Google search is going real-time. You knew it was coming as social networking sites began peppering the top search results pages and Bing struck a deal with Twitter and Facebook to go real time, but on those familiar white search pages, there was still a delay. News stories appear nearly immediately, like Michael Jackson’s death for instance, but even that was sluggish (yes, 15 minutes is sluggish.) People wanted and needed immediacy not just from the legitimate news outlets, but from other users as well. In an age of rapid information dissemination and overabundant content, eye witnesses and first reactions are just as essential to the flow of information as any other source.

Google Goes Real Time

What does that mean for ecommerce, though? First and foremost it means get on Twitter, Facebook and Myspace and use them to your advantage. It means stay abreast of the shopping space you are a part of. It means use Twitter to provide coupons and Facebook to dish out Promo codes. It means create an incentive for customers to not only pay attention (and by proxy lend credibility) to you, but to actively engage your business. You obviously can’t personally reply to every single Facebook message or tweet that mentions you, nor should you, but you can certainly foster a conversation with and among your customers to create and exploit this unprecedented level of interactivity.

“Our users will get the results as they are produced.” – Amit Singhal

Another thing you have to pay attention to is that even though you’re working on getting your copy right and code clean and keywords in place – you may still be trumped when a twitter link scrolls in and takes your bite. This is the flipside of the nearly hypodermic interaction that social media applications create between you and your customer and, if you aren’t careful, can serve to take your business and branding out of the equation. But again, making sure you are an active and positive member of these communities will help to bring in these wandering members of your herd.

In so much as the aforementioned sounds alarming, this next bit should sound quite comforting (hopefully.) If you’re reading this, you’re probably aware of and stay on top of your Twitter account, regularly update your facebook page, check your industry blogs and update your own blog. If that is the case your reward will be top billing on Google, thanks to your adoring fans, in addition to a savvy marketing campaign (and also, how cool is this feature??)

If not, well, there is no time like the present…