Advanced Twitter Search – A Hidden Gem

Compare Twitter search to that of a Google search and you get such a vastly different outlook. Typically search engine results pick up both paid and organic search results to websites, articles, blogs, videos, and other forms of content. With a Twitter search, you are actually tapping into people having conversations, expressing opinions, likes and dislikes, wants and needs, to name a few. All in real time! So if you’re looking to find and connect with potential customers, and more importantly, tap into what they are thinking right now, Twitter’s advanced search can be a powerful marketing tool.

To get to the advanced search function simply search for something and then click ‘more options’ and then ‘advanced search’ or alternatively just go to: www.twitter.com/search-advanced

It looks like this:

We hope that just by looking at the various options you get really excited at the possibilities?!

How you can use Twitter advanced search

• See what people are saying about you
• Monitor the sentiment of your Brand in conversations
• Monitor your competitors, what people are saying about them and the general sentiment towards them
• Find people who need your product/service
• Location based searches around your industry.

Examples to spark your imagination:

• A sandwich shop could search for people in the area who say that they are hungry by searching for people in the area mentioning any of the words; “hungry” “starving” “food” or even specific items such as “pizza” or “ice cream”
• If you’re running an event why not search for people talking about your event topic and invite them to your event by searching for keywords relating to your event/industry/topic/speakers
• If you have an event with speakers you can search for people who mention that speakers account with a positive sentiment i.e. people who like your speaker and who are the perfect people to invite to your event.
• Why not search for negative tweets that mention your competitors, then poach them!
• If you are using a twitter strategy of following on mass, then unfollowing, Twitter advanced search might be a great way to find relevant accounts to follow.

This is just the tip of the iceberg, get creative and find out what works for you.

It’s also a good idea to keep these in mind:

• Once you find a good ‘search’ you can save it, so it easier to do next time. Why not build this into your daily/weekly routine to check. Speed is key on Twitter
• Keep in mind that not all Tweets are recorded with a location, so if you get ‘no results’ try to broaden your search or remove the location filter
• Think about the language your audience will use, e.g. ‘Starving’ or ‘Starvin’

With all this flexibility available, you can easily over complicate things. It is always best to try and keep your searches as simple as possible to avoid the risk of missing Tweets due to you over complicated search query.

ACTION: Spend ten minutes on the search feature now and see what magic you can come up with.

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