From the report:

“According to sources familiar with the situation–Twitter is in advanced talks with Microsoft and Google separately about striking data-mining deals, in which the companies would license a full feed from the microblogging service that could then be integrated into the results of their competing search engines.”

The power of real-time search is becoming known, and the titans of the search engines are trying to get into the space before they are left behind. Users are increasingly enjoying the fact that they can jump onto Twitter to find exactly what is going on–right now. Google and Microsoft’s search algorithms, at this moment, do not have the capacity to offer a solution to its customer that matches what Twitter can provide. They are obviously taking the old business mindset of “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.”

A deal  like this between these groups does not seem extraordinary to the average everyday Joe. Sure, there are business deals all the time,  however, IMO, this is huge.

The search engine giants are realizing the move by its user base to other platforms, most notably real-time search with Twitter. Not to mention, Facebook and Microsoft’s deal some time back to provide Bing search results in Facebook’s search engine. All of these deals back up my notion about how companies need to embrace social media.You need to get you and your company out there in these platforms to be found.

If Google and Microsoft are realizing it, shouldn’t you?

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“I don’t have time to do Twitter.”
“I don’t have time to do Facebook.”
“Who has time to do that?”

Think again. These excuses are just that–excuses. Twitter and Facebook, along with other social networks, actually save you time and can make you a more productive individual.

For example, call ten of your friends to see what they are up to. How long is each conversation going to take? 10 minutes?

If you are lucky, most will probably take longer, but for the sake of argument, lets say it took 10 minutes a person.

10 people X 10 minutes = 100 minutes or 1 hour and 40 minutes

Now, go onto your Facebook or Twitter account and check your friends status updates. How long did that take? 2 minutes?

Looks like you just saved 1 hour and 38 minutes out of your day. Sounds like to me you do have time to Twitter or Facebook. I understand that you do not get the personal touch of speaking with somebody on the phone, but it does save you that precious time.

Here is another example. Let’s say you and your spouse are looking to go out for the night and your babysitter just canceled. How would you get a new one? Let me guess, you have to call around and try and find yourself a new one. How long does that take? 30 minutes, an hour?

Why don’t you put a post onto your Facebook or Twitter account asking for a good recommendation on babysitter tonight? How long did that take 30 seconds?

These are just a couple of personal examples of how Twitter and Facebook can be used to save you time. People shouldn’t be so afraid to change, and they should embrace some of these new technologies that have become apart of millions of people’s lives.

Sometimes change can be good and make you more productive.

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We have been hired in the past and present to help brand individuals online, to put them on the cybermap. Think about it for a second, would you pay $1,000, $2,000, or $100,000 to promote yourself in your career that will take you from one rung on the professional ladder to a much higher–more profitable–rung? What happens if you branded yourself on the web and took yourself from being a manager in your industry to an executive, would it be worth it?

I know you are sitting there and asking, “But, I am unknown and do not have the persona of Ashton Kutcher, this doesn’t apply to me?”

Oh contraire, I believe “regular” folks can achieve what they are looking for by promoting themselves on the web and showcasing their talents in their specific field. Think about it once again. What better resume to show a potential employer than a successful Blog, Facebook fan page or Twitter following that you have generated in your particular industry. If you have carved yourself out as the platform on the web for your field, who wouldn’t want to hire you.

How can you brand yourself?

Here are 3 quick first steps to take when beginning to take yourself online:

1. Find a niche and start a blog.

• The #1 problem for individuals when they want to promote themselves online is they want to talk about everything in their lives. One day they write about pink elephants and the next nuclear physics. Before taking the leap onto the web, find out what you know and what you want to write about. Be specific and specialize, and most importantly, write passionately about it. The better your content, the more you specialize, the more likely people will read, like, and link to your blog post. Getting links to your blog is the cornerstone to being successful, and these links only come with rich content that people find intriguing.

2. Promote yourself. Attend conferences and follow other Blogs in your niche and make comments.

• If you have the ability to be a speaker at a conference, do it. Promote your blog when you do and people will write about it and start following you. For those who are not quite to that level, follow others in your niche. Comment on their blogs with thought provoking insight and chances are their followers will check you out as well.

3. Social Networking

• Nothing spreads faster than social networks. Keeping your fans up to date via Twitter or Facebook will spread your message virally. You want to open up your brand to as many people and platforms as possible and nothing is bigger than the major social networks. Stop resisting change and embrace it.

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Here are some great points Lee made:

• Use cheap tools:
  • Facebook Pages
  • Twitter
  • Wordpress for blogs
• It won’t happen overnight, keep at it, and you’ll build a following
• Quick Video Interviews with patients have become a hit, some even going viral with millions of views like the one below
• The results show that reach you can get with social media can be FAR greater than what you can get through traditional methods

Video & Explanation Below it:

“One case study in how Sharing Mayo Clinic works is a video of Marlow and Fran Cowan, an octogenarian couple from Ankeny, Iowa (Mr. Cowan has since turned 90). Their impromptu performance on a piano in the atrium of our Gonda building was captured on video by a patient, Sharon Turner, and uploaded to YouTube by her daughter, Jodi Hume. You can read the story of how that video came to be in a Sharing Mayo Clinic post Jodi wrote. By the way, I connected with Jodi through Twitter.This video had 1,005 views in the six months leading up to April 7, when we embedded it on Sharing Mayo Clinic and then posted that link to the Mayo Clinic Facebook page and started tweeting. The subsequent slides chronicle the developments that led to its viral status including a posting to Fark.com and a story in the Des Moines Register.

As of this writing, the video has been seen more than 3.7 million times, and almost 1.4 million of those views have come from Sharing Mayo Clinic. This has led to significant traffic for other posts on our blog, too. The comments we’ve received have been wonderful. ABC flew the Cowans to New York for a live appearance on Good Morning America in late May, and Jay Leno even did a spoof of the video as part of his monologue.” -OpenForum

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TweetMeme recently launched Tweettabs, which is a browser based twitter search. What does this mean?

Well there are several things coming out like this, but basically it allows you to search twitter and follow topics through your internet browser.  It kind of acts similar to the desktop applications like TweetDeck & Seesmic Desktop, but it is a basic version of those.  Nothing groundbreaking here but a nice and quick way to follow certain topics that interest you.

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“I didn’t do it to get TechCrunch talking, I did it to reach 35,000 people who drive by the store every day.” -Jeff, Owner

“In today’s marketplace there isn’t enough money to buy attention. But you can earn it, by being purposeful, authentic, willing to make mistakes, and most importantly, by having the ability to shutup and listen.” -Robbie Vitrano

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http://mashable.com/2009/05/20/twitter-personal-brand/

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