Twitter’s transformation changes the online social marketing game

Details: Thursday, 14 April 2011 19:23; Hits: 786

Since its inception Twitter has been the kind of service which has had online marketers scratching their heads trying to work out how to best utilise it and its owners scratching their heads trying to work out how to make money from it. All this despite the site’s undoubted success, its inclusion in Google real-time search and its ubiquitous presence on just about every social network site worth mentioning.

All this has now changed. On the last day of August Twitter took everyone by surprise by announcing that their site is changing and it will soon have a split pane page with pictures and video which will complement its microblogging reach.

So what? I can almost hear some of you ask. The fact is that the web, as far as SEO and social marketing are concerned are changing fast and the results of the Twitter remake are the next inevitable step after real-time search and Google Instant. The Twitter transformation changes Twitter from a microblogging site with a presence everywhere to a news site which will be stickier, busier and suddenly, a lot more quotable.

This also means that whereas before you needed to have a Twitter account just so that you could have an additional link and a presence which would be noted by the Google bot now you need it because it will be an additional news channel which will be a primary means of real exposure.

For the Twitter owners this is the first step to profitability, a problem the solution of which has so far eluded them. For webmasters with a site to promote Twitter has now become a vital aspect of their online promotion.