Using Twitter Search - It's More Than Just Hashtags | Jo Linsdell

Using Twitter Search - It's More Than Just Hashtags

Using Twitter Search - It's More Than Just Hashtags, Jo Linsdell, www.JoLinsdell.com #Twitter

If you're on Twitter (which I hope you are because it's awesome), you'll probably have used Twitter search at some point. It's that little box on the top right of the navigation bar at the top of the screen. You might not be using it to its full potential though.

 Using Twitter Search - It's More Than Just Hashtags, Jo Linsdell, www.JoLinsdell.com #Twitter


Sure it's great for finding your friends, and yes, it works wonderfully for finding hashtags, but it is so much more than that.

Go deeper with Advanced search.

You can just type in your keywords in the search box...
Using Twitter Search - It's More Than Just Hashtags, Jo Linsdell, www.JoLinsdell.com #Twitter

...but Advanced Search gives you much more. 

How it works:

Type in your basic search term in the search box and open the results page. Then click on "More options" and scroll down to select "Advanced Search" (it's down at the bottom)

Using Twitter Search - It's More Than Just Hashtags, Jo Linsdell, www.JoLinsdell.com #Twitter


This will bring up the Advance Search page where you can get more specific with your search. You can also hop straight over to https://twitter.com/search-advanced but I thought it might be useful for you to know the long way to find it too ;)

Anyway, this is the Advanced Search page. 

Using Twitter Search - It's More Than Just Hashtags, Jo Linsdell, www.JoLinsdell.com #Twitter
Here you can add in multiple search terms (something I often do to save time). For example, I type in words like "writing", "book", and "marketing" in the "Any of these words" box. Twitter will then show me all the tweets with any of these words. 

One thing I love about Twitter search is that you can save your searches to use again in the future. This saves you having to type in your search info next time round as you can then just select from your saved searches.

Using Twitter Search - It's More Than Just Hashtags, Jo Linsdell, www.JoLinsdell.com #Twitter

To save a search, open your search term results and click on "More options" and then "Save this search". It will then be added to your saved searches list.

Using Twitter Search - It's More Than Just Hashtags, Jo Linsdell, www.JoLinsdell.com #Twitter
So now you're clued up on how Twitter search works, let's look at some of the ways you can use Twitter search:

1) Finding people. Know some people you'd like to follow on Twitter but you're not sure what their Twitter handle is? Drop their name in the search box.

2) Hashtags. The easiest way to join a conversation on Twitter is by following a specific hashtag. Live chats will have their own hashtag that is used on tweets during the chat. You can also join on-going conversations about topics in your niche by following specific hashtags e.g. #BookMarketing or #AmWriting (two of my favourites).

3) Keep track of people talking about your website. Not everyone who shares links from your website will @ tag you to let you know. By doing a search for your website url you can easily find any tweets that include your url. You can then reach out and thank the person for their support. 

4) Find mentions of your name. Again not everyone who talks about you will @ tag you. They might just write your name. 

5) Get ideas. When you're working on a new blog post, or writing a book, creating a webinar, etc... use Twitter search to find out the types of questions people are asking about your topic. 

This should help get you started but you can find more ideas for how to use Twitter search in this article by Zapier at https://zapier.com/blog/25-ways-to-use-twitter-advanced-search/

How do you use Twitter search? Be sure to share in the comments below!

Get more Twitter tips in my best selling book How to be Twittertastic



P.S. Don't forget to follow me at https://twitter.com/jolinsdell ;) 

6 comments

  1. Jules28 August 2015 at 16:06

    Jo,

    This is awesome, links in with the awesome training I got at Teal3 a couple of weeks ago and Its time to set in motion its application. So thanks for reminding me on that front and for this awesome post.

    Can I suggest you shoot a video and share it not just twitter but your facebook, LI, G+ etc more ways to get your brand out there as well. And also Video is great on FB lately. Plus your Blog will rank faster on Google as they love YT vids Boom. :)

    Jules

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    1. Jo Linsdell30 August 2015 at 18:46

      Glad you liked it Julie. I'm actually going to be doing a video challenge in September so your comment is spot on :)

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  2. Unknown29 August 2015 at 19:09

    Twitter search really is great! Thanks for sharing so many ways to use it. I LOVE #3 - it's actually amazing when you see how many people share from your site that don't @mention you (although now my site is much more social so my username is added to most tweets these days). I need to dig further in to the advanced search, thanks for all the info Jo x

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    1. Jo Linsdell30 August 2015 at 18:49

      Thanks Emily. You just reminded me I need to tweak my social share buttons so that I'm tagged on tweets shared from here. I used to have it set up like that but lost that part when I did the website redesign. Now on to do list.

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  3. Unknown4 September 2015 at 17:37

    I am rediscovering Twitter this year, with so many ways to intact with others and your tip #5 is right on. it is a great way to get ideas for content.

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    1. Jo Linsdell4 September 2015 at 20:25

      Hi Anna. Yes! Twitter is awesome for inspiration. Not only can you feed off tweets for content ideas, but you can also see what types of content/topics are going down well with your target readership too.

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