Twitter, the popular micro-blog, will soon be introducing an advertising system that allows businesses to place sponsored messages amongst Twitter search results.

Following the very profitable example that Google set with its AdWords system, Twitter will allow third-party advertisers to buy their way into the search results, via a 140 character advert.

According to an article on All Things Digital, from the Wall Street Journal, the social media website will launch the new advertising platform within the first half of 2010.

The report states that “Ads will be tied to Twitter searches, in the same way that Google's original ads were. So a search for, say, 'laptop', may generate an ad for Dell. The ads will only show up in search results, which means users who don't search for something won't see them in their regular Twitterstreams.”

Initially, the advertising will be sold through agencies, while Twitter works on creating a self-serving model. Eventually, the plan is one where anyone with a website can purchase an ad, just like they can on AdWords.

Twitter has long sought a revenue model, especially since becoming one of the most popular websites on the web. Over 50 million tweets are being written every day, yet the business has received criticism as it has been unable to create a profit from this popularity. It is no surprise that they turned to Google for inspiration, as the majority of the multi-billion-dollar revenue that the search engine receives is from the sponsored listings served through its AdWords system.

A few days ago, Google announced that they would be launching their new social media service: Google Buzz. It’s currently being rolled out across the world, with some users still waiting to receive full access to the service, while others have already been able to try it out.

How does it differ to other social media platforms?

Google has worked hard to differentiate Buzz from other social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, which it does in a few different ways:

1. Integration with email

Google has integrated its successful email feature Gmail into Buzz, giving it an advantage over even the most popular social media platforms, whose email functions – if they have them – tend to be poor. Google is confident that Buzz users will see the advantage of not having to log into both a social media platform and separate email account.

2. Fast, full screen photo presentation

Buzz offers a photo viewing feature, which allows its users to view large, high quality photos that fill the screen and can be scrolled through at a high speed.

3. Buzz places high emphasis on location

Google believes that location is an important indicator of how relevant information is to you. Buzz can work out your location and is even able to ascertain the name of the building you are in.

4. Only shows posts which will interest you

Google has used it extensive knowledge of algorithms to create Buzz and shows this off by claiming that it will filter out posts that are not of interest to you – even if they are by your contacts – and vice versa: interesting posts by people you don’t already know. Then, depending on which tidbits you choose to approve or hide, its algorithm will attempt to gear more relevant and interesting results your way, personalised to your tastes.

Can it rival Facebook and Twitter?

What’s interesting is Buzz’s integration of other social media platforms, including Flickr and Twitter, but not with Facebook. Perhaps a deal is in the pipeline between the two, but until then it almost suggests that Google is content to live in harmony with Twitter (after all, Google recently paid $25m to index Twitter’s content), but with Buzz containing similar features to Facebook, it seems like Buzz’s main intention is to topple the current social media king.

It’s no secret that Facebook is currently dominating the social media market, with an official blog post on the site recently reporting that it had reached over 400 million users. While a completely fresh and unknown social media platform may struggle to compete with such a giant already in place, Google’s advantage is in its brand, which is already popular and established in almost every other aspect of the Internet - if anyone is going to compete with Facebook and Twitter, it’s going to be Google.

What should businesses do?

It’s too soon to tell whether Google’s new venture will take the world by storm or end up as a failed attempt, but at the very least, it’s certainly worth taking a look at and registering a profile, even if simply to get to grips with the interface and reserve your company name. For those who already have a Gmail account, getting started is easy, with current contacts automatically becoming friends/followers and therefore eliminating the registration process - not every social media site can claim to start off with millions of users raring to go.

Significant results have emerged from a nationwide survey which concluded that the majority of journalists now use social media as an essential source for finding information. The survey, conducted by Cision and Don Bates of The George Washington University, stressed that although PR firms are still used to verify and expand on information, social media sites are the first point of call for journalists who are researching articles or uncovering stories.

These findings will have major implications for many companies’ current PR strategies. Of the journalists questioned, 65% use social media sites including Facebook and Linkedin as part of their research process with a further 89% using blogs to obtain information. Micro blogging sites were also found to be popular among journalists with 51% consulting twitter when conducting research.

The use of social media is widespread throughout the profession, the survey found that those journalists who had greater experience (20 or more years) relied on blogs almost as much as those with fewer years experience (under 9 years) with only a 2% difference between the two groups. Of the journalists questioned 71% claimed to use the web ‘far more’ than they did five years ago when writing an article.

If your business wants to be successful when engaging in public relations then you must ensure that your firm or your PR agency is effectively using social media marketing techniques and consider it an imperative part of all PR work.

Google is showing a growing fondness of social media sites, Twitter in particular. Pages from the micro-blogging site are being displayed higher and given more respect than ever before. Twitter is now a viable way for businesses to place their brand at the top of the search engines, but only if they treat the micro-blogging site with the same SEO rules that are commonplace in the rest of the web marketing world, namely keywords and links.
 
Most of these tips are based on keywords use and how to maximise your twitter account for your main keywords. Doing so will help it rank in the search results independently of your main website. Remember, Twitter uses the nofollow attribute on its out-bound links so they do not help with the SEO of your main site. Twitter shouldn't be used as a way of getting lots of free links to your site, but as a way of finding traffic and directing it there instead.
 
Here's five quick SEO tips to bear in mind when using Twitter:
 
1. Use keywords in your account name
 
If possible, then keywords should be included within the Twitter account name. This is easier said than done as with only 15 characters to choose from and most of the popular word combinations taken, it can be hard to select something that fits and is available. Take a look on the Google Keyword Tool to see what people are searching for and try to pick keywords which  receive a fair amount of searches each month. Include one or two of these in your account name and you are already off to a strong start.
 
2. Make the most of your bio
 
Choose a handful of your most important keywords and make sure they are included within the Twitter biography section. You have 160 characters so can construct a nice meaningful, keyword-rich sentence or two, which the search engines will be sure to look at when evaluating the page.
 
3. Always tweet with your keywords in mind
 
When posting ("tweeting") messages into your Twitter account, try and include your main keywords at the start. It is important to place them here as only the first 40 characters or so are displayed within the search engine results. Remember that even though we are trying to grab the attention of Google, Yahoo! and Bing, it will be humans that eventually read the content, so make sure that in addition to your keywords, each tweet contains a valuable message that will draw people back to your main site.
 
4. Follow people from within your industry
 
An important factor in SEO is relevancy between web-pages. If there are Twitter accounts that are already well respected by the search engines for a topic that matches yours then it will be worthwhile following them. Search engines will spot the link and see that the pages are related, something they will take into consideration when deciding where to place your account within their index.
 
5. Now go tell the world
 
Just like with your website, an important factor in the ranking of a Twitter account is the quality, and quantity, of the links pointing towards it. Can you add some links to your Twitter account to give it a healthy boost up the search engines? Place a link to it from your website or your company blog. Add a link from the signature or profile page of a business forum you contribute to. Seek out some Twitter directories and list your account amongst them.

Google has announced a big change to its web search, which it plans to launch very soon. Codenamed “Caffeine”, Google hopes the alterations will improve its search engine in every aspect, making it faster, provide more relevant results and index more sites. A test version has already been unveiled here; allowing webmasters to try it out and compare the differences with the current search, something Google has never done before.

Whilst the look and feel of it are very familiar, Matt Cutts, the head of Google’s anti-spam team, has given assurances that the updates are strictly “under the hood” and that the differences in the search results will be subtle, maybe even unnoticeable to some users. That said, with Google also claiming that this is a change to the search engine’s architecture and infrastructure, it’s a bit of a bigger deal than one of their regular algorithm changes.

They’re right about the subtlety. Many people who have tested it (ourselves included) have only noticed minor differences to the results. However what’s interesting to note is that social media websites such as FriendFeed, Facebook and Twitter have been given a big push, featuring much higher for results in the new version.

This could be a big sign for businesses to start considering social media in their future online marketing practices. Many companies have already taken advantage of this increasingly-popular online phenomenon, having created Facebook Pages or set up profiles on Twitter. Also known as mini-sites, they might not be as important as a company’s official website but social media marketing can certainly still be implemented to promote and raise awareness of a company.

After all, Search Engine Optimisation is not only about raising the profile of a business solely through its website, but rather through their entire online presence. In other words, social media platforms can be another means of finding a business, and given that their growing popularity is also being highlighted in Google’s latest evolutionary step, your company could be found more than once through the search engines: not just directly through the official site but also via the most popular social media websites.

Gift House International, an importer and supplier of wholesale giftware and gadgets, asked Liberty Marketing to help increase the traffic to its site.

The company already had a very well optimised website, but it wasn’t showing within the first 20 pages of Google for any of its main keywords.

After looking at competitor websites and the keywords used in the market it was decided that they needed more in-bound links to strengthen their placement within the search results.

The process involved a lot of off-site work, including:

Inbound link building – An intensive link building campaign was started and back links were sought from all relevant sites from within the gift and gadget industry.

Social media marketing – Activity included placing product videos on video hosting sites and commenting on industry forums and blogs with links pointing back to the site.

How has this helped the business?

Within six months the website had risen from page 20+ in the Google results to page one for all of its main keywords, including “wholesale gadgets” and “wholesale giftware”. These changes could also be seen in the Yahoo! and Bing search engines.

“Liberty Marketing helped us with keyword research and advised us on an online marketing strategy. They then built in-bound links for us over a 6 month period. Before the work started you couldn’t find our site in the top 100 results but now we are coming up on the first page of all the search engines for all of our chosen keywords. Our website is now receiving its highest ever level of traffic” - Marc Mitchell, Gift House International Ltd

There is a lot of talk in the online marketing world about how large a part digital marketing played in the success of Barack Obama’s presidential campaign. He certainly embraced the internet, in particular the social networking platforms, and reportedly spent over $16 million on online advertising during the run up to voting day.

His digital campaigns included spending over $640,000 on Facebook, creating profiles on MySpace and Twitter, using search engine optimisation for his sites, blogging whilst on the road, and creating a YouTube channel.

Whilst most of those are fairly standard ways of raising awareness and promoting something on the web, the Obama team also came up with some original advertising. A clever tax calculator was placed on his site and links to it were spread around the web. The calculator shows just how much tax an individual could save under Obama’s proposed tax laws when compared to McCain’s and the number of direct links to it stands at over 6000, according to Yahoo!.

Obama’s marketing team also used the internet to communicate with hard to reach audiences. By putting billboard adverts inside the online version of the Xbox 360 game, Burnout Paradise, they took steps towards a demographic that McCain struggled to engage.

It is clear that the people advising the Obama administration knew the benefits that these digital marketing activates held. By having a presence on the social media networks Obama was opening himself up to his audience and coming across far more personable and  approachable than his competitors. By placing things like the tax calculator on his site he took advantage of viral linking, where people started broadcasting the message further on his behalf.

There is no doubt that these digital marketing campaigns helped Obama win the presidency. Future politicians will have taken note and the next time an election is looming it will be interesting to see the new and creative ways they use to web to get surfers to vote for them.