Bing is not giving in even though Google–the king of the hill–continues to knock them down. With Google’s recent announcement that Caffeine is in full release it’s Bing’s turn to talk about it’s future releases.

Bing Webmaster

First from Bing is a no cost toolset for websites and webmasters. It’s built on Microsoft Silverlight 4 and with feedback from webmasters and others with SEO knowledge. Part of this release is the “Index Explorer”, think tree view for webmasters to see how Bing is crawling their site.

There could potentially be huge news here. First this looks like it will allow webmasters to access specific items and management controls. URL blocking, cache blocking, and even possible re-crawl requests. If this is something that catches on I’d expect Google Webmaster Tools to follow suit.

Real Time and Social Search Results

Bing released in May real time results. This new search is called Bing Social and can be found here. Social and real time results is really the next frontier for both Google and Bing and I would anticipate we will see tremendous growth in these spaces.

What Does This Mean?

Now more than ever does it matter that you have a social strategy. A strategy that focuses on trusted accounts and connecting with your target market. It used to be just a nice extra to be on Twitter but now if you want want a total digital solution it’s a must. There’s also the advent of searching within Facebook. We’ve mentioned before this is the true power of the platform.

In closing keep Bing on your radar and check to see what you opportunities make be as they continue to keep relevant.

Today on DefiningNewMedia.com Jeff Foster talks with Scott Scanlon about search engines, SEM, and SEO. We talk about the latest release from google called Caffeine.

Some of the questions we answer:

• Has Google and the search engines changed drastically?
• What exactly is Google Caffeine?
• What should you do about it?
• Your strategy going forward to be found on search engines…
• Can and should you take advantage of trending topics?

Each Friday Jeff and I will discuss search engine and online marketing related topics. From real time search, google, bing, yahoo, and other search related items.

Listen to the show below

Jason Baer from Convince&Convert had a great post yesterday on the Opportunity Economy. Here is the best example I’ve seen of this in a long while:

Musician Dave Carroll has been widely lauded for his “United Breaks Guitars” YouTube video that has now been seen more than 8.5 million times, and takes United Airlines out behind the woodshed for a musical ass-kicking. And while Carroll’s demonstration of the power of a single, scorned customer will populate business text books for decades, there’s another, better angle to the story.
Just 4 days after the United Breaks Guitars video launched, Bob Taylor and the folks at Taylor Guitars in San Diego (the brand played by Dave Carroll and broken by United), launched a “video response” on YouTube. Titled “Taylor Guitars Responds to United Breaks Guitars” it features an unedited Bob Taylor in the factory unspooling an array of helpful tidbits about airline rules, TSA guidelines, and the protective qualities of guitar cases. Useful and appropriate. And then the video wraps up with a reminder from Bob that the Taylor Guitars factory service center can repair all makes and models of guitars, not just Taylor’s and that they’ve seen it all. Guitars that were thought to be ruined, were brought back to life by the nurturing hands of the Taylor team. 450,000 views on YouTube, and counting

Taking advantage of this opportunity is understanding a couple of key elements. First that your response has to be extremely value based. Second, you have to be relevant to the topic and conversation, third you have to be authentic.

How Do You Take Advantage of That?

The first step in which you already should have accepted is that you have to become a content creator. You have to set up your organization, your business, and yourself to create content at a moment’s notice. Also you have to focus on understanding your target market and understand the opportunities that may present themselves for you to add value and be relevant. Let’s go a little deeper and go over how to implement this.

Step one is you have to listen. Setting up alerts within vertical networks, web alerts, and staying in tune with conversations in relation to your target market or brand. This should be the first step in any social engagement plan but is even more important when you look to engage in real time.