Search Marketing Sage

Here at Search Mojo, we’re kind of BIG IKEA fans (read: we love IKEA – See our new office). So naturally, when I got an email from a friend through Facebook saying I could get a free $1000 gift card to IKEA, I was curious, excited, but a bit hesitant.  This happened earlier this week, not today, although regardless, it seemed too good to be true…

The Facebook landing page looked legit to me, but before “becoming a fan” (or should I say “liking” the campaign) I did a little investigating. Where did I turn? Twitter. I searched “IKEA Facebook” and stumbled across what I was looking for. An answer. In 1.85 seconds, Twitter served up recent tweets, one showing that my hunch was correct.

Who knows, maybe I would have been able to come across this article by searching for “IKEA Facebook” on Google that day, but if the results are consistent with what’s resulting today, I get their fan page and other articles touting IKEA’s social media smarts. Not until I search for “IKEA Facebook scam” do I get anything relevant.

With so many scams and jokes consuming the Internet today, take time to search for what others are saying before taking any action.  With shortened URLs, viruses are disguised.  The viral nature of these scams makes them quick moving. Will Google have a chance to index the result you’re looking for before you need it?

Maybe real-time results could help you out, but who knows if there will even be a real-time feed for your search phrase. It’s up to Google or, Topeka. So are you going directly to social media platforms to search for scams or to Google this April Fools? That’s not a joke. I want to know. Find me @reneerevetta on Twitter.