com and even Yahoo itself. Yahoo wants to make sure that the stories reaching their home page are reputable, well-written and worthy.

In fact, you'll notice that on the Buzz home page the stories with the most activity tend to have accompanying images - that includes ALL of the stories on the rotating top banner, "Just Added." According to the publisher FAQs, "Yahoo! Buzz currently partners with certain publishers, and as part of this partnership we are able to receive and display their images on Buzz. We will reach out to additional publishers whose content is doing well on Buzz, and invite them to do the same." No word if Yahoo will require those publishers to use Yahoo Publishers Network (YPN) instead of AdSense, like the early publishers on Buzz were required to do.

If your aim is to reach the Yahoo home page - and that's really the ultimate goal here - in addition to following these tips, be careful not to submit duplicate content. Just like it can hurt your reputation on sites like Digg, it's likely the same can be said for Buzz. It's early and you'll want to get in good with Yahoo right now. Submitting duplicate content may weaken your standing in this developing community.

Also see The Complete User's Guide to Yahoo Buzz.

Yahoo Buzz Opens to All Publishers

Mike Phillips — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 13:55:00 GMT

It's official, Yahoo's Digg-style Buzz is now open to all publishers. Unlike Digg, one of the main features of Buzz is to push content to the home Yahoo page - a chance for publishers to gain a monumental amount of attention and traffic. In addition, Buzz's algorithms take into account search engine popularity (so it takes a little more than voters gaming the system) and there's a push to feed Buzz stories into users' personalized Yahoo (my.yahoo.com) pages - another good source of significant attention. Through Buzz, after submitting you will also be able to share content through Delicious, Digg, StumbleUpon, Reddit, Facebook and Propeller.

Simply put, Buzz cannot be ignored. Publishers have a big opportunity to hit an enormous audience - far, far beyond Digg or any other single bookmarking service. Like anything else, the earlier you start, the better.