Social Media Benefits Comes With “Handle with Care” tag!

Why have social media networks grown so explosively? Unlike the telephone or Internet which began as business communication tools, they were designed for social interaction. They’re the closest thing we have to face-to-face human contact. And they’re as organic as two or three friends meeting at a coffee shop.

Witnessing (wide-eyed, no doubt) the impact social media networking was having on consumer behavior, it didn’t take long before industry and other sectors co-opted it for professional purposes. Smart organizations are seeing the benefits: what better way to establish, retain and grow brand reputation and loyalty than to engage directly with existing and new audiences? Better still, what better way to build customers and audiences than to have them doing your marketing for you? Viral marketing is always the most powerful way to get bottom line results – and the cheapest. If the average Facebook user is connected to 130 friends, and that user mentions your product or service favorably, how much more viral can communication get?

Of course for every benefit, there’s a potential drawback. If that same Facebook user has a bad experience with your product or service and warns their friends about it, your brand can quickly take a beating. Social media networking is a double-edged sword, for sure. But ignoring it is not an option, nor is using it without a plan.

Google Launches Separate Page for Real Time Search

With increased use of Social Media it became a platform of knowledge sharing and interaction. People started relying on peer group for product and service review or even basic information search. Information through web 2.0 was more timely and customized. Google realized that its search engine would lose its importance without inclusion of real time search and few month back Google included real time search in their search result. Since then users were demanding a separate interface for their real time search.

Google has now moved its Real-time search to a dedicated location, separate from the "Updates" section of the regular search. The new emphasis comes with several new features like the ability to filter results by location as well as see the entire messages ion a conversation. You can check Real-time search at www.google.com/reatime

"Today we’re making our most significant enhancements to date, giving real-time information its own home and more powerful tools to help you find what you need," Dylan Casey, Product Manager at Google, wrote. “Now you can access Google Realtime Search at its own address, www.google.com/realtime," he announced. 

"On the new homepage you’ll find some great tools to help you refine and understand your results. First, you can use geographic refinements to find updates and news near you, or in a region you specify," he explained."In addition, we’ve added a conversations view, making it easy to follow a discussion on the real-time web," he added.