Bing Social, the social media results oriented search engine launched back in June has taken the plunge and is now recommending influencers to follow on Twitter as it relates to your search query. Bing social, similar to Google Social Search and Google Search , as it provides real time search results from social media sites like Facebook and Twitter. The difference is that Google Social provides relevant public content from your friends and contacts at the bottom of your search results and Google Search highlights the tweets at the top or the search (if there are tweets that match your query, of course) whereas Bing Social displays the results at the top and allows for filtering for both Facebook and Twitter or each individually. Now add recommendations as to who to follow on Twitter and we have a popularity contest on our hands.
Who Should I Follow on Twitter?
This has to be one of the most asked questions and the answer is always the same. You want to build a community on Twitter of those that are your target market, industry leaders, competitors, and those that add value to your network and where you can add value to them. It is maddening when people ask how many followers one has as, who cares? Really, who cares? (unless of course you crated a goal around it and then it would providing that the goal is to created a network and not just have the numbers). Does anyone reading this care how many followers I have on Twitter? What you should care about is am I your target, what I am tweeting and how I converse and engage and not how many followers I have.
Bing Social Twitter Recommendations
Bing is taking a big step here as they are matching and also tagging as "influential" or "popular" with search queries. I have been unable to find at the time of this posting the science behind this determination, but one has to believe that the numbers play a role here. So, if I have 750K followers I am influential or popular? I may never converse or engage with more than 2 people a week but with all my followers, I am influential and/or popular. Ok a I suppose you do not obtain that many followers by interacting at all.
I performed a search on Bing Social for "social media and" the the only recommendation was Mashable/Pete Cashmore. I love Pete however, he is the only recommendation for social media? Interesting as I would have thought we would have seen the likes of some other very well known folks being recommended.
Bing Social as a Search Engine
Bing Social is very handy and useful if you are looking specifically for Twitter and Facebook updates. Microsoft promises that the Facebook updates are only from public profiles to respect the privacy of those that do not wish to have a public profile. Although with the like and link, your profile page is public for that like with connections still being permission based. Bing Social as a search engine is a good business resource as it focuses in on the social media updates and displays them in real time. This is not too dissimilar to a Twitter search but if you are looking to see what people are sharing on Facebook as well, it is very convenient.
Have you used Bing Social? As a recommendation tool, do you think that Bing Social has any credibility as far as who to follow on Twitter?
photo credit: Thomas Carrillo