Last month, I shared with you Bing’s plan to launch its Bing and Ping beta feature (Search Results to Go Social with bing), which allows for social sharing of select search results in bing, like movie times. The featue has since been released to beta users, extending at least some search results into the social networks.
Today, Microsoft announced it has signed an agreement with Facebook and Twitter to integrate status updates from these two social powerhouses’ users into its search results. Mashable has details and some screen shots in REVEALED: Details of Bing’s Twitter Search.
Ka-bang! Just like that social media’s status updates will contribute to search engine results. Soon companies who have resisted joining the social conversation will be compelled to join in…or risk losing control over valuable SERP real estate given to Twitter and Facebook status updates. Likewise, I expect more companies will more aggressively monitor social conversations with free tools like Google Alerts (website) or even subscriber applications.
To keep this in perspective, it is just bing…for now. Bing only represents about 9% of the searches conducted monthly on search engines. The trend for real-time search though is growing. Look for Google to introduce its own social network data integration soon. Then social media will officially be a viable search engine optimization technique for companies.
