SmallBusinessNewz

There's a good chance that by this point you have found a way to incorporate Twitter into your marketing efforts. There are certainly multiple ways this can be done. Have you found ways to incorporate it into your search marketing strategy? Tell us about them.

Sure, Twitter results appear in the major search engines in various capacities. They are getting even more prominence in Google now that that it has launched its newly redesigned search results. Users can now filter results specifically by updates. A great deal of these come from Twitter. Twitter results can now be viewed easily for any query, as opposed to just newsy queries. Social media use is more important to being found on Google than it ever has been.

But forget Google for a moment and think about just Twitter itself. Users can of course search directly from Twitter, and plenty of people are doing just that. Maybe not all of their searching, but they're looking for help on Twitter, and brands can take advantage of this.

Danny Sullivan knows a lot about search marketing. He runs Search Engine Land as well as the Search Marketing Expo, a conference series bringing together industry thought leaders and professionals. He is always on top of consumer search trends, and has been studying how people use Twitter to search.

"Many marketers understand Twitter search is a powerful way to monitor brand mentions and reach out to customers," says Sullivan. "But I think few realize what a powerful platform it provides to reach out on non-branded generic mentions. To better illustrate this, let me introduce the “Anyone Know” Twitter search."

He goes into the concept at great length here. If you are looking to reach more customers on Twitter, I suggest giving the article a read.

What it boils down to is that you can perform Twitter searches yourself using queries like "anyone know", "can anyone tell me," and variations, while adding keywords that pertain to whatever it is you are offering.

"This type of outreach has to be done right," says Sullivan. "No one wants reply spam."

But remember that you are looking at people publicly looking for specific things, and if there is something you can offer them that they are already looking for (let's not forget that Twitter  has location-sharing features now as well), you may find some good opportunities.

"Perhaps many people are already doing this type of outreach on generic terms, and I’ve just missed the stories. Perhaps," he says. "However, I suspect most search marketing involving Twitter remains focused on brand-oriented searches. If so, I also suspect that will change."