How to use Search on Twitter

Posted • November 6, 2009 • 3 Comments

One of the features I like on Twitter is the search engine

Recently they’ve even improved it, so that you can do a search on twitter for a specific topic while logged in. You can search for industry specific topics, keywords, and phrases to see what people are tweeting about, in relationship to what you offer.

For example, if you’re a business owner who creates wedding invitations, a search phrase to use would be wedding invites or wedding invitations. You would enter the information into the twitter search box, and press search.

Twitter will then display real time results for the phrase you searched for. Thos results will show you what people are saying about that specific subject, and can sometimes be useful as a way of determining what someone needs. Below are search results I got when I typed the phrase wedding invites and searched for it.

As you can see there’s some definite conversation around wedding invites, but not all of them will be ones that a business would send a reply to. However, LisaWeddingGirl, Fastpitch, and maxturner are a few people that someone who does wedding invites could make a response to. To make a response you simply hover your mouse to the right of the message by the person and click on the arrow (see picture below). Then an @ symbol and the name of the person will be displayed and you can write your response.

When making a reply, I don’t recommend replying with a link. Reply, instead, with a helpful suggestion, and if you get a response, follow-up with another one, and then follow up with a link. Remember, you need to build rapport, and a relationship with this person, before trying to direct that person to your website. Also, there’s no guarantee that the person will go to your website, but in general, if someone feels you are being helpful, they’ll at least check it out.

The search engine on twitter is pretty powerful and useful. I recommend logging onto the twitter site directly a couple times a week, at least and doing a search on what people are commenting on that relates to your industry. If you’re feeling really adventurous and want to take you social media marketing up a notch, do a search on twitter a couple of times a day on words or phrases that are associated with your industry and start making some responses to people.

Taylor Ellwood
Business, Writing, & Social Media Coach

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