We are starting to see a lot of business owners really hesitate to get into social marketing.  Well, I want to assure you that the risks of NOT getting into social marketing far outweigh the risks of getting into social marketing.  I listed a few reasons below of why your business should definitely get into social marketing.

First and foremost, since there is already a huge demand for social sites, of course search engine's will want a piece of all that information.  It's only a matter of time until Google and other major search engines start indexing social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook.

Second, it's all about visibility.  The more people you get in front of, the more people will naturally find your site and your company.  It's the exact same thing as networking in person, just over the internet.  Giving a person a link or having them find a link to your website is the exact same thing as handing out a business card in my opinion.  It's free, it's convienant, and it's easy.  What are you waiting for?

Lastly, and this ties into visibility, but think about how people are finding companies these days.  First, in my opinion is word of mouth, I value anyone's personal referral for a business far more than finding anything on the internet.  I can't tell you how many times someone has said in an email something along the lines of, "Yeah, they are good people.  Here, check out their facebook page and give them a call".   Anything after the referral process in my mind is simply a Google search.  I don't look in the yellow pages, I don't call the operator, I go to Google and type in "Plumbers, Cincinnati OH 45205".  I first use the Google Local search to find the closest plumbers.  Are you on Google Local? I hope so!  Second, I look at their websites, does it look like a website that was made in 1980?  If so, I move on to the next one.  In my opinion, if a owner can't pay for a decent website, their company isn't a solid company and I don't want to do business with them.  You just have to think like a client or customer.  How are they finding you? That's my typical process for finding companies.  I would assume other people's would be similar to some extent, but everyone is different.

As I mentioned before, the risks of NOT getting involved in social marketing are far higher than getting involved.  Just think about it, if you aren't out there, your competitors probably are.  How many clients or customers are you going to give your competitors?

1. Use Keywords

This seems obvious, but use keywords in not only your content, but in your titles, and your updates. If you're writing an article, you have to consider what people are going to include in their updates if they share it on a social network, whether this be Facebook, Twitter, or anything else.

More often than not, they are going to include the title. If the right keywords are in the title, then those keywords are also more likely to appear in any ensuing tweets, Facebook updates, etc. If someone searches for those keywords, they will be more likely to find your content in a real-time search.

The same goes for your own Tweets/status updates. Even if you are not sharing an article, if you want your update to be found, use relevant keywords. Again, obvious, but true.

2. Talk About Timely Events

Simply mentioning events that are current will put you directly into the results for any searches having to do with that topic, provided the right keywords are in play. This is a method that could and (surely is) being exploited by spammers, but that doesn't mean you can't provide legitimate conversation and simply put yourself on more people's radars, without throwing links at them every time.

3. Have a Lot of Followers

If you have a lot of followers or friends on social networks, or even just readers of your blog, you are going to get more people sharing your content. The more people sharing your content, the more impressions of your content will be making their way into real time searches.

There is no easy way to instantly get a bunch of legitimate readers/followers. It will take some promotion. Provide useful content that people will link to and it will spread virally. Provide clear ways for them to follow you (like links to Facebook pages and Twitter accounts on your blog).

4. Promote Conversation

Whether on your blog or on a social network, spark conversations. Talk about topics that people are interested in. This is tied to number 2. The more conversations you are involved with, the more retweets (and equivalents on other networks) you are likely to get. And again, this means more impressions in real times searches.

5. Include Calls to Engagement

These are buttons you can put on articles that show the amount of retweets/diggs that article has. They kind of act as a meter for engagement.

These buttons are certainly not all-encompassing. They only represent the conversation on 2 channels, and not the web in general. I'm sure there are other buttons that can be used in addition.

More importantly though, they provide a "call to action" to share the content. People can digg or retweet a story with a simple click, and you're one step closer to being found in somebody's real-time search.

Wrapping Up

Real-time search is much more basic (at least so far) than say, Google Search. You're not ranking for relevancy. Really, you could hardly call it ranking it all. It's about visibility. That means, you have to get people talking about your content/updates.

Social media by nature is viral. Real-time search is nothing more than putting things in chronological order. You have to keep people talking to stay relevant to "right now."

Information from: http://www.webpronews.com

Microsoft has made deals with both Facebook and Twitter, which will see Bing feature updates from both networks in real-time search efforts. This means that social media just became an even bigger part of search engine marketing, particularly with Google also on board with Twitter and rumored to be talking to Facebook.

Twitter Search only shows you results displayed chronologically, which has really always seemed to be the essence of real-time search to me anyway. But Bing has a "Best Match" option, which attempts to give certain tweets more weight than others.

Bing weighs tweets by follower counts. "If someone has a lot of followers, his/her Tweet may get ranked higher," says Bing. "If a tweet is exactly the same as other Tweets, it will get ranked lower."

This is of course the earliest stage for any kind of algorithm Bing may have in place for its Twitter search feature. The feature is still in beta after all. It will be interesting to see if Microsoft makes more details available for how it ranks tweets moving forward. This could be a whole new nut to crack for SEOs. Consider that Bing results will be taking over for Yahoo if the Microsoft-Yahoo deal goes through, plus there is still Google's Twitter results to worry about.

Yet another reason to join in the social networking game.

Here are 5 tips to help you get found in real-time searches.