How to Use Twitter for Search

Just one of the many benefits of Twitter is the ability to search it’s database of users and their updates –all of which is live, real-time data. You are able to monitor key trends and hot topics, track company mentions, gain industry insights, find local news, and more. While Twitter’s basic search can be helpful for quick updates, the advanced search option allows you to capture much more targeted data.

For example, Twitter advanced search can break down your search by Word, People, Place, Date, Attitude, and more. You can find threads from specific Twitter users, containing key words, and originating from a defined location. If you want to find out what people from New York are saying about your business on October 1, you can do that. This lets you narrow your search and really find targeted data, or keep it broad to uncover a wide range of results.

Other Twitter Search and Monitoring Tools

Below are a list of some other third-party monitoring and searching tools for Twitter. There are dozens more out there, this is simply a small list of some I find easy to use.

• Twitscoop: view hot trends on Twitter and search key-word related conversations. You can send and receive tweets right from Twitscoop.
• Backtweets: enter a URL and view who has linked to it on Twitter.
• Twitrratr: uses positive and negative keywords to track the sentiment around a given topic. It may not be the most precise method of measurement, but it gives a good overview of the feeling surrounding a particular topic or keyword.
• Tweetdeck: a downloadable platform that lets you create columns to search and track recent tweets, mentions, keywords, and more.
• Tweetreach: a fun tool to track your reach on Twitter. Type in a url, Twitter name, phrase or hashtag, and tweetreach will analyze how many people potentially saw your tweet.

How do you use Twitter for search and monitoring?