A New Search
The best thing about Twitter is if you don’t like someone you can unfollow them, beats real-life confrontation and you can forget about it.
The second best thing about Twitter is the search bar. Recently I have found myself using it as an alternative to Google. Why I hear you ask? Well the news is up-to-date. You don’t have to wait for a journalist to post on a news site; the masses of people on Twitter have found out the information and posted it already.
Given that news spreads fast through the power of a RT it is no shock that news has broke first on Twitter before television or on online sites. Take the Boston bombings for instance, the news broke from people tweeting at the scene and images and videos being uploaded. Another example was the Woolwich attack in London, journalists were searching on Twitter to contact eye witnesses and use the videos and images they had captured to lead their stories. The hashtags #JournoRequest and #PRrequest have also become a way to search for stories and people to fulfil these.
However I have been using Twitter to search for various different things. Let me give you some examples,looking for a voucher code for money off your favourite ASOS shirt? Search through the Twitter bar, the information is guaranteed to be way more up-to-date or even unknown. Are you looking for tickets to attend your favourite concert or sporting event? Try typing ‘Beyonce tickets’, not only will you find competitions, but you will also find people selling tickets, whether or not you follow these leads, it’s up to you but you have a far wider and current response than you did if you had typed it in Google.
Being a blogger I find the search bar particularly useful to look for people looking for bloggers or writers for their site or company. It’s the easiest way to advertise and for me the easiest way to find these opportunities and act quickly on them.
Let’s put it in perspective, have you ever gone on Google, done a search for something, clicked on it and realised the article was from 2008? We have all done it and sometimes the information is valuable but we are in a time where we want the latest news, the most up-to-date information and the first picture of the Royal baby.
It has never been a more important time to have a social media presence and make sure you are found. A Forrester report in 2012 showed that social media is catching up with search and is accounting for 32% of how consumers find websites.
Of course the Twitter search bar will never be used more than Google, but if it ups it’s game and offers a wider search facility, I think the only thing I’ll be using Google for is to check I’ve spelt something correctly (we all do it) and let’s face it I can use Word for that.
���
