The rise of TSO: Twitter Search Optimization

  By Tac Anderson | May 7, 2009 - 4:43 pm | Comm

Oh yes I can see it now. Here comes the race for Twitter Search Optimization (TSO) experts. I can see “Twitter only” marketing firms and SEO firms fighting about who is better suited to provide TSO services to clients.

While I joke about this I’m also (sadly) dead serious.

I think it will be endlessly fascinating to try and figure out what makes one persons more influential on Twitter than another. It’s not going to be an easy answer for Twitter and I think it will be quite a while before we see this rolled out. There are just too many factors at play.

Like Search Views points out do they factor in profile descriptions, number of followers, the content of your tweet stream, the number of replies and retweets? The bottom line is that it will get ugly.

You think people are playing the “who has the most followers” game now? Wait until it effects how searchable your content is.

I think that even more than celebrities joining Twitter this will change the dynamics of the community.

(Thanks to Michael Brito @britopian for the link)

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

About Tac Anderson

Social media anthropologist. Communications strategist. Business model junkie. Chief blogger here at New Comm Biz.
Tagged , , , . Bookmark the permalink.
  • http://nerdguru.net Pete Johnson

    The number of possibilities here gives me a headache. This is kind of a joke service, but something like Twanalysis might come into play here:

    http://twanalyst.com/status.php?search=nerdguru

    Pete Johnson
    Hewlett-Packard Company
    Marketing and Internet Platform Services IT
    Portals and Applications Chief Architect
    Work email: pete.johnson@hp.com
    Personal email: pete.johnson@nerdguru.net
    Personal Blog: http://nerdguru.net

  • http://www.newcommbiz.com tacanderson

    I think the technical term for the kind of problem Search poses is a”wicked” problem :)

  • http://businessaccent.com Vic-BusinessAccent

    The idea is interesting. And for marketers, twitter optimization is fun and hot.
    But when things like this happens, moderation on the part of twitter should be addressed for users who are abusive.

  • http://www.newcommbiz.com tacanderson

    Vic, you're right. Much like Google has done with their moderation and penalties around “Black Hat” SEO. Twitter will have to do much of the same when they introduce their algorithm.

  • http://technologywebblog.com mccomf

    There is a lot of spammers on Twitter.If they want to stay on the top they will have to stop them.i heard thet twitter founder runs new project.I think he should be doing more to improve twitter.

  • http://nerdguru.net Pete Johnson

    This one is interesting for mining Twitter info too:

    http://webworkerdaily.com/2009/05/11/how-to-min…

    —Pete