Twitter agrees to turn back on 'firehose' of Tweets, giving Google access to social content in real time.

Twitter and Google reached an agreement that will make Tweets more searchable and guarantee users have access to real-time information as it goes live, according to Bloomberg. In short, the social network will turn back on the ‘firehose’ of Tweets, streaming 140-character posts straight to Google and making social content easier to discover and find.

tweet in serp

This is significant for a number of reasons:

1. Real-time Tweets haven’t been part of Google’s search results since its relationship with Twitter dissolved in 2011

Before 2011, Google had a realtime section that pulled the latest Tweets into Google’s results pages. It helped searchers check in on trending topics and review what influencers were saying about important events. This rekindled relationship could bring a similar feature back to Google, much to the avail of users who want up-to-the-minute updates straight from the source.

2. Twitter is giving up full-control of its content to stimulate growth

In its initial report, Bloomberg suggests Twitter is offering up access to its social content in order to drive monetization and stimulate growth. Brafton recently reported that Twitter also acquired startup ZipDial in an effort to reach new audiences. The microblogging site has surpassed 284 million users, but it’s still behind Facebook and YouTube (both with over 1 billion users).

3. Google won’t have to crawl Twitter, bringing more Tweets to SERPs faster

As Tweets start to be pulled into search results automatically (this is expected to happen within the first half of 2015), Google won’t have to crawl Twitter’s feed to find influential Tweets. Theoretically, this means Tweets would display in SERPs sooner, and Google wouldn’t have to be as discretionary about whose posts are worth crawling.

If Tweets are crawled and indexed more frequently, there’s a greater likelihood brands’ social content will show up in search 

Earlier this year, Brafton found that Google is indexing and displaying Tweets in search results, but only from the upper echelon of users. The search engine indexed 5 percent of Tweets from users with 10,000 to 50,000 followers, and 30 percent of Tweets from accounts with 1 to 3 million followers.

If relevant Tweets are crawled and indexed more frequently, there’s a greater likelihood brands’ social content will show up in search results for added visibility and reach.

The lines between search & social continue to blend

Search and social are not isolated channels, and the distinction between the two will continue to dissolve as evidenced by the renewed agreement between Google and Twitter. Marketers will benefit from this evolution if they package their content for distribution across channels and consider how users will interact with it across search and social.

Lauren Kaye is a Marketing Editor at Brafton Inc. She studied creative and technical writing at Virginia Tech before pursuing the digital frontier and finding content marketing was the best place to put her passions to work. Lauren also writes creative short fiction, hikes in New England and appreciates a good book recommendation.