People Are Talking

Have you noticed that more and more, the real-time, or power of now, aspect of the web is really starting to make an impact?

Just this week, Facebook will announce a new metric, “People Talking About” at Advertising Week.(link: http://mashable.com/2011/10/02/facebook-people-talking-about/#28011Facebook-Insights-Post-Analysis) It will measure user-initiated activity related to a Page, including posting to a Page’s Wall, “liking,” commenting, sharing a Page post or content on the Page, answering a Question posed to fans, mentioning a Page, “liking” or sharing a deal or checking in at your Place.

Of course, Facebook just released their new “Timeline” with a big emphasis on the “Ticker” for you and I to see everything from what our friends are posting now, to what they are listening, reading, watching and sharing at any given moment.

Even Google made a similar announcement this past week (link: http://mashable.com/2011/09/29/real-time-analytics-google/) by introducing real-time traffic data for their Google Analytics product. For users trying to gauge how a campaign or post is performing, Real-Time will track the immediate impact to site traffic. 

I think it’s pretty interesting to see the emphasis in this area because my company is fully focused on helping others get inside of the real-time moments through social and search advertising to make an impact for the personality and/or brand.

Here’s the way to see an opportunity in this area for you now. Just Google a core artist for the station, search a breaking news story, or look for a sports moment happening now. You’ll discover little or no paid search for any of these content opportunities that is so relevant for your brand.

And with research showing anywhere from 60%, to as high as 90%, of web traffic coming from search today, why aren’t you there?

For anyone searching these topics or conversation moments, you don’t even exist.

Now is the time to make real-time a part of your strategy too! I’m betting that just like Google, who researched sites like AOL and Yahoo early on and noticed that search was part of the strategy -- but not the core business -- and saw an opportunity. They went on to build a better search product that launched a whole new category and the rest is history.

I believe real-time is that next opportunity and I’m sharing it with you to get out in front of it.

People talking about something is as old as time itself, but today you can discover what the topics are, and put yourself in the middle of the moments.